Yukari Hayasaka is your average overworked, cram school attending teenager. She is lock stepped into the world of the mundane until she is almost grabbed out of the streets and thrust into the Alice In Wonderland merriment of Paradise Kiss.

Paradise Kiss is the designer line and studio name of a group of students from the free spirited Yazawa School of Arts. Their goal: make the best fashion line to show at the Fall Festival, and have the ideal model for the show. Problem: that model is Yukari and her opinion of the group is far from flattering. At first she balks at the idea, seeing nothing but a group of freaks and mindless dreamers out of touch with reality. When looking at the group of students, one can see where Yukari gets the idea: Arashi is a British accented punker with a safety pin in his lip, Isabella is a willowy drag queen, Miwako is a short super cutie who loves ribbons and has fluffy pink hair, and their leader George is an androgynous heartbreaker. But as time goes on Yukari begins to see through the layers of the world Paradise Kiss live in. As if peeling back the petals of a multicolored carnation the true core of their wild hearts is slowly revealed. By being with them, Yukari begins to change. Like a pumice stone, every rough moment with Paradise Kiss takes off one layer of the "reality" of the outside world. With all of the rules stripped away, Yukari is faced with her inner self, the one hidden deep down inside and almost crushed by the oppressive world of the Japanese school system and her parents. As Yukari begins to see the possibilities of a life lived to the fullest, she also sees the false world she has built around her, including her feelings for her high school crush, Tokumori.

George, (who seems to have more than a passing resemblance to Gackt, formerly of Malice Mizer) will do whatever he needs to get what he wants. In pied piper fashion he leads Yukari down his road by various means in order for her to return to the studio. However, George is no monster: he will lead Yukari to the edge, but the choice is always ultimately her own to follow over. Even if that means for Yukari to fall right into George's arms. The manga is filled with twists and turns, connections popping up like loose thread on a diva gown in progress. Even though the troop of Paradise Kiss is in many ways free from society's bonds, they too have their world of illusions and heartbreak. In some instances, what they have to face makes Yukari's world the spoiled daydream.

Ai Yazawa's artwork is clean lined and gorgeously understated in its depiction of not only the fashions but also the character designs. Like a well-woven pattern, the story is paced appropriately for the action and kept at an even reading rate. The panels are filled with the elegant/simplicity effect of being very luxurious in details, but with simple enough strokes to fill in the rest. There is heavy use of bursting flowers, mist or dreamy eyes that are the staples of shojo manga. The translation, done by Tokyopop, is in traditional tankoubon format (right to left pages) with some of the original sound effects untranslated. At first this may be disconcerting to American readers, but it is a change that is needed. Manga is drawn in a certain order much like the stroke count of Japanese kanji. When reversed, it can throw off panels and make the art have a strange feel. Sound effects can express much more than the "boom" of American comics, expressing events explicitly as a pin drop or the roar of a fire. When translated into English without taking these into account, some of the visual shorthand that is the trademark of manga is lost. When sound effects are left in their original kana, even untranslated they carry across the appropriate feel

The character line translation is excellent by keeping in most of the Japanese cultural gags but explaining them by just using context. In one example George is called Johji, and the name is spelled out in kana and kanji, with the romaji underneath. As the argument ensues, the line comes out "don't say my name in kanji!" as to differentiate between the Japanese pronunciation of his name and the English pronunciation. One does not need to know much about the Japanese language to catch George's gripe. If you are looking for a title that is closer to what is printed in Japan and nothing like sugary sweet world of traditional shojo manga, drop yourself into the merry go round of Paradise Kiss.