Charisma Doll

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Mizuki Sara is an ordinary 15-year-old high school student. She's also the popular new singer SALA, whose true gender remains an enigma. Despite being a rising star in the entertainment industry herself, Sara is still a dedicated fan of Shidou Hayase, lead singer of The Rise and one of SALA's biggest rivals -- as well as Sara's classmate! Sara already has a boyfriend, but when she catches him with another girl, he dumps her with the explanation that he only liked her because of her resemblance to SALA. Seeing her heartbroken, Hayase takes advantage of the Paparazzi to expose Mukai as a womanizer, and the two of them become friends. How will Sara's mother react to her befriending her rival when she was already against Sara jeopardizing her career for a boyfriend?!

Charisma Doll is a Japanese Shoujo manga series written and illustrated by Erika Kurahashi for Ribon magazine.

Tropes used in Charisma Doll include:
  • Ambiguous Gender: SALA. It's her defining gimmick, which Sara protests as being cheap, but her mother won't let her drop.
  • Angst? What Angst?: Considering how weepy she gets about Hayase, Sara's remarkably put-together for a girl who's just been brutally dumped by her boyfriend of three weeks, even if he was just a Romantic False Lead.
  • Be Yourself: Eventually Sara can be, but it takes a while to get there.
  • Bishonen/Bishoujo: Please, this is Shoujo. There are no unattractive people in the universe.
  • Blatant Lies: Mukai tries to claim it's Not What It Looks Like when Sara catches him carrying another girl piggyback, but he gives it up quickly. Then he explains he only dated Sara for her resemblance to SALA and dumps her then and there on the school's front steps.
  • Celebrity Crush: Sara has a fairly low-key one on Hayase, though considering she's a celebrity herself...
  • Celebrity Resemblance: More than one person has noticed that Sara "resembles" SALA. It's the only reason Mukai was interested in her to begin with, before her personality broke the "illusion".
  • Chekhov's Skill: It seemed like they were setting up Sara's "secret voice changing skill" as one of these in Chapter 2, but the finale came and went, and her skill is never brought up again.
  • Clark Kenting: Reconstructed. A wig (and contacts, going by cover art) don't change Sara's face, which she passes off as mere Celebrity Resemblance. This --combined with Sara's skill at executing Wig, Dress, Accent, as Lampshaded by Kazuma-- allows her to convince people they are different people.
  • Cool Shades: SALA's bodyguard Kazuma wears pink-tinted glasses.
  • Corrupt Corporate Executive: Hayase's boss gave off this vibe in Chapter 9, with his ominous talk of revealing SALA's identity, but Sara hardly needed the excuse to abandon her secret and pulled off her wig on-stage during her performance at the Music Box before anything could come of it.
  • Disappeared Dad: No mention is made of Sara's father, but her uncle (Kazuma's dad) is the company president.
  • Fan Girl: Aside from their friendship, Sara is also an official, card-carrying member of The Rise fanclub, which makes it hard for her to be Hayase's rival. Ryuusei even roundabout Lampshades the typical rabid connotations of this trope in Chapter 8 when he asks if Sara's been threatened by a member of Hayase's fanbase. Sara, for her part, is acutely aware that other girls must have confessed to Hayase before her.
  • Follow in My Footsteps: Sara's mother wants her daughter to succeed in showbiz.
  • Hot Stage Mom: Sara's mother was Miss Junior Japan, and she never actually gives Sara permission to quit being SALA, even though her daughter is plenty vocal about her hatred of pretending to be someone she's not.

Sara: Remember this... a kid is not a parent's doll.