is a

yonkoma , a comic strip format, generally consists of gag comic strips within four panels of equal size ordered from top to bottom. They also sometimes run right-to-left horizontally or use a hybrid 2×2 style, depending on the layout requirements of ...

manga series by

Susumu Nemoto Susumu is a masculine Japanese given name. Notable people with the name include: * Susumu Akagi (born 1972) Japanese voice actor * Susumu Aoyagi (青柳進, born 1968), Japanese baseball player *Susumu Chiba (born 1970), Japanese voice actor *, J ...

which ran from October 1, 1951, to March 31, 1965, in the

Asahi Shimbun is one of the four largest newspapers in Japan. Founded in 1879, it is also one of the oldest newspapers in Japan and Asia, and is considered a newspaper of record for Japan. Its circulation, which was 4.57 million for its morning edition a ...

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 , and gets his nickname from his naturally curly hair which makes his head appear round (or ''kuri kuri''). The manga is unusual in that, other than the images, it relies almost exclusively on

onomotopeia Onomatopoeia is the process of creating a word that phonetically imitates, resembles, or suggests the sound that it describes. Such a word itself is also called an onomatopoeia. Common onomatopoeias include animal noises such as ''oink'', ''m ...

rather than words to tell the story. In that regard it has been classified as a pantomime comic. The manga depicts the life of a typical

salaryman In Japan, a is a salaried worker. In Japanese popular culture, this is embodied by a white-collar worker who shows overriding loyalty and commitment to the corporation where he works. Salarymen are expected to work long hours, to put in addit ...

fairly accurately, but the main character becomes the salaryman's child, Kuri-chan. Because of this, there have been several

picture book A picture book combines visual and verbal narratives in a book format, most often aimed at young children. With the narrative told primarily through text, they are distinct from comics, which do so primarily through sequential images. The images ...

s 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.

Sources

External links

Lambiek Comiclopedia article.
1951 manga Child characters in comics Male characters in comics Humor comics Pantomime comics Works originally published in Asahi Shimbun Comics characters introduced in 1951 Yonkoma {{manga-stub