Pita-Ten

Pita-Ten (ぴたテン) is a Japanese manga created by Koge-Donbo which was serialized in MediaWorks' shōnen manga magazine Dengeki Comic Gao! between the October 1999 and August 2003 issues; eight bound volumes were released. The manga has been translated into English by Tokyopop. The manga was adapted into a 26-episode anime produced by Madhouse that aired on TV Tokyo between April and September 2002. The title Pita-Ten is short for "Pittari Tenshi" (ぴったり天使). The plot of Pita-Ten centers primarily on the upbeat character Misha and her attempts to become a licensed angel, and Kotaro, her neighbor. It is generally light-humored, but the anime and the manga end with a serious tone. Three light novels, written by Yukari Ochiai, were published by MediaWorks under their Dengeki Bunko imprint between April 2002 and February 2003. The novels were licensed by Seven Seas Entertainment for release in English. The first novel was released in March 2008, the second volume in July 2008, and the third was scheduled for release in November 2008, but was never published due to Seven Seas putting their light novel line on an indefinite hiatus.

Characters

 * Kotarou Higuchi (樋口 湖太郎)
 * A calm and collected sixth grader. He looks after himself and lives with his father. It is explained during the story that his mother died while saving him from being run over when he was younger. Kotaro learns new skills and becomes happier once Misha moves in next to him. Kotaro is the reincarnation of his granduncle, Kotarou (manga only).


 * Misha (美紗)
 * This cute and perky angel is Kotarou's new next-door neighbor and her main passion in life is stalking and glomping Kotarou. She's an apprentice angel (anime) or unofficial angel (manga) who speaks like a small child and tries to make everybody around her happy; consequentially making matters worse. She is very hyper and outgoing around Kotarou (for example, her first line said to him in both versions is "Will you go out with me?!"). She is happy and optimistic, and has always managed to keep on smiling. She becomes best friends with Shia when Shia moves into her home. As a young angel, Misha befriended Kotarou, Kotarou's granduncle. However, when she was told to return to Heaven, Kotarou (the first) committed suicide. Misha was blamed for the incident and punished, being forced to wear black and kept trapped in a thorn cage. During her time on earth, her exam to become a fully licensed angel is to make Kotarou happy (manga only).


 * Shia (紫亜)
 * A very polite and quiet girl who is great at cooking and cleaning. A demon (manga), or demon apprentice (anime), she is outwardly gentle and kind-hearted, and is not very good at being malicious or at killing humans. She is generally weak - more so when her staff breaks under Misha's angelic influence. In the TV series, she disappears from failing to become a full demon. However, Misha sacrifices herself by making some kind of medicine that made people forget her, and remember Shia. Once the people remembered Shia, Shia came back to life. Later, the powers of Heaven revive Misha due to her selfless bevaviour befitting of an angel. In the manga, in the past, there was an incident in the underworld and young Shia was transported to earth in a human form without any knowledge of her identity. She was found and taken in by a wealthy rice merchant, who named her Shima. Shima fell in love with Kotaro's great grandfather, Taro. They had two children named Kotaroh (Kotaro's granduncle) and Shino (Kotaro's grandmother). When Shima becomes too weak and almost takes Kotarou's life force, she goes with Klaus (Nya) who erases her memory of Taro and her children. Many years later during her time with Kotarou and Misha, Shia is trying to find out about her past. In volume 7 of the manga, Shia dies because she refused to take human life-force in order to stay alive, and because life essence from Misha-san had poisoned her.


 * Takashi "Ten-chan" Ayanokoji (綾小路 天)
 * Nicknamed Ten-chan, Takashi is nothing short of a "ladies' man" who is the best friend of Kotarou and Koboshi since they were six. He's great at sports, outgoing and always gets good grades. Despite his perfect grades and popularity, he has a troubled home life and develops a crush on Shia. Although they never become a couple, they do become friends. In the manga, Takashi tells Shia his feelings for her, and admits to Kotarou his previous feelings for Koboshi.


 * Koboshi Uematsu (植松 小星)
 * This semi-sweet loudmouth has the hots for Kotarou and can't stand the fact that Misha is homing in on her territory. Koboshi is depicted as a very assertive character. She loves Kotarou greatly but is too embarrassed to confess her feelings to him. She enjoyed having a normal, routinely basis of her every day life; from meeting Kotarou in the morning to talking to him during the day, until Misha showed up. She is liable to get angry and be very overprotective, causing her to be constantly irritated by Misha's childish antics and attachment to "her Kotarou-chan". In volume 7 and 8 of the manga, Koboshi reveals her feelings to Kotarou, who is shocked and freaked out. She is rejected and goes into depression, but she soon finds her way and starts becoming more confident in herself and around Kotarou.


 * Hiroshi "Dai-chan" Mitarai (御手洗 大)
 * Nicknamed both Dai-chan and "Poops" (a play on the Japanese characters of his name, which mean "bathroom"), is one of the few characters who is almost always consistent, storyline-wise, in both the anime and the manga. He is a pre-pubescent eccentric who is totally obsessed with trying to out-do Takashi, no matter what. Hiroshi does not know that Shia is a demon and Misha is an angel; but he is strict and knowledgeable in traditional Japanese arts, so he is able to guess, (often to the annoyance of the other three kids, when he attempts to exorcise Shia and cling to Misha). Despite this, Hiroshi works hard to stand up to his family name, the great Mitarai dynasty, but falls behind Takashi in grades.


 * Kaoru Mitarai (御手洗 薫)
 * Hiroshi's pretty younger sister. She is a highly skilled culinary expert with a serious infatuation with Takashi, — she cooks for him and plans marriage. She reacts violently to anybody who would dare to be mean to Takashi or Hiroshi, though she does value Takashi slightly more than her brother. Kaoru appears reasonably regularly in the anime, but extremely rarely in the manga (she is the only character who was removed from the cast page).


 * Shino (紫乃)
 * Kotarou's maternal cousin. She is a small child with a free spirit, but gets upset very quickly and easily, and hates being left alone. She, like Kotarou, can see angels, demons and ghosts.


 * Nya (ニャー)
 * A little black cat that is always with Shia who was named by Misha (since the sound a cat makes, "nyo" or "nya" in Japanese). He insists that it is not his real name, but he never reveals it (only in the manga). Nya, who is a full demon, despises Sasha (and the feeling is mutual). His 'human form' is shown in the manga, and he turns out to be very violent. When Shia dies, he says, "I guess I was wrong. [She] turned out to be quite the demon, didn't she? Taking the weakest parts of human hearts and wreaking havoc with it and fate itself. She did it to you [Kotaro], your friend [Ten-chan], that pathetic fool Taro, ..and...me as well." which suggests he did have some care for Shia. He is also known as "Klaus" in some cases.


 * Sasha (早紗)
 * Sasha is Misha's older sister and a fully-fledged angel. She has a small rivalry with Nya and tests Misha for both of her angel exams. (Anime) She sometimes likes to be referred to as "Sacchun" and has a slight infactuation with Takashi Ayanokoji.


 * Taro Higuchi (樋口 太郎)
 * Kotaro's great-grandfather who fell in love with Shima, Shia's past self.


 * Kotarou Higuchi(The First) (樋口 小太郎)
 * Taro's first child (his name, ko-Tarō, literally means "little-Tarou", meaning "Tarou Junior") and Kotarou's granduncle (manga only). Kotarou loved Misha dearly, and asked her to go out with him. Misha - being an angel - did not understand, so Kotarou explained that he wanted to be with her forever (this is why Misha asked Kotarou to go out with her in the present time on their first meeting). But what Misha was doing (visiting Kotarou) was against the rules in Heaven, and she was scolded and ordered to be sent back to Heaven by Sasha. After he overheard this, Kotarou decided he would go to Heaven with Misha, and committed suicide by jumping off a cliff to his death. Although it is not known what happened to his soul, Kotarou is reincarnated into the present day Kotarou.

Manga
Pita-Ten began as a manga series written and illustrated by Koge-Donbo, which was serialized in MediaWorks' shōnen manga magazine Dengeki Comic Gao! between the October 1999 and August 2003 issues. Eight bound volumes were released in Japan under MediaWorks' Dengeki Comics imprint between April 2000 and September 2003. The manga is licensed in North America by Tokyopop, which released the series in English between January 2004 and March 2005. The manga is also licensed by Madman Entertainment in Australia and New Zealand, Soleil Productions in France, Egmont Manga & Anime in Germany, and Kadokawa Media in Hong Kong and Taiwan.

Books and publications
Three volumes of a Pita-Ten Official Fan Book were published by MediaWorks between March and September 2002. The fan books were licensed and released in English by Tokyopop between November 2005 and July 2006. Three light novels, written by Yukari Ochiai, were published by MediaWorks under their Dengeki Bunko imprint between April 10, 2002 and February 10, 2003. Koge-Donbo provided the cover illustrations and Rina Yamaguchi drew the illustrations used in the novels. The novels were licensed by Seven Seas Entertainment, which released the first two volumes in March and July 2008; the third volume was never published due to Seven Seas putting their light novel line on an indefinite hiatus.

An art book titled Pita-Ten Postcard Art Book (ぴたテン ポストカード画集) was published MediaWorks in February 2002. Two art books for the anime adaptation titled How To Enjoy Pita-Ten (ぴたテンの楽しみ方) were published by MediaWorks between August and November 2002. An art book titled Koge-Donbo Illustration Collection: Pita-Ten (コゲどんぼ画集「ぴたテン」) was published by MediaWorks in December 2003. Tokyopop released Koge-Donbo Illustration Collection: Pita-Ten in English in May 2006.

Radio show
A radio show titled Pita Pita Angel (ぴたぴたエンジェル♪) was produced to promote the Pita-Ten anime adaptation and Galaxy Angel. The show, hosted by Yukari Tamura and Ryōko Shintani, aired weekly on Radio Osaka, Nippon Cultural Broadcasting, and Tokai Radio. Produced by Bandai Visual, Broccoli and Lantis, the show aired 27 episodes between April 4 and October 3, 2002. The show's title was changed to Pita Pita Angel Ace (ぴたぴたエンジェル♪A) for the following broadcast on October 10, 2002 and ran until March 27, 2003, containing 25 episodes.

Anime
A 26-episode anime TV series adaptation, directed by Toshifumi Kawase and Yuzo Sato and produced by Madhouse, aired in Japan between April 7 and September 29, 2002 on the TXN television network on the TV stations TV Osaka, TV Tokyo, TV Hokkaido, TV Aichi, TV Setouchi and TVQ. Two pieces of theme music were used for the series: one opening theme and one ending theme. The opening theme is "Wake Up Angel (Negaimashite wa (Mugen) Nari)" (Wake Up Angel 〜ねがいましては∞（無限）なり〜) by Funta and the ending theme is "Chiisana Mahō" (ちいさなまほう) by Miyuki Sawashiro. Nine DVDs were released by Bandai Visual in limited and regular editions between June 25, 2002 and April 25, 2003. The first DVD contained the first two episodes, and the other DVD volumes had three episodes each.