Paradise Kiss – 11

Summary:
George’s father and mother both arrive to see the fashion show. His mother Yukino was ready to break it off with his father Joichi, but she melts when she sees him again. Inside, the fashion show has started and George holds Yukari’s hand while they wait. When her turn comes up, she majestically walks onstage with blue rose petals trailing away from her. After wowing the entire audience, she returns and embraces George, who says that he’s feeling unbelievable right now. The celebration afterwards takes place in the studio, but Yukari wonders why everyone is celebrating if they didn’t win grand prize. The group isn’t too worried, and Isabella feels happy that they got a close second. As Yukari watches them celebrate, she knows that she was the one who wanted to win the top prize and be number one.
After she gets drunk and has a dream of the fashion show, Yukari wakes up in George’s room. She laments about not winning the grand prize, but George tells her that everyone worked so hard on it, and so it’s their dress despite the fact that George would have been the only one to get the study abroad scholarship. In the end, he feels that the blame for their loss falls on him because of his lack of ability. Yukari apologizes for complaining and realizes that she’s just like her mother, wanting to be number one. She decides to stay there instead of going home, but George then gets a phone call from Kaori. Yukari leaves angrily at the thought of another woman, but George drives her home and explains along the way that Kaori is a classmate who worked very hard and won that scholarship to study abroad by winning a previous fashion show. When Yukari gets home, her mother slaps her on the face even after she tries to protect it (since a model’s face is so important). Meanwhile, George and Kaori first talk about Yukari’s physical features and about London. Since Kaori is leaving the next day, their time is limited to this, but she invites him to go to London someday.
Some days later, Yukari, in the blue dress, participates in the awards ceremony with the ParaKiss group, and George notices and worries about the mark on her face from her mother hitting her. When she goes home, Yukari purposefully leaves the photograph of her holding the award on the living room table. The next morning, she notices it’s not on the table anymore; instead, it’s hanging on the wall.

I think they did a fairly good job considering all the material they covered and all the stuff they ended up cutting. Yukari’s runway walk is by and far my favorite part of the episode – the music, the cheering, and how closely it mirrors the manga all attribute to that. But like I was saying, despite all of the stuff they cut out from the four chapters (36-39), they handle the main parts fairly well and keep in all of the story critical stuff (though I guess story critical is kinda subjective). They surprised me by how well they handle the Kaori aspects (so far anyway), but I’m still worried about how the series is going to end with one episode left and nine chapters to go. I’m all for them skipping the rest of the Kaori stuff and covering the remaining important bits. I really want them to keep the entire ending and epilogue intact, but we’ll see how it goes.
Next week, the final episode of Paradise Kiss!