Mask of Glass
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The manga Mask of Glass (Garasu No Kamen), is about an ordinary girl becoming an actor. Garasu no Kamen is undoubtedly one of the most widely acclaimed shoujo manga series ever published in Japan. The series (its first appearance was more than 20 years ago) is currently running in the biweekly shoujo manga magazine Hana to Yume. The popularity of this series is not limited to the young female readership, as indicated by the sales figure for the compiled volumes, that has reached 45 million copies as of August, 1997.
Miuchi Suzue as the author was born on February 20, 1951 in Nishinomiya, Japan and grew up in Osaka. She also The winner of the Kodansha Manga Award (1982) and the Japan Cartoonists Association Award (1995). In December 1975, Miuchi started Garasu no Kamen (The Glass Mask) which is regarded as her representative work today. Although the core shoujo manga fandom at the time viewed this series blatantly conservative and obsolete, its popularity turned out to be sensational and has gained a huge mass of admirers while its run for more than 20 years. Miuchi is now a big-name shoujo manga artist with the fact that Garasu no Kamen is still attracting a new generation of fans, while the long-time fans are eagerly waiting for the conclusion and ending of this masterpiece.
Garasu no Kamen is a saga depicting the devotion of Maya, the heroine, to the performing arts as a professional stage actress, and the competition with her skilled rival, Ayumi. They are both pursueing the acting proficiency and the career success required to play the lead role of the legendary stage play "The Crimson Goddess". The story unfolds entangled human relations of many characters, including Maya's mentor, Tsukikage, who discovered Maya's tremendous talent for stage performance in search of her successor as the performer of the Crimson Goddess, and Hayami Masumi, the young president of a large production company, who often confronts Maya as a crafty and cold-hearted entrepreneur, while giving her faithful support and warm encouragement in the disguise of an anonymous fan ('The Giving of Purple Roses', as Maya calls him).id:Topeng Kaca ja:ガラスの仮面 zh:玻璃假面