Genre Yonkoma Published by Asahi Shimbunsha Volumes 10 | Written by Susumu Nemoto Magazine Asahi Shimbun Publisher Asahi Shimbun | |
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Original run 1951-10-01 – 1965-03-31 | ||
Kuri-chan (クリちゃん) is a yonkoma manga series by Susumu Nemoto which ran from October 1, 1951 to March 31, 1965 in the Asahi Shimbun evening edition. Nemoto modeled the main character, Kuri-chan, after his oldest son who was born in 1948. The name of the main character is actually Ken (健), and gets his nickname from his naturally "kuri kuri" (or "curly") hair. The manga is unusual in that, other than the images, it relies almost exclusively on onomotopeia rather than words to tell the story.
The manga depicts the life of a typical salaryman fairly accurately, but the main character becomes the salaryman's child, Kuri-chan. Because of this, there have been several picture books published, marketed at children, several of which are still in print as of 2008. A large amount of character goods featuring Kuri-chan continue to be produced as well.
In the last manga strip released, the first panel shows Kuri-chan at age one, the second at age five, the third at age fourteen, showing his growth and progression through the fifteen years of publication. The fourth panel, Kuri-chan gets annoyed at the manga author, Nemoto, for pointing out the details of how he looked at those ages.