Mikan Enikki — BrandWiki

Mikan Enikki

Mikan Enikki (みかん・絵日記) is a manga series written and illustrated by Miwa Abiko. It was featured in Hakusensha's magazine LaLa from June 1988 to January 1995.

A TV anime (stylized みかん絵日記) loosely based on the manga was produced by Nippon Animation and ran from October 16, 1992, to June 18, 1993, on CBC Television, TBS and other JNN affiliates.

Plot

Tom, an orange cat, the protagonist of the story, had to leave his home after his owner had died due to illness. After wandering around for a while, he finally arrived at the Kusanagi family, where he was adopted and given a new name, Mikan, based on his orange fur (mikan is the Japanese word for "orange fruit"), but the Kusanagis soon found out that Mikan was no ordinary cat: he could speak human, and could walk on his hind limbs like a human. Shocked at first, the family gradually adopted a more welcoming attitude, and finally accepted the fun-loving cat as one of them. From then on, Mikan got on numerous adventures in the human world as a talking cat, which was kept secret by the Kusanagis. Mikan later got "married", had children, and one of them could also speak human like he did.

Apart from the typical slice-of-life stories, the manga also had some pure fantasy chapters, where Mikan and his gang, through various random means, got into different worlds of magic and dragons. These stories were never adapted for TV.

The TV anime adaptation had a similar premise, featured characters and some plot points from the manga (such as Mikan's backstory, a few relationships between characters, the short travel arc, etc.), but all of its story execution was entirely original.

Characters

Kusanagi family

Mikan Kusanagi (草凪みかん)
[1]
The titular character who was an orange cat who could talk and walk on two feet like a human. He was abandoned with his siblings on the countryside road, then adopted and named Tom (トム) (after Tom Cat) by an old man known as Tatsuzō. After his original owner died because of an unmentioned disease, he had to leave his home as the neighborhood couldn't accept an abnormally "witchy", yokai-like cat, even though his owner's friend, an old woman, insisted that she would take care of him. He then wandered around aimlessly, concealing his unusual abilities by walking on all fours and not talking (although sometimes he would still do those if he thought he was alone), until he met a boy who shared his name, Tom Kusanagi. He proceeded to follow the boy to the home of the Kusanagis. The family later adopted Tom, and Tom Kusanagi named him Mikan (Japanese for "orange fruit") based on his orange fur. The family soon found out that Tom was no ordinary cat: he could speak human and walked on his two hind paws. The first one to discover this was Tom Kusanagi, who found it suspicious that Mikan routinely got sick in the morning and refused to have breakfast, while at the same time, the amount of sake in the kitchen kept declining. It turned out that Mikan had been sneaking in there and drinking it while everyone was sleeping at night. Tom later convinced Mikan to tell his parents about his abilities so that he could finally be one of the family, as he couldn't stand keeping it a secret from his parents, who loved Mikan that much. Mikan was reluctant at first, as people's response to his abilities had been anything but positive, but he decided to give it a try. And fortunately, the family welcomed his presence, accepted him as one of them, although they still wanted to keep all of this a secret not to get Mikan in any trouble. Mikan later made new friends with the cats in the neighborhood, and engaged in several adventures with his gang. He eventually "married" a cat named Killy and had kittens; one of them, Ringo, was later adopted by the Kusanagis, too, and then learned to speak human like his father. In the manga, as nosy as he was, Mikan was quite well-behaved. In the anime, however, he was made to be more of a selfish troublemaker who did anything he liked as he was pleased, and he could also musically enunciate with the harmonica to bother pretty much everyone (human and feline alike). On the other hand, thanks to his experience as a stray cat, he was also quite sensible, even more so than Tom when it came to adult affairs. Despite that, he still maintained a childlike mindset of a cat and sometimes even equated human matters with feline ones, or had a hard time fathoming the concepts of "foreign", "Australia" or "America".

Tom Kusanagi (草凪吐夢)
[1]
The only biological son of the Kusanagi family and Mikan's adoptive brother. He was an ingenuous, caring 11-year-old brother, who assigned Mikan the picture diary homework, a common type of homework for Japanese grade schoolchildren, to record his daily life with words and illustrations, which was the solution to Mikan's strong interest in helping his brother with 5th grade homework (even though Mikan could do nothing but write hiragana and numbers). After that, Mikan started to document his daily life with the diary, filling it with untidy scribbles and illustrations. Like any other sibling, Tom quarreled with Mikan a lot. He went to Yozakura Elementary School during the course of the manga.

Tōjirō Kusanagi (草凪藤治郎)
[1]
Tom's 37-year-old birth father and Mikan's adoptive father, working as a computer engineer. He wasn't welcoming Mikan at first, even went so far to say that he would have only adopted a dog. Later, he became a loving father who gave both of his sons valuable lessons on life and love. He also enjoyed having drinks with Mikan. In the manga, he was always an understanding father and husband, and never fought with his wife, which is why the girl Tom liked, Kyōko, adored him so much. That was not the case in the anime, as shown when he got home late and got angry because his wife, who was also upset about him being late, didn't prepare dinner.

Kikuko Kusanagi (草凪菊子)
[1]
Tom's 34-year-old birth mother and Mikan's adoptive mother, née Matsuzawa. A typical stay-at-home mother, she took care of the whole family, which made daily activities a little bit more difficult when she had to leave home to take care of her own sick mother. She was scared of height. She also gave birth to a girl, although the Kusanagis' daughter wasn't mentioned much in the course of the manga.

Ringo Tanabe (田辺りんご)
[1]
Mikan and Killy's son. He was named, by Tom just like his father was, Ringo (Japanese for "apple") due to his red fur, and also nicknamed Koringo (こりんご) (lit. "Little Apple") because Mikan felt like Ringo wasn't good enough considering apples tend to be bigger than oranges. He was the only one of Mikan's children who were adopted by the Kusanagis; the rest were given away to other people. Ringo managed to learn to speak human somehow, which was tremendous to the Kusanagis, although this caused a little bit of a problem at first as Mikan then lost his ability to speak for unknown reasons. Sera, Tom's best friend, even said it was probably because there could be only one talking cat in the world which was rather crushing to Mikan. Fortunately, everything was back to normal when Mikan regained his ability to speak somehow. Ringo could speak intelligibly, although with a few impediments (he said otō-tan, okā-tan and Tomu-kyun instead of the correct otō-san "dad", okā-san "mom" and Tomu-kun). He called Tōjirō "Dad" and Mikan "Dad Mikan" (simply "Mikan" when he first uttered to the shock and slight disappointment of his own father). Ringo later moved to live with Yukio Tanabe, a lonely old woman who he and his girlfriend Kyara adored so much. In the anime, he was known only as Koringo, and even to the end, could still mimic only random human words (especially food-related ones). The whole event of Mikan losing his ability to speak human from the manga (at which point, Ringo could speak fairly competently) was never adapted.

Other cats and dogs

Kurobuchi (クロブチ)
[1]
His name literally means "black rims" in reference to his fur pattern. He was the wisecrack guy of the gang and Mikan's best buddy. Originally a half-stray cat (a cat who sometimes takes food that people give away), he was adopted by the owner of the Runon coffee shop as the main attraction of the shop, as Kurobuchi looked very much like him. He eventually "married" Hana after overcoming all the obstacles in their epic romance story and have a bunch of kittens, one of whom was a daughter who looked just like him. In the anime, Kurobuchi is portrayed as "lady's man": he brought food to all the cat ladies he knew. His subsequent relationship with Hana was only minimally denoted in a few small gags.

Botan (牡丹)
His name means "tree peony", but also "wild boar meat", perhaps because he was the biggest and fattest cat in the story, weighing 13 kilograms. He really adored his owner Yayoi, got along with her parents-in-law, but at the same time, despised her husband Yukihiko (him and him alone) just as much and bullied him every time he could. He dated Molly even though he was castrated. He was a Chinchilla Persian cat. In the anime, it wasn't clear if he dated anyone at all.

Yozakura Elementary School

Sera Kusuki (楠木世良)
[1]
An eccentric and energetic transfer student. As Tom and Mikan's closest friend, he was very straightforward: if he knew he couldn't do something, he'd stop doing it, unlike Tom who just kept on trying. He, however, was also very sharp as he found out himself about Mikan's secret abilities while playing video games with him, although you can count on him because he would never share this with anyone else due to his selfishness. He and Mikan routinely got into antics, like the time he told Mikan to look up under girls' skirts to check out their panties. Sera was blunt and a little tacky in the manga. In the anime, he was even more cunning and confident, which was shown when he talked back to Mr. Hayashida on what he should do as a teacher and made him concede. The major plot point of Sera discovering Mikan's ability to talk in the manga, however, was never adapted for the anime, which downplayed his significance.

Kyōko Tachibana (立花杏子)
[1]
Tom's love interest, although she had a crush on his father because he was her ideal model of a husband and father, which motivated Tom to strive to be a better man than his father. She loved cats, but she couldn't have one until her family moved out of their apartment to their own house, only then they adopted an

Other supporting characters

Taizō Inagaki (稲垣大造)
A 55-year-old doctor who worked at his own clinic. He appeared to hate animals even though he had to take care of Momojirō for his friend, Mr. Ōhashi, who was overseas. It was revealed later that he actually liked animals as a kid, but because there was no common birth control method back then for animals, his family couldn't afford to keep the baby pets and had to abandon them on the street, which led to his "dislike" for animals in general. He told the Kusanagis, who were about to adopt Killy and Molly, this story, which warmed him up to the kittens and made him decide to keep them (he did not tell them in the anime, though). Also, he later just told Mr. Ōhashi that he would keep Momojirō which proved his sincere fondness for animals.

Okiyo (お清)
Housekeeper, and later, wife of Dr. Taizō Inagaki in the manga. She only appeared in early anime episodes and it was unknown if she married Dr. Inagaki later at all.

Ōhashi (大橋)
Momojirō's original owner and Dr. Inagaki's close friend. He let Dr. Inagaki take care of his dog during the time he was working in Melbourne, Australia. When he and his wife came back to Japan bringing another dog, they wanted to take Momojirō with them overseas, but Dr. Inagaki just decided that he would keep Momojirō as he thought having two dogs would be too much for an old couple, and he was also very fond of Momojirō. After a little bit of an argument, the Ōhashi agreed to let Inagaki have him. Momojirō then had a new name, Momojirō Inagaki. In the anime, it was never shown if he ever entrusted Momojirō to Dr. Inagaki forever at all, or just for the time he was away.

Manga-only characters

Cats and dogs

Kyara (伽羅)
Sera's Abyssinian kitten. At first, she was annoyed by the stalking of Mikan's gang as they attempted to get Ringo to have a friend of his age for the first time. She later warmed up to them and became Ringo's girlfriend; prior to this, he could only hang out with his father's "middle-aged" buddies. The two once had a big quarrel and stopped seeing each others for days after a failed attempt to make friends with Stella, but later made up.

Stella (ステラ)
Kyōko's Himalayan kitten. She was adopted when Kyōko's family got their own house. She was defensive at first against Ringo and Kyara when Tom, Sera and Kyōko tried to get them to know each others, which resulted in Kyara and Ringo's quarrel as she couldn't accept her hostile attitude and he tried to reconcile them. The three later made a trio of good friends.

Umejirō (梅治郎)
A puppy Mr. Ōhashi brought back to Japan as he wanted to bring Momojirō with him to Australia.

Cats and dogs

Kyara (伽羅)
Sera's Abyssinian kitten. At first, she was annoyed by the stalking of Mikan's gang as they attempted to get Ringo to have a friend of his age for the first time. She later warmed up to them and became Ringo's girlfriend; prior to this, he could only hang out with his father's "middle-aged" buddies. The two once had a big quarrel and stopped seeing each others for days after a failed attempt to make friends with Stella, but later made up.

Stella (ステラ)
Kyōko's Himalayan kitten. She was adopted when Kyōko's family got their own house. She was defensive at first against Ringo and Kyara when Tom, Sera and Kyōko tried to get them to know each others, which resulted in Kyara and Ringo's quarrel as she couldn't accept her hostile attitude and he tried to reconcile them. The three later made a trio of good friends.

Umejirō (梅治郎)
A puppy Mr. Ōhashi brought back to Japan as he wanted to bring Momojirō with him to Australia.

Leila (レイラ)
Momojirō's "wife". She met Momojirō when he was on a stroll with Mikan. She later gave birth to Momojirō's puppies.

Humans

Kaoru Ōsumi (大澄かおる)
A blunt, boyish, edgy young woman working in place of Yayoi since she got pregnant. Losing her friend to illness was her motive to become a nurse. After sloppily mistaking one of Dr. Inagaki's prescription which resulted in the patient getting sick (the patient was understanding enough to let it slide), she started to become more gentle and meticulous in her work.

Shinnosuke Kusanagi (草凪信之介)
Tōjirō's father.

Ikaho Kusanagi (草凪伊香保)
Tōjirō's mother, she was described as "female Kintarō" by Mikan.

Midoriha Seno (瀬野翠葉)
Kyōko's cousin, Sera's childhood friend in kindergarten and love interest. She was a tomboy who looked just like Tom, which may have explained why Sera liked Tom so much. Mikan even joked that it looked as if Sera had been hugging Tom affectionately when he, in fact, was hugging Midoriha. She was in the middle of a crisis when she came back to Japan as her parents was in the process of a divorce, and the only consolation was that she could meet Sera again. She later returned to Australia with her mother and step-father, and still exchanged letters with Sera.