Suzue Miuchi’s Glass Mask began on 5 December 1975. Fifty years later it is still not finished, and that fact is now part of the story around it. Maya Kitajima, a girl making deliveries for a noodle shop, is spotted by the retired actress Chigusa Tsukikage and starts to train.
Maya has no looks, no family, no schooling. What she has is the ability to take another life and live in it. Facing her is Ayumi Himekawa, raised in an acting family with every advantage, and the two keep colliding over the same parts. Plays within the manga are the point: The Prince and the Pauper, Wuthering Heights, The Miracle Worker are staged at length in rehearsal and performance, and chapters are spent on how two actresses make the same line into two different things.
The rights to a legendary play, The Crimson Goddess, drive the later arcs, and how that ends has not been published. Few manga have spent this long on what acting actually is, which is why it keeps being read regardless of whether it ever concludes.
