Perfect Girl Evolution is the anime adaptation of Tomoko Hayakawa’s manga series The Wallflower: Yamatonadeshiko Shichihenge. The anime and manga have also sometimes been translated as Sunako of Many Forms, the later is generally a very poorly translated version. The story follows four vainglorious boys living together in a mansion and the niece of their rich and eccentric landlady.
In Nakahara Sunako’s mind, the garden of life is filled with numerous beautiful creatures and she is not one of them and should not be near them. She had relegated herself to the gloom and doom of life in order to avoid being hurt and shuns all forms of beauty around her as well as in herself. She has a very morbid fascination, although I’m fairly certain that those who are familiar with my interests and hobbies will see parallels between Sunako and myself in that regard, and her only “friends” are the articulated skeletons that she has dressed up and set in her room. Due to her mannerisms, dressage, and the manner in which she wears her hair (her bangs completely obscuring her face) people often take one look at her and proclaim her as monstrous. This has a rather odd affect on Sunako, in a sense it reaffirms what she already believes about herself but at the same time it hurts her deeply.
Her aunt, the owner of a glorious mansion that she is renting out to four extremely good-looking (and in Joana’s opinion way too effeminate) high school boys, grows very concerned for her niece’s state of mind. She then decides to make a deal with her tenants. Her niece will come to live with them in the mansion and if they can turn Sunako into a “perfect lady” (Yamato Nadeshiko) then they can continue to live there rent free. Now because these boys are exceptionally hung up on themselves they agree readily enough and think it will be a piece of cake. They are completely confident in their ability to turn this “Sunako” into a perfect lady.
At least until they meet Sunako that is.
So what could cause a girl to alter herself in such a manner and hide away? The answer is a rather simple one: a boy. Sunako was once a “normal” girl interested in all of the “normal” things and obsessed with beauty just like everyone else. One day she confessed her love to a boy, the only boy she had ever loved, and was told flat out by him that he “didn’t date ugly girls”. One rejection altered her life forever and Sunako has come to conclude that if she’s ugly why should she bother. It seems silly that a single rejection could alter a person so much, but that is where the irony of this series lies.
While all of the characters, sans Sunako, are vain and confident in their beauty and abilities to an extent that makes you nauseous there is a lesson to be learned. PGE pokes fun of the expectations of society, we are all expected to achieve (or die trying anyway) this ideal image of beauty. The average person (worldwide) spends hundreds if not thousands of dollars yearly on products designed or intended for enhancing one’s appearance. Dressy clothes, exercise equipment, diet plans, makeup, cologne and perfume, hair styling products, skin care - the list goes on and on! What is with this obsession of outer beauty, that is the question that this series puts forth in the hopes that its audience will stop and ask themselves this very same question.
In Nakahara Sunako’s mind, the garden of life is filled with numerous beautiful creatures and she is not one of them and should not be near them. She had relegated herself to the gloom and doom of life in order to avoid being hurt and shuns all forms of beauty around her as well as in herself. She has a very morbid fascination, although I’m fairly certain that those who are familiar with my interests and hobbies will see parallels between Sunako and myself in that regard, and her only “friends” are the articulated skeletons that she has dressed up and set in her room. Due to her mannerisms, dressage, and the manner in which she wears her hair (her bangs completely obscuring her face) people often take one look at her and proclaim her as monstrous. This has a rather odd affect on Sunako, in a sense it reaffirms what she already believes about herself but at the same time it hurts her deeply.
Her aunt, the owner of a glorious mansion that she is renting out to four extremely good-looking (and in Joana’s opinion way too effeminate) high school boys, grows very concerned for her niece’s state of mind. She then decides to make a deal with her tenants. Her niece will come to live with them in the mansion and if they can turn Sunako into a “perfect lady” (Yamato Nadeshiko) then they can continue to live there rent free. Now because these boys are exceptionally hung up on themselves they agree readily enough and think it will be a piece of cake. They are completely confident in their ability to turn this “Sunako” into a perfect lady.
At least until they meet Sunako that is.
So what could cause a girl to alter herself in such a manner and hide away? The answer is a rather simple one: a boy. Sunako was once a “normal” girl interested in all of the “normal” things and obsessed with beauty just like everyone else. One day she confessed her love to a boy, the only boy she had ever loved, and was told flat out by him that he “didn’t date ugly girls”. One rejection altered her life forever and Sunako has come to conclude that if she’s ugly why should she bother. It seems silly that a single rejection could alter a person so much, but that is where the irony of this series lies.
While all of the characters, sans Sunako, are vain and confident in their beauty and abilities to an extent that makes you nauseous there is a lesson to be learned. PGE pokes fun of the expectations of society, we are all expected to achieve (or die trying anyway) this ideal image of beauty. The average person (worldwide) spends hundreds if not thousands of dollars yearly on products designed or intended for enhancing one’s appearance. Dressy clothes, exercise equipment, diet plans, makeup, cologne and perfume, hair styling products, skin care - the list goes on and on! What is with this obsession of outer beauty, that is the question that this series puts forth in the hopes that its audience will stop and ask themselves this very same question.
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