| Chibi Maruko-chan | |
 Cover of the firsttankōbon volume, featuring Momoko Sakura (Maruko) | |
| ちびまる子ちゃん | |
|---|---|
| Genre | Slice of life |
| Manga | |
| Written by | Momoko Sakura |
| Published by | Shueisha |
| Imprint | Ribon Mascot Comics |
| Magazine | Ribon |
| Demographic | Shōjo |
| Original run | August 1986 –October 2022 |
| Volumes | 18 |
| Anime television series | |
| Directed by | Yumiko Suda Tsutomu Shibayama |
| Music by | Nobuyuki Nakamura |
| Studio | Nippon Animation |
| Original network | FNS (Fuji TV) |
| English network | |
| Original run | January 7, 1990 – September 27, 1992 |
| Episodes | 142(List of episodes) |
| Anime film | |
| Directed by | Yumiko Suda Tsutomu Shibayama |
| Written by | Momoko Sakura |
| Music by | Nobuyuki Nakamura |
| Studio | Nippon Animation |
| Released | December 15, 1990 |
| Runtime | 94 minutes |
| Anime film | |
| Chibi Maruko-chan: My Favorite Song | |
| Directed by | Yumiko Suda Tsutomu Shibayama |
| Written by | Momoko Sakura |
| Studio | Nippon Animation |
| Released | December 19, 1992 |
| Runtime | 93 minutes |
| Anime television series | |
| Directed by | Jun Takagi |
| Music by | Nobuyuki Nakamura |
| Studio | Nippon Animation |
| Licensed by | |
| Original network | FNS (Fuji TV) |
| English network | |
| Original run | January 8, 1995 – present |
| Episodes | 1468(List of episodes) |
| Television drama | |
| Chibi Maruko-chan (live-action special) | |
| Studio | FCC Fuji Television |
| Original network | FNS (Fuji TV) |
| Original run | April 18, 2006 – October 31, 2006 |
| Episodes | 2 |
| Television drama | |
| Marumaru Maruko-chan | |
| Studio | Fuji Television |
| Original network | FNS (Fuji TV) |
| Original run | April 19, 2007 – February 28, 2008 |
| Episodes | 31 |
| Anime film | |
Chibi Maruko-chan (Japanese:ちびまる子ちゃん,lit. "Little Maruko-chan") is amanga series written and illustrated byMomoko Sakura. The series depicts the simple, everyday life of Momoko Sakura, a young girl everyone callsMaruko, and her family insuburbanJapan in the year 1974. Maruko is a troublemaker, and every episode recounts Maruko's trouble and how she and her friends succeed in resolving the situation.The series is set in the former of IrieDistrict (入江町),Shimizu, now part ofShizuoka City, birthplace of its author.
The first story under the title "Chibi Maruko-chan" was published in the August 1986 edition of the manga magazineRibon. Other semi-autobiographical stories by the author had appeared inRibon andRibon Original in 1984 and 1985, and were included in the first "Chibi Maruko-chan"tankōbon in 1987. The author first began writing and submitting strips in her final year of senior high school, althoughShueisha (the publisher ofRibon andRibon Original) did not decide to run them until over a year later. The author's intent was to write "essays in manga form";[1] many stories are inspired by incidents from her own life, and some characters are based on her family and friends. The nostalgic, honest and thoughtful tone of the strip led to its becoming popular among a wider audience.
Chibi Maruko-chan was adapted into ananime television series byNippon Animation, which originally aired onFuji Television andaffiliated TV stations from January 7, 1990, to September 27, 1992. It has also spawned numerous games, animated films andmerchandising, as well as a second TV series running from 1995 to the present. Maruko's style and themes are sometimes compared to the classic comicSazae-san. In 1989, the manga tied to receive theKodansha Manga Award for theshōjo category.[2] As of 2006, the collected volumes of the manga had sold more than 31 million copies in Japan, making it one of thebest-selling manga series.[3]
On April 25, 2020, it was announced that the second series would be suspended due to theCOVID-19 pandemic.[4] On June 14, 2020, it was announced that it would resume on June 21, 2020.[5]
The trademarkface fault of this series, in reaction to an awkward "don't know what to say" situation (or sometimes, embarrassment) is the sudden appearance of vertical lines (黒い線,kuroi sen) on a character's face, sometimes with an unexplained gust of wind blowing above that character's head.
The series has a large number and variety of secondary and recurring characters, some inspired by people who Sakura met. Some of them debuted in the anime and others derive from the original manga. Following are descriptions of the main characters and family members that appear frequently in all chapters and episodes.
The originalChibi Maruko-chan manga was serialized in theshōjo-orientedRibon Magazine. 14 volumes were published from July 1987 to December 1996, with a 15th volume published in February 2003. In July 2007, a 4-frame version ofChibi Maruko-chan was published in every morning edition of several Japanese newspapers such as theTokyo Shimbun and theChunichi Shimbun.
The 16th volume of the manga was published on April 15, 2009, and 17th volume was issued on Dec 25, 2018, four months afterMomoko Sakura's death.
The 18th volume was issued on Oct 25, 2022. The new manga was produced by Sakura's long-time assistant Botan Kohagi and other assistants at Sakura Production due to Sakura's death in 2018. The volume contains seven new chapters, and are based on stories that Sakura originally created for theChibi Maruko-chan television anime.
A spin-off manga by Momoko Sakura titledNagasawa-kun (永沢君, ながさわくん) focuses on the character Kimio Nagasawa on High School, was published on the magazineShogakkan'sBig Comic Spirits from January 1993 and May 1995. It was made into a live-action drama, premiering onTokyo Broadcasting System Television on April 1, 2013.
A square-headed parody version of manga Chibi Maruko-chan titledChibi Shikaku-chan (ちびしかくちゃん) was published on Shueisha'sGrand Jump magazine from October 19, 2016.
Chibi Maruko-chan originally aired onFuji Television andaffiliated TV stations. 142 episodes were broadcast, from January 1990 to September 1992. Maruko wasvoiced byTarako; other voice actors includedKappei Yamaguchi andHideki Saijo. Original manga author Momoko Sakura wrote theteleplay for most episodes. The first series was directed by Yumiko Suda, animated byMasaaki Yuasa (who later directedMind Game in 2004), while the music was composed by Nobuyuki Nakamura. The series attained a TV viewer rating of 39.9% on October 28, 1990, the highest rating ever attained by an animated TV series in Japan.[7] The outro songOdoru Ponpokorin became a hit and was interpreted by several artists including theKinKi Kids andCaptain Jack. The series was exported throughout Asia and was especially popular inTaiwan. In addition, 65 episodes were dubbed into Arabic (called Maruko Assagheera, which means Little Maruko), where it garnered attention from people of all ages. It also aired in Germany with the same title as the original and was broadcast byRTL II,Super RTL andJetix. It aired weekdays onNick India inIndia.[8]
To celebrate the franchise's 10th anniversary in 1996, Pony Canyon released a special LaserDisc in Japan. One of the segments was a compilation of international opening and ending themes from the original series. Both the LaserDisc sleeve and the ending of the segment credit the 1994 English production toOcean Studios in Vancouver, Canada. This is the only footage from the dub to surface. ActressTeryl Rothery has listed her.
Voicebox Productions, a Canadian voice acting company also located in Vancouver, has listed a Chibi Maruko-chan pilot forPioneer Entertainment andStudio B Productions on their website since the early 2000s. No other information on this project is known. As Voicebox only came into existence in 1999, it's likely this was unrelated to the aforementioned Ocean dub.
Opening theme:
Ending themes:
A second series debuted on Fuji Television andaffiliated TV stations in January 1995, airing on Sundays in the 6:00 pm time slot, beforeSazae-san at 6:30 pm. The series is directed by Jun Takagi and Nobuyuki Nakamura, like the first series, composes the music. The majority of the voice actors from the first series reprised their roles. The first 219 episodes were written by Momoko Sakura, however, she had supervised the episode screenplays from episode 220 up until her death in 2018. In Spain, the show is available via VOD on the website ofNeox's children's block, Neox Kidz.[9] OnTV Japan, which is available in the United States and Canada, the second series (starting with the episodes broadcast in 2009) now broadcasts weekly in Japanese. InLatin America, is distributed byThe Japan Foundation, the dub was produced inMexico and broadcast on several local, public and other private television networks. As of 14 January 2024, Crunchyroll has started to stream the series from episode 1419 in the USA, Canada, the Philippines and Singapore.[10]
Opening themes:
Ending themes:
A live action series was shown on Fuji Television in 2006. The series was created to commemorateChibi Maruko-chan's 15th anniversary and had 3 episodes, each 2 hours. All costumes and hairstyles are faithful to the original manga. A Taiwanese live-action adaptation was also made begin airing on March 13, 2017.[11][12]
Both of the second television series and the live action series were broadcast in 1080iHDTV.
All the Game Boy titles (which consists ofminigames) were developed byKID and published byTakara. The other titles were published by different companies likeNamco,Konami,Epoch andBanpresto.
As part of the project to commemorate the 35th anniversary of the original work, it was announced in October 2021 that the first stage of this work, "Chibi Maruko-chan The Stage", will be produced, scheduled to be performed at the end of 2022. Nelke Planning is in charge of planning and production. In August 2022, it was announced that the title would be "High School Days" and that it would be performed at the Galaxy Theatre from December 15 to December 25.
| Main Cast | |
|---|---|
| Character name | Actor |
| Kazuhiko Hanawa | Hiroki Sana |
| Sueo Maruo | Taiki Sagawa |
| Noritaka Hamasaki | Yunosuke Matsushima |
| Shigeru Fujiki | Yusuke Yada |
| Kimio Nagasawa | Naganori Sato |
| Taro Tomita | Motohisa Harashima |
| Futoshi Kosugi | Yusaku Kawasaki |
| Tsuyoshi Yamane | Ryoga Ishikawa |
| Kenichi Ohno | Shohei Hashimto |
| Satoshi Sugiyama | GAKU |
