ちびまる子ちゃん
Natively: Level 27
Summary
“さくらももこ”は小学3年生。とても小さくて女の子だから“ちびまる子ちゃん”とよばれている。そんなまる子ちゃんが、おかしな家族の人たちや学校のお友だちとくり広げる、愉快な日常絵日記コミック。
ちびまる子ちゃん is a manga series written and illustrated by Momoko Sakura. The series depicts the simple, everyday life of Momoko Sakura, a young girl everyone calls Maruko, and her family in suburban Japan in the year 1974. Maruko is a troublemaker, and every episode recounts Maruko’s trouble and how she and her friends succeed in solving the situation. The series is set in the former Irie District (入江町), Shimizu, now part of Shizuoka City, birthplace of its author.
The author first began writing and submitting strips in her final year of senior high school, although Shueisha (the publisher of Ribon and Ribon Original) did not decide to run them until over a year later. The author’s intent was to write “essays in manga form”; 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.
Availability
Physical:
CD Japan
Manga Republic
Amazon JP
Digital:
Bookwalker
Kobo
Kindle
Personal Opinion
ちびまる子ちゃん is a classic, and although its main character is a child I think the humor is equally appealing to adults (from my experience with the anime). I think reading this will provide a lot of cultural context while also being cute and fun.
Pros and Cons
Pros
- Adorable, distinctive, expressive artwork.
- Slice-of-life, so probably easy to jump in and out.
- DENSE, but using probably mainly everyday vocabulary.
- Occasional full pages in handwriting = lots of practice reading handwriting!
Cons
- Slice-of-life so probably low on overarching plot developments.
