Kibando (Weekly Shonen Champion)

It’s just another day at the office, as Inspector Futsuuno deals with a deadly serious robbery and hostage taking situation at a local university. As the crooks become more and more deranged, making demands and threatening the hostages, the police appear powerless to stop them. However, just as things begin to escalate to dangerous levels, a mysterious figure appears on a nearby rooftop. Swinging from branch to branch and crashing in through the window, with cat-like reflexes, Kibando makes his appearance. Quickly subduing the hostage-takers, Kibando then leaps away as quickly as he came, and leaves Inspector Futsuuno to deal with a pair of extremely curious newspaper reporters. The truth is that Futsuuno is, in fact, Kibando’s adoptive father. Having found a strangely feral boy who was raised by a puma in the jungles of the Amazon, Kibando would only growl at his human captors – that is until he saw the cat-like whiskers on Inspector Futsuuno‘s face. As the only human being to earn his trust, Kibando is taken out of his jungle home and brought to modern-day Japan to live with Futsuuno and his daughter, Namiko, in the hopes of reintegrating him into human society. However, the life of a police officer is stressful, and after one of the hostage-takers escapes from custody and is subsequently killed and buried in the sand by his drug dealer accomplice, the police are hard-pressed to find any evidence of the crime. Of course, for someone raised in the jungle, minute differences in the environment – ones that who be practically invisible to normal humans – stand out, and Kibando is able to help his adopted father find the unmarked grave. With that, the drug dealer is arrested and taken away, and Kibando says his first word… Namiko.

As Namiko is helping Kibando learn how to wash himself properly, an earthquake strikes and Kibando rushes outside completely naked and causing quite a stir in the neighbourhood. However, there’s no time to get him inside and dressed before Inspector Futsuuno arrives and whisks Kibando away to help on a case. Despite Namiko’s protestations that they need to stop encouraging Kibando to use his animal-like skills, Futsuuno is adamant that he is the only one who will be able to help. During the recent earthquake, the son of a wealthy CEO was swept away down a storm pipe – to the shock and horror of the company executive who was tasked with minding the boy. The diameter of the pipe is too narrow for any of the adults, so Futsuuno instructs Kibando to go on inside and search for him – not realizing that Kibando’s animal instincts may make him see the boy as prey rather than a fellow human being in need of rescue. After battling the subterranean conditions, and an army of rats, Kibando finds the boy unharmed, and although it takes a moment of indecision, decides to rescue the boy. However, the company executive makes a surprise appearance – this was no accident, it was an attempt to force the company CEO to hand over the company to his staff instead of his son. Of course the executive and his thugs underestimate Kibando’s ferocity and the boy is saved… teaching Kibando some new words “I love you”, which he promptly practices saying to Namiko.

Two years have passed and Kibando has grown and, though he is now fluent in Japanese, he’s homesick for his Amazon home. However, he’s not the only one who’s changed. Namiko is also no longer the child she once was, and has started to develop feelings for her “adopted brother” but is frustrated that he isn’t able to understand her romantic thoughts. Suddenly, Kibando catches a familiar scent from the Amazon and bounds off after a transport truck that is carrying a large fresh-water fish known as a Piracura from Brazil to the local aquarium. Although the fish is passed by the customs inspector, Kibando can’t abide a fellow refugee from the Amazon to be in captivity, so he frees the huge fish into the local waterways. This infuriates the aquarium director, and he instructs his men to shoot to kill both Kibando and the fish. Underwater, Kibando notices that the fish has begun to poop out precious  jewels and the Director and his men take no chances an blow up the fish with dynamite – scattering gemstones all over the place. In a fury over losing his connection to the Amazon, Kibando overpowers the men and they’re taken into custody – leaving Inspector Futsuuno to brief a crowd of news reporters on the illegal gemstones smuggling ring that has just been busted. Still homesick, Namiko presents Kibando with the Piracura’s tongue as a reminder of his jungle home.