Helter Skelter: Fashion Unfriendly

One of the most unique authors creating modern josei manga finally gets her English-language debut. Okazaki's Osamu Tezuka Culture Prize-winning story explores the themes of youth, fame, and identity against the backdrop of a stifling celebrity environment. Top idol Liliko views the deterioration of her career mirrored in the breakdown of her surgically altered body and expresses her frustrations through self-destructive behavior and by sexually manipulating her assistant. Meanwhile, a pair of detectives identify Liliko as the key to their investigation of an exclusive underground beauty clinic offering treatments of questionable legality. In addition to the mature subject matter, Okazaki's work features characterization that pushes the envelope. There are no wholly sympathetic characters here, only those who inspire a bit more pity than they do contempt.