Naoko's New Manga

A new single story written and drawn by Naoko Takeuchi is to be included in the September 2001 edition of Nakayoshi magazine (a Kodansha publication). The story is tentatively entitled "Pretty Mecha Princess." Although slated to be a single story, some of us here believe that it may be a test for a new serial.

Shortly before giving birth to a baby boy, Naoko confirmed that she intended to return to creating some sort of manga. Discussed in some Japanese circles for months, we have to thank "Sho" for finally alerting us that it could now be made public. Kodansha included an announcement of the manga in the August edition of Nakayoshi magazine.

New Data *Brweep* Being Received!

Nakayoshi's website has added a picture and a brief description of the new manga. It's now called "toki*meka" which could be a play on words. "Tokimeki" is a word for "heartbeat" often used in shoujo stories; so by changing "meki" to "meka" (the Anime word for robotic stuff, more commonly spelled "mecha") it could be translated as a robot with a heart.

The description says, "A genius human-shaped super robo girl was made!! But this robot is a horrible thing......!?" We're not sure how to translate the last part; it trails off intentionally leaving out the verb - which doesn't work in English sentences. (But it does add an air of mystery!)

The girl pictured is saying (via the vertical text next to her head, which is too small to easily make-out), "I may be a robot, but I'm capable of love!"

Nakayoshi advertises the story as an, "exceptionally cute, pretty, ultra-comedy."

Special thanks to Amanda Bryman for alerting us to this new posting!