is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by

Akiko Higashimura is a Japanese manga artist from Kushima in Miyazaki Prefecture. She debuted in the now-defunct manga magazine ''Bouquet Deluxe'' in 1999 with and later gained notoriety for her manga , which debuted in ''Cookie'' magazine in 2001. Higashimura ...

. It was serialized in

Kodansha is a Japanese privately-held publishing company headquartered in Bunkyō, Tokyo. Kodansha is the largest Japanese publishing company, and it produces the manga magazines ''Nakayoshi'', ''Afternoon'', ''Evening'', ''Weekly Shōnen Magazine'' an ...

's ''

Kiss A kiss is the touch or pressing of one's lips against another person or an object. Cultural connotations of kissing vary widely. Depending on the culture and context, a kiss can express sentiments of love, passion, romance, sexual attraction, ...

'' magazine from March 2014 to April 2017 and later collected in nine bound volumes. It is licensed for an English-language release by

Kodansha USA Kodansha USA Publishing, LLC is a publishing company based in New York, USA, and a subsidiary of Japan's largest publishing company Kodansha. Established in July 2008, Kodansha USA publishes books relating to Japan, Japanese culture, and mang ...

. The manga won the

Eisner Award The Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, commonly shortened to the Eisner Awards, are prizes given for creative achievement in American comic books, sometimes referred to as the comics industry's equivalent of the Academy Awards. They are named in ...

for Best U.S. Edition of International Material—Asia in 2019. A 10-episode live-action television drama series adaptation was broadcast on

Nippon TV JOAX-DTV (channel 4), branded as , is the flagship station of the Nippon News Network and the Nippon Television Network System, owned-and-operated by the which is a subsidiary of the certified broadcasting holding company , itself a listed su ...

from January to March 2017. It was followed by a two-hour television special in October 2020. The manga also inspired three

spin-off Spin-off may refer to: *Spin-off (media), a media work derived from an existing work *Corporate spin-off, a type of corporate action that forms a new company or entity * Government spin-off, civilian goods which are the result of military or gove ...

manga series written and illustrated by Higashimura and serialized in ''Kiss'' magazine: ''Tarare-Bar'' (2017–2018), ''Tokyo Tarareba Girls Returns'' (2018), and ''Tokyo Tarareba Girls Season 2'' (2019–2021). The second spin-off, ''Tokyo Tarareba Girls Returns'', is licensed for an English-language release by Kodansha USA.

Plot

Rinko, a

screenwriter A screenplay writer (also called screenwriter, scriptwriter, scribe or scenarist) is a writer who practices the craft of screenwriting, writing screenplays on which mass media, such as films, television programs and video games, are based. ...

living in

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...

, remains unmarried at 33 years old. She has not been satisfied in love or at work and often goes out drinking with Kaori and Koyuki, her best friends since high school. One day, while the three women are dining and drinking at an ''

izakaya An () is a type of informal Japanese bar that serves alcoholic drinks and snacks. are casual places for after-work drinking, similar to a pub, a Spanish tapas bar, or an American saloon or tavern. Etymology The word entered the English la ...

'' as usual, complaining about the men they have dated, a mysterious and handsome young man with blond hair named Key tells them that they remain unmarried because they are always talking about "If I had done..." or "If he had been...". After hearing this, Rinko makes up her mind to get married by 2020, the year of the

Tokyo Olympic Games Tokyo Olympics may refer to: * 1940 Summer Olympics * 1964 Summer Olympics * 2020 Summer Olympics (held in 2021) See also

* Tokyo bid for the 2016 Summer Olympics * Tokyo Paralympics (disambiguation) {{disambiguation ...

Characters

; :Portrayed by:

Yuriko Yoshitaka is a Japanese actress. She has played numerous roles in film and television, including lead roles in ''Snakes and Earrings'', ''Yurigokoro'', and the NHK asadora ''Hanako to Anne''. Career At age 16, her first year of high school, Yoshitaka join ...

; :Portrayed by:

Nana Eikura is a Japanese actress, model, and occasional radio show host affiliated with Ken-On Group. Biography She was born in Izumi, Kagoshima, and raised in Sagamihara, Kanagawa.

; :Portrayed by:

Yuko Oshima is a Japanese actress and former member of Japanese idol girl group AKB48, of which she was the captain of Team K. She was also a member of the AKB48 subunit Not Yet. In addition to the singles that involved the rock-paper-scissors tournaments, ...

; / :Portrayed by:

Kentaro Sakaguchi is a Japanese actor and model. He debuted as a model in Men's Non-no magazine in 2010, and as an actor under Tristone Entertainment in 2014. He has since starred in television series ''Tokyo Tarareba Musume'' (2017) and ''Signal'' (2018), as w ...

; :Portrayed by:

Ryohei Suzuki is a Japanese actor who is represented by the talent agency Horipro. Early life He graduated from Tokyo University of Foreign Studies with a Bachelor's degree in English Studies in March 2006. When he was a student, he worked part-time in NHK. ...

; :Portrayed by:

Yūta Hiraoka is a Japanese actor who belongs to the talent agency Amuse, Inc. He gained recognition in 2004 film ''Swing Girls'' and won "Newcomer of the Year" Award at 28th Japan Academy Prize. Then he appeared in several dramas and films, including '' Wat ...

; :Portrayed by: Ren Ishikawa ; :Portrayed by: Akio Kaneda ; :Portrayed by:

Kei Tanaka is a Japanese actor. Filmography Film Television series Japanese dub * '' Godzilla: King of the Monsters'' (2019) - Dr. Mark Russell (Kyle Chandler) * '' Godzilla vs. Kong'' (2021) - Dr. Mark Russell (Kyle Chandler) * '' The Lost City'' (2 ...

; : ; :

Media

Manga

Written and illustrated by

, ''Tokyo Tarareba Girls'' was serialized in

's manga magazine ''

'' from the May 2014 issue (released on March 24, 2014) to the June 2017 issue (released on April 25, 2017). Kodansha collected the individual chapters in nine volumes published from September 2014 to July 2017.

licensed the manga for an English-language release in North America. It was first released digitally in February 2017, and later published in print from June 2018 to October 2019.

Spin-offs

''Tokyo Tarareba Girls'' inspired three

manga series, also written and illustrated by Akiko Higashimura. The first manga series, titled , features Tara and Reba—the talking codfish milt and liver mascots from Rinko's fantasies—running a bar and giving relationship advice in response to reader-submitted questions. It was serialized in Kodansha's manga magazine ''Kiss'' from the December 2017 issue (released on October 25, 2017) to the February 2019 issue (released on December 25, 2018). Kodansha collected the 10 chapters in a single volume published on March 13, 2019. The second manga series, titled , follows the lives of Rinko, Kaori, and Koyuki after the events of ''Tokyo Tarareba Girls''. It was serialized in ''Kiss'' from the December 2018 issue (released on October 25, 2018) to the February 2019 issue (released on December 25, 2018). Kodansha collected the three chapters in a single volume published on March 13, 2019. At their 2019

Anime NYC Anime NYC is an annual three-day anime convention held during November at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York City. Programming The convention typically offers arcade games, an artist alley, concerts, manga library (Carolina Manga ...

panel,

announced they licensed the series for an English-language release, to be made available digitally on December 24, 2019. The volume was delayed and instead released on October 6, 2020. The third manga series, titled , follows a new cast of characters and is centered on 30-year-old Reina Hirota, a single, part-time librarian who lives with her parents. It was serialized in ''Kiss'' from the June 2019 issue (released on April 25, 2019) to the November 2021 issue (released on September 25, 2021). Kodansha collected the series in six volumes published from October 11, 2019, to November 12, 2021.

Live-action

A 10-episode live-action television drama series adaptation of ''Tokyo Tarareba Girls'' was broadcast on

from January 18 to March 22, 2017. The series was directed by Seiichi Nagumo, Yuma Suzuki, and Naoko Komuro, and written by Yūko Matsuda. It starred

as Rinko,

Nana Eikura is a Japanese actress, model, and occasional radio show host affiliated with Ken-On Group. Biography She was born in Izumi, Kagoshima, and raised in Sagamihara, Kanagawa.

as Kaori,

as Koyuki, and

as Key. Its opening theme song was "Tokyo Girl" by

J-pop J-pop ( ja, ジェイポップ, ''jeipoppu''; often stylized as J-POP; an abbreviated form of "Japanese popular music"), natively also known simply as , is the name for a form of popular music that entered the musical mainstream of Japan in the 1 ...

girl group

Perfume Perfume (, ; french: parfum) is a mixture of fragrant essential oils or aroma compounds (fragrances), fixatives and solvents, usually in liquid form, used to give the human body, animals, food, objects, and living-spaces an agreeable scent. Th ...

. The series was released on DVD and Blu-ray in Japan on August 2, 2017. A two-hour television special, titled , aired on Nippon TV on October 7, 2020. It was also directed by Yuma Suzuki and written by Yūko Matsuda, with the cast of the 2017 television drama series returning to reprise their roles.

Reception

Volume 2 of ''Tokyo Tarareba Girls'' reached the 5th place on the weekly

Oricon , established in 1999, is the holding company at the head of a Japanese corporate group that supplies statistics and information on music and the music industry in Japan and Western music. It started as, which was founded by Sōkō Koike in Nov ...

manga chart and, as of May 24, 2015, had sold 95,639 copies; volume 3 reached the 17th place on the chart and, as of August 23, 2015, had sold 110,632 copies; volume 4 reached the 12th place and, as of December 20, 2015, had sold 114,433 copies; volume 5 reached the 6th place and, as of May 29, 2016, had sold 157,244 copies; volume 6 reached the 4th place and, as of September 18, 2016, had sold 112,865 copies; volume 7 reached the 1st place and, as of January 21, 2017, had sold 73,574 copies. The series ranked number two on the 2015 Top 20 Manga for Female Readers survey, and was again number two on the same list the following year. Kadokawa Media Factory's book and manga news magazine ''Da Vinci'' ranked the series number 19 on its 2017 Book of the Year list. ''Tokyo Tarareba Girls'' was nominated for the 9th

Manga Taishō The is a Japanese comics award recognizing achievement in manga. It is awarded annually to a manga series published in the previous calendar year of eight or fewer collected volumes in length. The Manga Taishō was founded with the aim of re ...

in 2016, finishing in ninth place with 29 points. It was also nominated for Best General Manga at the 40th

Kodansha Manga Award is an annual award for serialized manga published in the previous year, the event is sponsored by the publisher Kodansha. It is currently awarded in three categories: '' shōnen'', '' shōjo'', and general. The awards began in 1977, initially w ...

s in 2016. It won an

in the category Best U.S. Edition of International Material—Asia in 2019.

References

External links

Official manga website
at ''

''
''Tokyo Tarareba Girls''
at

*
Official drama series website
at

Official TV special website
at Nippon TV {{in lang, ja 2017 Japanese television series debuts 2017 Japanese television series endings Comedy anime and manga Comics set in Tokyo Eisner Award winners Japanese comedy television series Japanese romance television series Japanese television dramas based on manga Josei manga Kodansha manga Manga adapted into television series Nippon TV dramas Romance anime and manga Women in Tokyo