Skip Beat!/Headscratchers

• This one scene during the 'Natsu' arc bugs the crap out of me. While Chiori and Kyouko were acting out the bullying scene, they were actually torturing poor Mako. Some of that stuff was just cruel, especially when Chiori threatened to set her on fire. And the director didn't even care! He was too amazed by the girls' acting! Kyouko (who's supposed to be a very nice girl herself) and Chiori didn't seem to care at all either that they had just tortured their castmate.
  • And even after that, Mako's manager yells at the director and he doesn't care that she was actually hurt. Mako then has to apologize for being upset that she was tortured, beaten, nearly drowned with tea, had nail polish remover splashed into her eyes, and threatened with being burned alive. What the Hell, Hero??! Although I wonder if part of this is from Values Dissonance.
    • When did Mako have to apologize? While it was true the director was... really, really too callous, Mako seemed to look timid, but altogether fine. Looking at this page, ^{[dead link]} she seems fine, so I guess it's sort of a "no charges pressed, so it didn't matter" type thing?
      • Oh, I see. I distinctly remember a scene when Mako actually apologized to the director and promised to act her hardest next time, but I read it a while ago with a different translator. Possibly that made a difference? Well, that gets rid of that problem for me.

• I'm really annoyed by the way that Ren is being shown to be the ideal guy. Kyouko has been basically sexually harassed several times throughout the story, and when this happens, Ren, instead of being sympathetic and caring, becomes jealous and angry. This comes across as more than a little creepy and controlling, not loving at all.
  • I don't think it's anger at Kyouko, I think it's from him being angry with himself because he wasn't there to protect her. As for the jealousy, well, he wants to kiss her himself, but realizes if he did so in her current mental state (no 'love' part of the brain) she would probably be hurt. So he doesn't, and when he sees someone else doing it and realizes that she was hurt, it makes him angry, and also a bit jealous. If only he didn't care about her feelings, so he could just kiss her whenever he wanted.
  • Furthermore, I never got the feeling that Ren was ever shown to be the "ideal" guy. If anything, what you just stated disproved that. From what I saw... it seemed like the competition was to "win over Kyouko's heart." Sho and Reino are both willing to get her to hate them, if that's what it takes, because they just want to selfishly work themselves in. Ren could do that, but chooses not to, instead trying to be honestly nice to her, despite his problems. But maybe that's just me.
  • No, I believe the above troper also that its basically a 3 way between Ren, Sho, and Reino and she already has 2 immature guys on her tail who the mature one just seems more ideal to a person in reality. What I don't get is, who warped the personalities of these guys to make them into jerkasses and Gadflies? Ren is the most mature of the 3, but its really a 2 way fight as Kyouko genuinely hates Reino.
• Lory's reason for saying that Kyouko lacks the emotion of love always bothered me. The audition involved listening to a phone call, in which a man asks if a woman will take him back. The people auditioning weren't given any context to the history of this relationship. The contents of the phone call lead one to believe that he broke up with her so that he could get with a bunch of different women, and the actors are expected to show feelings of happiness, and take him back immediately. If they don't, then obviously they lack the ability to love. Granted, Kyouko's reaction was a bit extreme, but still.