I'll be impressed if you know where this image is fromYamada Taro Monogatari
Welcome to my one page about the hilarious series Yamada Taro Monogatari by Ai Morinaga. It's a really funny comedy drawn in the girly comics style. Currently, it's one of my favorite series (other mangas that I really like include Nausicaa, Lone Wolf and Cub, Top Secret, Kindaichi, and Detective Conan. Kare Kano is okay. ).

I actually won't expand this site to more than 1 page because I'm really not into making fan sites. I just want to let people know about this funny series and show a few random fan arts of mine (and maybe others if I get them. *hint hint*). But... if anyone has any requests or whatever, just send it to me and I'll consider it.....

Oh, it's because of my friend's incessant nagging about getting this series that I started reading it. Thanks, Yanwen! I'll be the maintainer of this page. She'll just tell me what to do, sort of like a back seat designer.

update
(2/19/03) - I ordered Ai's Ugly Duckling books a few months back from Taiwan. If I actually actually get a chance to read this series (and two or three other books by the same author), I'll do a quick review or something. Also, I might expand this section into comics in general, featuring titles I love and/or unusal series.


(8/5/02) - Ai Morinaga has a new story called Ugly Duckling (actually, the literal translation is Ugly Duckling Prince). There are 2 volumes now, but I still haven't checked it out yet so I can't say anything about it. I think it's another high school comedy.
The Story
The story (my friend and I call it "Poor Rich Boy") is about a very pretty boy whose only fault is that he's extremely poor. Because of his good looks, many people assume that he's rich; lots of things happen because of that assumption.

This is definitely NOT your typical girly story. There is no mushy love story and in some ways it's more 'real' than most other stories (people actually use the bathroom). This series proves that you can do pretty art and be funny at the same time. The humor ranges from making fun of other comics to more spastic comedy. The story starts out very strongly, but towards the end it loses steam (it was hard to get myself to read books 12 to 14). Overall, it's still a very amusing story and better written than most girly comics.

The series ended with book 14. I think the whole series was supposed to be 20 books but the author stopped drawing. I have a feeling that she ran out of ideas. I'm glad she ended the story while it was still pretty good.

I highly recommand the second story in the first book and the whole second book. There are other funny moments through out the series, but I remembered these chapters the most.

I like pretty boys in well written stories. Hehehe.
Fan Art
Click on the image. So far the only ones I got are by me. If you want submit some, please do!! You can email it to me.
The Pretty Boy and the Pretty Girl
finished 8/5/2001
A present for Yanwen. The girl on the right is my friend drawn in this style. She should be shorter than depicted. hehehehe.
Volume 21 cover
finished 8/5/2001
Also for Yanwen. Fun with Photoshop.
Fish Fish Fish Fish!
finished 8/5/2001
A one panel comics.
  
Links
There are very few sites about this series. Here are the ones I've found so far.

Biggest fan site I've found in Chinese
 One site in Chinese
Another in Chinese
Tong-Li - Chinese Publisher
Kodokawa Shoten - Japanese Publisher
Hooloo.com - One place where you can buy the Chinese edition
Chineseonline.com - Another place to buy the books
Bubbles - Yet another place to buy the books.

Catherine's Site - The maintainer of the site and artist
Yanwen's Site - The nagger of the site and artist

Please do not take anything from my site without asking for my permission

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