Helter Skelter
Helter Skelter: Fashion Unfriendly

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Helter Skelter is a nice exploration into the world of fashion, highlighting of course the more problematic and darker aspects....

Story: A sort of case study sort of feeling as we witness the flourishing and ruining of our MC in the eyes of herself and world, the story is very strong. The ending however in my view was not absolutely necessary, it could have ended without it and been much better (the Mexico portion), or done in a way that portrayed this particular character more colorfully. 8.

Art: Considering the story, one would expect some stunning visuals. H.S fulfills this decently. However, I would have wanted ... some more detailed images of closeups. One common complaint with this manga is how "rough" or "minimalistic" the art style is. While it is partly annoying sometimes its not something that will hurt it. 7

Characters: Especially for the MC, emotions are strong, passionate and despondent, mixing well with what goes on in the story. The MC's monologues particularly are all very well done. The main characters that appear have important parts to play and are fleshed out reasonably. 8

Enjoyment: I recommend it, it's only 1 volume. 8

Overall: 8

Sigh...

Helter Skelter is about a model named Liliko. She's the current IT girl. She's in movies, magazines, on television shows, getting regular work, you name it! Everyone wants to be her or sleep with her. Not only is she beautiful, but her personality is just oh so sweet! Except... That personality is a facade. Liliko is actually an unstable and very unpleasant woman, underneath the facade. Another thing is, everything about her is fake. She's gotten surgery to achieve her looks, along with a great makeup team.

I'll say that similar to another poster, I can't rate ... it lower than a 5, because I get what it was TRYING to do. It was a commentary of how fickle people are. One day you're the best model and should be in everything! The next day it's "she wasn't so good in that role", or "she's overexposed!" It's a commentary of how far people go to be on top and remain on top. Liliko doing everything so that she stays on everyone's mind, even to the cost of sabotaging others and abusing her team. It's also a commentary on how the industry exploits people, and a bit of commentary on forced prostitution. Having millions of people love you, but being lonely at the top. The unrealistic explanation for women to always be at the top, and to always be beautiful.

I get all of that. Though similar to another poster, it feels like this a rough draft. It needed to be polished a bit more. Maybe explore things a bit deeper. Honestly, this might not have been something that this manga artist should've tackled. This style of writing works for Pink because Pink is a manga about how anything can happen, and it follows a rather vapid and shallow girl. This manga wants to explore something a bit deeper. To its credit, it isn't as jumpy or random as Pink is, but it's still short and shocking. It's like a manga of a bunch of good plot bunnies, but they never see it through.

The most salient aspect of this manga is its strong moral. Superficial materiality and obsession over physical appearance is self-destructive; the perfect beauty is an illusion.

I think anyone would enjoy this manga, but I feel like its moral is especially important for young women to hear and for that reason I think its demographic would be women aged 13 - 25.

I feel like this was a manga full of good ideas, but was a little half-baked. Essentially, it feels like a solid first draft for a would-be great manga. The plot points are all there, it's just its execution that leaves something to ... be desired.

The art wasn't the best. The art on the cover is amazing, but that doesn't match the art on the inside, which comes off as a little crude dilettante. It reminds me of the art used in comic books meant for very young girls. Although, the art is also encouraging in the sense that it inspiring to know that if this artwork could be published then perhaps so could one's own. Albeit, it was refreshing to see a different art style in manga, even if it wasn't my favourite.

One of my biggest issues with the manga is that it explains plot points instead of just showing them, which nerfs the impact. For example, instead of showing a person getting shot in the head - which would be such an interesting plot twist - the narrator writes in a paragraph that a character was shot in the head, thus weakening the impact of the surprise.