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Title (English) The Jungle is always clear, sometimes Guu

Title (Japanese) Jungle wa itsumo Hare Nochi Guu

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Fantasy Novel

Notes The manga is published in "Shounen Gan-Gan".
Also an anime.

Manga author/artist Renjuro Kindaichi

Date

Publisher

Edn. Language Jap

ISBN (review vol.)

Pages

Price

Size

Cover

Synopsis "Jungle wa Itsumo Hare Nochi Guu" is a very strange comedy anime that TV Tokyo has been broadcasting since April. The title is a pun on Japanese weather forecasts it translates roughly as, "The Jungle is always clear, sometimes Guu". The story is about Hare, a 10 year old boy who lives with his mother Weda in a small village in a very strange jungle. Hare's mom is only 25 she had to leave home 10 years before when she got pregnant and ended up in the jungle village where she has raised Hare by herself. Hare loves his mom dearly and is very protective of her. Hare's mom is a bit of a "party girl" and likes to sleep in all day and party with her girl friends all night. Things change one evening when Weda comes home with a little "playmate" for Hare, a pretty little girl named Guu. But when Hare wakes up the next morning, Guu has "transformed" into a sullen, nasty and sarcastic joker who takes great pleasure in making Hare's life utterly miserable. Guu can also swallow anything, and regurgitate it whole - she appears to have a world inside of her. Guu also seems to have various magic powers, which lead Hare to consider her a demon of some sort, but he can't convince most other people of that.

Review The show is a series of vignettes with each episode being independent of any sequential story line, although with each episode more characters are introduced and more of the backgrounds and personalities of the characters are explained ( sort of ). All this is done in an uproariously hilarious manner, if you like perverted humor. I've seen up to episode ( "Illusion" ) 20 of the series, and it is one of my favorite series of the year a definite "must see" for me.
Yesterday I finally received the first seven manga volumes of "Hare Nochi Guu" and I've had a chance to skim through them and consider the similarities and differences between the anime and the manga. The manga is published in "Shounen Gan-Gan". There have been a number of surprises for me.
First of all, the manga-ka, Renjuro Kindaichi, is a young woman, which is something I didn't expect. Next, the character designs, while quite similar between the manga and anime, have some subtle and important differences, particularly in the "attractiveness" of the main characters. Hare and Guu are done much the same in both anime and manga, but Weda is done much prettier and more "stylish" in the manga. More so, Hare's father, Clive ( the perverted school doctor ) is done in an almost "bishounen" manner in the manga, versus his rather dissolute design in the anime.
This carries over to most of the women and girls in the manga they are done much more in the style of women and girls in modern shoujo series imagine a cross between "Sailor Moon" and "Karekano" female character designs. This leads into the most interesting difference between the anime and the manga - the plot focus.
Whereas the anime is a series of gags and shaggy dog stories focusing around Hare and Guu, a la "Urusei Yatsura", the manga focuses more on the various romantic relationships between the adult characters, particularly Weda. In this sense, "Hare Nochi Guu", the manga, seems more to be a shoujo romantic comedy/fantasy "in disguise". It's the relationships and the character's pasts that drive the story in the manga. Now, that's not to say that there isn't a certain amount of shounen "fan service" in the manga( particularly cleavage and bikini poses ), but even that is more on the line of what you would find in "Ayashi no Ceres" rather than say, "Monkoreknights", which also ran in Shounen Gan-Gan.
As far as stories go, from what I've skimmed, it appears that the anime stories are based upon manga stories fairly closely, but they are not in the same sequence as in the manga. For example, episode 20 was the "snow" episode, which came after the "New York City" arc in the manga, but in the anime it appears that the "New York City" arc ( in which Weda returns with Hare and Guu to see her estranged and very rich family ) will be starting in episode 21.
BTW during the last couple of episodes of "Hare Nochi Guu", Shounen Gan-Gan has been advertising the release of volume 8 of the manga, so I'll have to try to find that and see what mischief the gang continues to get into.
All-in-all, I highly recommend both the anime and the manga to all who enjoy their fantasy very strange and their characters very memorable.
(Dave Baranyi)

References

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Information
Title (English)	The Jungle is always clear, sometimes Guu
Title (Japanese)	Jungle wa itsumo Hare Nochi Guu
Advertising Fantasy Novel
Notes	The manga is published in "Shounen Gan-Gan". Also an anime.
Manga author/artist	Renjuro Kindaichi
Date
Publisher
Edn. Language	Jap
ISBN (review vol.)
Pages
Price
Size
Cover
Synopsis	"Jungle wa Itsumo Hare Nochi Guu" is a very strange comedy anime that TV Tokyo has been broadcasting since April. The title is a pun on Japanese weather forecasts it translates roughly as, "The Jungle is always clear, sometimes Guu". The story is about Hare, a 10 year old boy who lives with his mother Weda in a small village in a very strange jungle. Hare's mom is only 25 she had to leave home 10 years before when she got pregnant and ended up in the jungle village where she has raised Hare by herself. Hare loves his mom dearly and is very protective of her. Hare's mom is a bit of a "party girl" and likes to sleep in all day and party with her girl friends all night. Things change one evening when Weda comes home with a little "playmate" for Hare, a pretty little girl named Guu. But when Hare wakes up the next morning, Guu has "transformed" into a sullen, nasty and sarcastic joker who takes great pleasure in making Hare's life utterly miserable. Guu can also swallow anything, and regurgitate it whole - she appears to have a world inside of her. Guu also seems to have various magic powers, which lead Hare to consider her a demon of some sort, but he can't convince most other people of that.
Review	The show is a series of vignettes with each episode being independent of any sequential story line, although with each episode more characters are introduced and more of the backgrounds and personalities of the characters are explained ( sort of ). All this is done in an uproariously hilarious manner, if you like perverted humor. I've seen up to episode ( "Illusion" ) 20 of the series, and it is one of my favorite series of the year a definite "must see" for me. Yesterday I finally received the first seven manga volumes of "Hare Nochi Guu" and I've had a chance to skim through them and consider the similarities and differences between the anime and the manga. The manga is published in "Shounen Gan-Gan". There have been a number of surprises for me. First of all, the manga-ka, Renjuro Kindaichi, is a young woman, which is something I didn't expect. Next, the character designs, while quite similar between the manga and anime, have some subtle and important differences, particularly in the "attractiveness" of the main characters. Hare and Guu are done much the same in both anime and manga, but Weda is done much prettier and more "stylish" in the manga. More so, Hare's father, Clive ( the perverted school doctor ) is done in an almost "bishounen" manner in the manga, versus his rather dissolute design in the anime. This carries over to most of the women and girls in the manga they are done much more in the style of women and girls in modern shoujo series imagine a cross between "Sailor Moon" and "Karekano" female character designs. This leads into the most interesting difference between the anime and the manga - the plot focus. Whereas the anime is a series of gags and shaggy dog stories focusing around Hare and Guu, a la "Urusei Yatsura", the manga focuses more on the various romantic relationships between the adult characters, particularly Weda. In this sense, "Hare Nochi Guu", the manga, seems more to be a shoujo romantic comedy/fantasy "in disguise". It's the relationships and the character's pasts that drive the story in the manga. Now, that's not to say that there isn't a certain amount of shounen "fan service" in the manga( particularly cleavage and bikini poses ), but even that is more on the line of what you would find in "Ayashi no Ceres" rather than say, "Monkoreknights", which also ran in Shounen Gan-Gan. As far as stories go, from what I've skimmed, it appears that the anime stories are based upon manga stories fairly closely, but they are not in the same sequence as in the manga. For example, episode 20 was the "snow" episode, which came after the "New York City" arc in the manga, but in the anime it appears that the "New York City" arc ( in which Weda returns with Hare and Guu to see her estranged and very rich family ) will be starting in episode 21. BTW during the last couple of episodes of "Hare Nochi Guu", Shounen Gan-Gan has been advertising the release of volume 8 of the manga, so I'll have to try to find that and see what mischief the gang continues to get into. All-in-all, I highly recommend both the anime and the manga to all who enjoy their fantasy very strange and their characters very memorable. (Dave Baranyi)
References