7.2 /10 1 Votes
English publisher Fantagraphics Magazine Petit Flower First episode date 15 April 1996 Number of seasons 1 | 7.3/10 IMDb Demographic Josei Published May 1992 Number of episodes 11 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Cast Miho Kanno, Naomi Kawashima, Kanako Enomoto, Miyuki Komatsu Similar Japanese television drama, Hashiranka!, Ōoku, Watashitachi no Kyōkasho, Itoshi Kimi e | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Iguana Girl (Japanese: イグアナの娘, Hepburn: Iguana no Musume, also translated as Daughter of the Iguana or Iguana Daughter) is a manga by Moto Hagio published in Petit Flower. It was adapted into a television drama in 1996.
Contents
It is about a young girl, Rika, whose mother views her as being ugly, and favours her other daughter, Mami. Rika thinks of herself as ugly and as an iguana, but after her mother's death, realises that her mother was also an ugly iguana.
Iguana Girl reflects Hagio's own relationship with her mother, and it took her "years to write this story". Hagio saw an iguana in a documentary on television and identified with it, feeling it was "lamenting its failure to become a human, just like me".
Manga
This story was first published in the November 1991 issue of Shogakukan Josei mangazine Petit Flower. Shogakukan delivered the tankōbon release not until 1994, and it benefited a re-edition in 2000. It will be translated into English as part of the Moto Hagio anthology A Drunken Dream and Other Stories by Fantagraphics in 2010.
Television drama
The screenplay was by Kazue Okada, and the episodes were directed by Kazuhisa Imai and Shinjo Takehiko. The cast included Miho Kanno, Yoshinori Okada, Rena Komine, Hitomi Sato, Koji Yamaguchi, Miyuki Komatsu, Takeshi Izawa, Kanako Enomoto, Naomi Kawashima and Masao Kusakari. The theme tune to the series is Elton John's "Your Song". The television drama was released on DVD in 2001.
Reception
Noah Berlatsky criticises the characterisation of the mother. George Gustines, writing for the New York Times on great graphic novels for 2010, called Iguana Girl "oddly appealing and surprisingly bittersweet".
