Pipi Chan (the manga, not the character)

[Ametrine]

Hello. Since the forum came back, I thought I'd make this thread since I couldn't find any thread about the "Pipi Chan" (Pipy) manga on here... Possibly I didn't search enough keywords, but I'm hoping someone on here has read it?

I first became interested in the Pipi Chan manga when I learned Pipy was a Star System character. He's probably most likely to be spotted as Mikio Aoki from Black Jack or within Triton of the Sea? So when I searched for find other manga he appeared in, I chose Pipi Chan because I love merfolk. I had seen coloured scans of the manga floating around the net during that time as well and ended up researching versions.

I learned it originally serialized within Shūiesha's Omoshiro Book in B5 size, from December 1951 to May 1953, was reissued in A5 size by Tezuka Osamu Fanclub Kyōto/Ribon in 1979, republished yet again as part of Tezuka Osamu Complete Works in B6 size by Kōdansha in 1982, and once more under the title Bouken-kyou Jidai Pipi Chan (冒険狂時代・ピピちゃん) in A4 size by Kokusho Kankoukai on 26 October 2009. Bouken-kyou Jidai Pipi Chan is in colour.

The e-book versions are on Google EBook (published 20 September 2013), and Amazon (25 March 2014), I bought the former e-book. I hope to own the coloured version eventually.

As for the story itself for those that don't know it, the origin of the titular character is that his father (Dr. Lehman) wanted to come up with a solution for human overpopulation, and turned Pipy into a merboy as an experiment. However the public are not happy and Pipy's parents are jailed. Now living in the ocean, Pipy is adopted into a sea turtle family and named after the bird onomatopoeia "pipi" when seagulls were making noise overhead. However it kinda turns into a mixture of a revenge journey for Pipy and his turtle brother Gabo when the mother/aunt turtle is killed by the submarine Nautilus, along with finding the red pearl, helping others, and freeing Pipy's human parents. It however is also quite funny and not serious through and through. One of my favourite funny moments is when Osamu Tezuka is initially seeming displeased with his relative lending Pipy his clothes. The story is very short, although I omitted many of the details of the happenings contained in it.

[strobe_z]

That is spectacular. I'm wondering if you'd care to expand that just a little bit and turn it into a series page for the website? All you need is to include the basic publication info (which you already did), write up a bit of a story synopsis ("What it's about") and then write up something else interesting ("What you should know"). Usually I try to include either a bit of analysis (but not a review per se) or some "behind the scenes" info... Often stuff gleaned from Japanese Wikipedia, blogs or similar sources. Heck sometimes even from the official site. They have tons of interesting tidbits no one knows about because they write it up in such a strange way in English sometimes.

I'd be more than happy to edit/format it to fit the site standard if you'd be willing to provide the content.

[Ametrine]

[strobe_z]

Thanks very much to Ametrine, we now have a brand new . Comments more than welcome! Also, if anyone ELSE wants to contribute in the same way, it would be much appreciated.

Parents, worried about global overcrowding? Just turn your baby into a merbaby and toss 'em in the sea... Like Pippy!

[Jeffbert]

Thanks for sharing, Ametrine! I have the Triton DVD set, but knew little about the Pipi-chan story.