Paradise Kiss
パラダイス・キス
Storyline
The whole story, ending included.
A studious girl is pulled into a fashion-school atelier and a bisexual designer's orbit.
Yukari Hayasaka, a third-year at an elite high school, shuttles between school, cram school and home under her mother's pressure, and has begun to wonder what it is all for. One day in the street she is stopped by students from the Yazawa School of Arts: Miwako; Arashi, a punk; Isabella; and their leader, George, a gifted, aloof designer. Calling themselves Paradise Kiss, they want her to model George's dress at the school's fashion show for its final-year students. She turns them down; she has university entrance exams to prepare for.
Drawn back to their atelier, she finds people who live for what they love, and agrees. She skips cram school to sew beads onto the dress and falls into a whirlwind romance with George, who is tender one day and cruel the next and has no patience for women who cannot stand on their own. Her classmate Hiroyuki Tokumori, the boy she used to have a crush on, turns out to be Miwako and Arashi's estranged childhood friend, and Yukari helps the three of them make up.
When her mother forbids it all, Yukari runs away from home and drops out of school, living in Arashi's flat and modelling for the fashion brand run by Miwako's sister. A modelling agency wants her but cannot sign her without her parents' consent. Meeting George's mother, a former model who cannot stand on her own, Yukari begins to understand why he despises dependence. She goes home, makes peace with her mother, who lets her join the agency on condition that she finishes school, and catches up on the exams she missed.
At the show Yukari walks in George's dress, and Paradise Kiss wins only second place. Kaori, an older schoolmate studying in England, the one woman George admires too much to court, returns and urges him to keep designing, and Yukari is jealous. At graduation the group goes separate ways. George decides to move to Paris and asks Yukari to come with him; she refuses, wanting to follow her own path as a model, and they part. After he sails, a key arrives for Yukari: it opens a storeroom holding everything George ever made, the dress she wore at the show among them. Ten years later, about to marry a man who is never named, she is sent two tickets to a Broadway musical with costumes by George, and she means to see it on her honeymoon.
Starring
Yu Yamadaas Yukari Hayasaka
A pressured third-year at an elite high school, recruited as a model, who chooses her own life for the first time.
Yukari Hayasaka’s story
Yukari shuttles between school, cram school and home and has begun to wonder what it is all for. She turns down the fashion students who want her as a model, then keeps going back, sews beads onto George's dress and falls for him. When her mother forbids it all, she leaves home and school and models for Miwako's sister's brand, but an agency cannot sign her without her parents' consent. After meeting George's mother, she goes home, makes peace with her own and is allowed to model if she finishes school. She walks in George's dress, which takes second place. When he asks her to come to Paris, she says no. He leaves her a key to everything he has made. Ten years later, about to marry, she plans to see his Broadway show on her honeymoon.
Kenji Hamadaas Joji 'George' Koizumi
A gifted, hedonistic fashion student and Paradise Kiss's leader, who loves Yukari but prizes independence above love.
Joji 'George' Koizumi’s story
George leads Paradise Kiss on a gift for couture and money from a father he keeps at a distance. He picks Yukari out on the street to model his graduation dress and draws her into his world: tender one day and cruel the next, pushing her to decide for herself, impatient with women who cannot stand on their own, like his mother, a former model. After the show, where the dress takes second place, he cannot decide what to do, until Kaori, the older student he admires too much to court, urges him to keep designing. He chooses Paris and asks Yukari to come; she says no, and he goes, leaving her a key to a storeroom holding everything he has made. Ten years later, tickets to a Broadway musical he has costumed reach her.
Marika Matsumotoas Miwako Sakurada
A cheerful fashion student and Arashi's girlfriend, younger sister of the owner of the Happy Berry brand.
Shunsuke Mizutanias Arashi Nagase
A punk-styled fashion student, Miwako's boyfriend, jealous of her old friend Hiroyuki, who lends Yukari his flat.
Chiharu Suzukaas Isabella
A transgender woman and George's childhood friend, the group's steady, motherly presence and Yukari's confidante.
Noriyuki Uchinoas Hiroyuki Tokumori
Yukari's studious classmate and former crush, a childhood friend of Miwako and Arashi, who quietly cares for Yukari.
Why it matters
Paradise Kiss is about a girl choosing her own life for the first time, and it is honest about the cost. Yukari's rebellion is not a makeover: she runs away, drops out, sleeps in a borrowed flat and learns that her freedom still needs her parents' signature. Its most interesting figure is George, whose way of loving is to push the woman he loves towards independence even if it means losing her, and whose contempt for dependent women comes from watching his mother. The anime, broadcast in Fuji TV's Noitamina slot in 2005, kept George's bisexuality in its dialogue, with Ai Yazawa's agreement, while leaving out the manga's explicit scenes. Anime News Network's reviewer called it a refreshingly mature story, not for those in search of reassuring escapism. Its ending asks whether two people can love each other and still be right to part.