is a Japanese four-panel gag comedy

manga Manga (Japanese: 漫画 ) are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long prehistory in earlier Japanese art. The term ''manga'' is u ...

series written and illustrated by Kaduho which began serialization in

Houbunsha is a Japanese publishing company founded on July 10, 1950. It is based in Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo. Magazines published by Houbunsha *''Weekly Manga Times'' *''Hana Oto'' *'' Comic Fuz'' Manga Time magazines *''Manga Time'' *''Manga Time Original'' * ...

's ''

Manga Time Kirara Carat is a Japanese seinen manga magazine published by Houbunsha and mainly consisting of four-panel comic strips. The first issue was released on 18 January 2003. List of serialized titles * * *''Bad Girl'' * * * * * * *''H・R'' * *''Harumaki!'' * ...

'' from July 2008. It follows the school lives of a high school girl Yasuna Oribe and her friends Sonya, an assassin, and Agiri Goshiki, a ninja. An

anime is Traditional animation, hand-drawn and computer animation, computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside of Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, in Japan and in Japane ...

television series adaptation animated by

J.C.Staff , is a Japanese animation studio founded in January 1986 by Tomoyuki Miyata, who previously worked at Tatsunoko Production. The studio's first release was ''Yōtōden'' in 1987. They have produced several well-known anime series, such as '' Food ...

aired in Japan between January 5, 2012 and March 29, 2012, with an

OVA , abbreviated as OVA and sometimes as OAV (original animation video), are Japanese animated films and series made specially for release in home video formats without prior showings on television or in theaters, though the first part of an OVA s ...

episode released on October 16, 2013.

Characters

; : :A normal high school girl and self proclaimed friend of Sonya, who is often friendly to Sonya despite how dangerous she is. She tends to take on the brunt of Sonya's attacks whenever she takes her by surprise or goes overboard with her pranks. She is quite simple minded and is not afraid of Sonya at all, despite the fact that she is an assassin. ; : :A foreign trained assassin attending a regular high school. As she constantly takes on assassin work she is constantly alert and often attacks Yasuna when she takes her by surprise or tries to play jokes on her. Despite her tough composure, she is scared of various things such as cockroaches, ghosts, and dogs (even domestic dogs). She also has been shown to care a little for Yasuna. ; : :A laid back ninja from the same organization as Sonya. She transferred to Sonya's school for some assignments and stays at a former ninja club room without permission. She often perplexes Sonya and Yasuna with dubious 'ninjutsus'. She is shown to be calm and have long purplish hair. ; : :A redheaded, green-eyed, nameless character who was supposed to be part of the main cast, but was dropped as Yasuna had supposedly taken on all her personality traits. She has since vowed revenge against Yasuna and Sonya.

Media

Manga

''Kill Me Baby'' began its

serialization In computing, serialization (or serialisation) is the process of translating a data structure or object state into a format that can be stored (e.g. files in secondary storage devices, data buffers in primary storage devices) or transmitted (e ...

in the July 2008 issue of ''

'' manga magazine after a prototype of the strip was published in an earlier issue of the magazine.

published the first compilation volume on January 27, 2009, with thirteen volumes published.

Anime

An anime adaptation by

aired on TBS between January 5, 2012 and March 29, 2012. The opening theme is by

Mutsumi Tamura is a Japanese voice actress affiliated with I'm Enterprise. Biography She made her debut role for '' ef: a tale of memories'' and had a leading role for the anime series '' Battle Spirits: Shounen Toppa Bashin''. In August 2015, Tamura underwe ...

and

Chinatsu Akasaki is a Japanese voice actress affiliated with 81 Produce. Biography Akasaki graduated from Kagoshima Prefectural Kinkōwan High School and Tokyo Gakugei University. She studied Italian as a second foreign language. She won the Nippon Cultural Broa ...

while the ending theme is by Tamura and Akasaki. These theme songs and all of background music are composed by EXPO, a

synthpop Synth-pop (short for synthesizer pop; also called techno-pop; ) is a subgenre of new wave music that first became prominent in the late 1970s and features the synthesizer as the dominant musical instrument. It was prefigured in the 1960s a ...

group consisting Kimitaka Matsumae and Suguru Yamaguchi. The series has been licensed in North America by

Sentai Filmworks Sentai Filmworks, LLC or just Sentai, is an American entertainment company owned by AMC Networks. Located in Houston, the company specializes in the dubbing and distribution of Japanese animation and Asian cinema. Its post-production arm is S ...

. A CD Album, ''Kill Me Baby Super'', was released on October 16, 2013 and includes an

original video animation , abbreviated as OVA and sometimes as OAV (original animation video), are Japanese animated films and series made specially for release in home video formats without prior showings on television or in theaters, though the first part of an OVA s ...

Episode list

Video game

Characters from the series appear alongside other ''

Manga Time Kirara is a Japanese seinen manga magazine published by Houbunsha which mainly serializes Yonkoma, four-panel manga. The magazine is sold on the ninth of each month and was first published as a special edition of ''Manga Time'', another Houbunsha magazi ...

'' characters in the 2017 mobile RPG, ''

Kirara Fantasia is a Japanese seinen manga magazine published by Houbunsha which mainly serializes four-panel manga. The magazine is sold on the ninth of each month and was first published as a special edition of ''Manga Time'', another Houbunsha magazine, on M ...

''.

Reception

Theron Martin of

Anime News Network Anime News Network (ANN) is a news website that reports on the status of anime, manga, video games, Japanese popular music and other related cultures within North America, Australia, Southeast Asia and Japan. The website offers reviews and oth ...

found some of the humor repetitious and the mediocre animation as the series' faults but said that it was balanced out with material that did garner laughs and a workmanlike dub, calling it "a series probably best-enjoyed one or two episodes at a time; trying to marathon it can be a brain-melting experience and is so not recommended. Keep it to smaller doses, though, and it delivers often enough to make a reliable comedy diversion." Aiden Foote, writing for the Anime Reviews, also found the animation middling but praised the slapstick humor and its delivery by both Yasuna and Sonya, concluding that "Overall, almost from nothing, ''Kill Me Baby!'' seems to have itself a sweet little niche in the congested four-panel market. What it lacks in a large cast, it makes up for by diligently bringing the characters it does use to life."

Music in the anime

# (Opening Theme) "Kill Me no Baby! (キルミーのベイベー!)" by Yasuna and Sonya (Chinatsu Akasaki & Mutsumi Tamura) # (Ending Theme) "Futari no Kimochi no Honto no Himitsu (ふたりのきもちのほんとのひみつ)" by Yasuna and Sonya (Chinatsu Akasaki & Mutsumi Tamura) # Kill Me Baby Character Song Agiri Akichi to Noraneko # Kill Me Baby Character Song Yasuna Kyou Mo Futari De # Kill Me Baby Character Song Sonya Yakisoba Pan # Kaerimichi - EXPO (Kill Me Baby)

Notes

References

External links

TBS Official Site

"Substantially Official Site"
* {{J.C.Staff OVAs 2008 manga 2012 anime television series debuts Comedy anime and manga Houbunsha manga J.C.Staff Manga series Seinen manga Yonkoma Sentai Filmworks Slice of life anime and manga TBS Television (Japan) original programming 2012 Japanese television series endings Anime series based on manga