- For other uses of this name, see Wallaby (Disambiguation).
The two protagonists of Wallaby: Kokoro Kosaka and Akira Warabi (in Wallaby's body).
Wallaby (わらびー) is a fantasy manga by Kiyohiko Azuma. It was published in Japan in the bimonthly to quarterly magazine Game-jin. The manga was never released in English, since it was stopped after eight chapters. The series follows the everyday life of a teenage girl named Kokoro Kosaka and is also about Warabi, a high school student whose soul was transferred to a stuffed wallaby made by Kokoro after he had died in a car accident. He is forced to live in her bedroom while he waits to be returned to a human body.
Azuma himself described Wallaby as a "heartful, slapstick romantic comedy," Unlike most manga, including Azumanga Daioh and Yotsuba&!, Wallaby was drawn in left-to-right format.
Story[]
The story opens with Kokoro remembering Warabi, her recently deceased classmate whom she admired greatly along with many other girls of her school. She is at school and pretends to talk to Warabi about the stuffed wallaby she made, and leaves it by his old desk, when she suddenly discovers that the doll is talking and telling her that he is in fact Warabi who has taken over the doll's body. Since his parents also died, Warabi has to be taken care of by Kokoro, but she musn't reveal the truth about his identity to anyone since Warabi's guardian angel, Lalilalulala, won't get promoted if anyone finds out that she failed her mission of bringing happiness to people like Warabi.
Most chapters take place on successive days, so that the series follows, almost literally, the characters' "daily lives."
Main characters[]
See List of Wallaby characters.
Development[]
The manga was published in the magazine Game-jin between December 1998 and the summer of 2000, which means that it was partly published simultaneously with Azumanga Daioh's publishing in Dengeki Daioh. The main character, Kokoro Kosaka, makes a cameo appearance during the first cultural festival of the series, looking at the stuffed animals sold by Osaka and Sakaki and talking to them. This is the last time Kokoro is seen and in the final chapter of Wallaby, Kokoro says that she will visit her friend's school, which is what she does in Azumanga Daioh.
Manga[]
The manga was written and illustrated by Kiyohiko Azuma and published in Game-jin (which started out as a bimonthly magazine and later became a quarterly magazine). The chapters have not been collected in any tankōbon volumes due to the manga stopping after eight chapters.
External links[]
- azumakiyohiko.com, Kiyohiko Azuma's personal website.