Book Off Manga
Kiriko Kubo, Bucket De Gohan 2, Big Spirits Comics
While we’re on the subject of kids’ comics... Kiriko Kubo’s Bucket de Gohan is an example of animal stories drawn in a style completely unlike that of Charles Schulz’s Peanuts (to flatly contradict the page I just linked). Lots of penguins, pandas, foxes, lions and pigs that don’t do a whole lot except sit around talking—talking heads, mostly—and eating tofu soup. There’s a hysterical giraffe, too. (She’s in hysterics, that is, not hysterically funny.) It’s nice enough, in a gentle kind of way, but I’m not sure why I picked this up now, given that I can’t read the text. Possibly because of a sentimental fondness for penguins.
13×19.5 cm, 1994, ¥900 (hardback).