Kyouko Mogami

Kyouko Mogami is the main protagonist from the Skip Beat! anime and manga.

Kyouko is currently a member of the Love Me Section with Kanae Kotonami and Chiori Amamiya. She starred in the hit drama series, Dark Moonas the infamous Mio Hongo and is currently starring in the drama series, Box "R" as Natsu Kitazawa.

Her joyful personality has a hidden past, she used to dedicate all her life to childhood companion Sho Fuwa. Yet when she found out that Sho had been betraying her all along, her angry and vengeful spirits escaped her "Pandora's Box." She vowed to get revenge and Sho said that the only way to do that was to go into showbiz. Thus she joined Sho's rival agency LME, with only one goal in mind: Revenge!.

Appearance
Before Kyoko found out that Sho was only using her to do house-maid work, Kyoko had long black-colored hair. Her hair was always up in a ponytail, as she was always working between three part-time jobs because of Sho's materialism. But when her hair was down, it became really messy and wavy.

She also did not consider her appearance to be more important than Sho, as she wouldn't budget for make-up purchases. Though she longed to, she pretended that she didn't care, and would rarely buy anything for herself other than Sho Fuwa merchandise. She usually wore her uniform for her work or casual clothing she previously owned before they arrived at Tokyo.

After her makeover, she cuts her hair down to her neck and dyed it into a chestnut color. She also changed a bit of her clothing. Instead of her old clothes, she bought new clothing such as a skirt and jacket.

Usually, she wears her bright pink Love Me jumpsuit while at LME, or on a Love Me Department job. When she has work to do, she wears a top with a white jacket paired with skirt and boots. She is seen always using a bag given to her by Taisho's wife.

Kyoko's appearance changes drastically during her roles. Some people mock her by claiming her onscreen beauty is due to computer graphics and make-up. Many people say that she looks much different in her roles than how she is in real life, to the point that she becomes unrecognizable to other people and even to the people that personally know her. Konoe, the director of Tragic Marker, who really knew of the Heel siblings, failed to recognize Setsuka as being played by the same actress who played Mio, until both Ren and Kyoko explained it to him. Her appearance also changed drastically during the Dark Moon party. She was wearing a long dress, a long chestnut-colored wig and light make-up.

Even during the audition for the role of Momiji, all the candidates failed to recognize her and considered her to be a newbie. It was not until Kyoko's answer to Kimiko's manager that many showed a surprised reaction and began to guess who she really is. Kimiko and her manager, however, were still in dark.

Personality
Kyoko is a kind and hardworking girl who always put others before her. She did everything to please others around her. She is very clever, although she is a little bit dense and naive at some aspects. She manages to pass the High School entrance exam with the highest grades, 100%. She believes in fairies and always dreamed of her "prince charming" (which is Sho) ]being her husband before he broke her heart. Kyoko is also a perfectionist, once she does something, she won't stop until she feels that it's 'perfect'.

As a sixteen year old she was still hard working, having three jobs at once to support Sho, and also very intense and emotional when it came to Sho. When she realized Sho's betrayal and her little vengeful demons were released, Kyoko became very quick to anger when Sho is mentioned, although most people believe that this is because she's his fan.

Kyoko is initially conservative; she doesn't like seeing people without their top on, even the people who are close to her, like Sho or any gestures relating to that. But, she became less conservative for the sake of acting, in order to reach her goal to be Japan's top actress and to be more famous than Sho.

The most important change in Kyoko is that she has lost the ability to love after Sho's betrayal. Although she can still feel the love for a friend (such as Kanae), she ruthlessly squashes any romantic urges. She remains completely oblivious to Ren's affections despite others (such as Yukihito and Kanae) pointing it out. She remains firm in her belief that no one could possible be romantically interested in her, and that love is "a prelude to despair and disaster".

When putting her mind and energy to acting, she can become any character she wants, and the personality can stick with her even outside of the role, as shown when she plays Mio. She can also pull off heartless facial expressions even when she isn't in character in hopes to deter someone.

Kyoko shows that she has an incredible talent for acting, with Chiori even referring to her as "butterfly" or "fairy" as her talents are so fantastic. Kyoko gradually becomes more absorbed in acting as a passion and gets conflicted over what she wants, revenge against Sho, respect from Ren or an acting career. She has a strong sense of determination and caring which she applies in her work and life.

Trivia

 * The Skip Beat! author, Yoshiki Nakamura, said that Kyoko was a character she created a long time ago before the actual series even started. She describes that Kyoko is not a "Rightous Hero", or not even a hero and "Healing Hands female character". In an essence, she's not a typical shojo manga protagonist at all.


 * The Skip Beat! author, Yoshiki Nakamura, also stated that Kyoko was a character that is a reaction of her dark life. When she was working as a mangaka, she drew a set of Kyoko's along with other character appearance in a short 30 pages manga.


 * Before the author decided to let the producer read the script of the manga, she decided that it would be a long-running series. She said that the inner heart of the series is Kyoko. She said that the character have been decided by her and there is a difference between inner heart and appearance, which will be seen by the rest during the series' lifetime on Hana to Yume.


 * Kyoko's appearance have been changed three times before the editor was finally happy with it. The first version appeared to be a gloomy Kyoko, the mangaka stated she visualized Kyoko as a hardworking member of the community. The second one was a more lively Kyoko, with longer hair. But, the editor said that Kyoko seemed to be more sensible at the age of 16. On the third version, the author cut some of Kyoko's hair to show some of her liveliness, but it was not accepted, the editor said she should give the character a fresher haircut, which leads to the fourth and final version, the Kyoko that appears on the manga now. Yoshiki Nakamura stated that she was glad that her editor did not accept the previous states until Kyoko's character designed looked like what it is right now.