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 August 27, 1999 and June 27, 2003; eight bound volumes were released. The manga has been translated into English by Tokyopop. The manga was adapted into an anime by Akemi Menda and Yasuko Kobayashi that aired on TV Tokyo between April and September 2002, comprising twenty-six episodes. 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 Kotarou, 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 label between April 2002 and February 2003. The novels have been 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

 * Kotaro 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, Kotaroh (manga only). He has purple hair.


 * Misha (美紗)
 * This cute and perky angel is Kotaro's new next-door neighbor and her main passion in life is stalking and glomping Kotaro. 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 Kotaro (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 Kotaroh, Kotaro's granduncle. However, when she was told to return to Heaven, Kotaroh 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 Kotaro happy (manga only). She has pink hair with a pair of bunny hair ornaments that mimic her expressions.


 * 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 Kotaroh'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. She has black hair. It is also shown as dark brown, and sometimes purple.


 * 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 Kotaro 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 Kotaro his previous feelings for Koboshi. Has blond hair.


 * Koboshi Uematsu (植松 小星)
 * This semi-sweet loudmouth has the hots for Kotaro and can't stand the fact that Misha is homing in on her territory. Koboshi is depicted as a very assertive character. She loves Kotaro 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 Kotaro 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 Kotaro-chan". In volume * of the manga, Koboshi reveals her feelings to Kotaro, 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 Kotaro. Has blonde hair with cat-ear hair ornaments.


 * 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.


 * Kotaroh Higuchi (樋口 小太郎)
 * Taro's first child (his name, ko-Tarō, literally means "little-Tarou", meaning "Tarou Junior") and Kotaro's granduncle (manga only). Kotaroh loved Misha dearly, and asked her to go out with him. Misha - being an angel - did not understand, so Kotaroh explained that he wanted to be with her forever (this is why Misha asked Kotaro to go out with her in the present time on their first meeting). But what Misha was doing (visiting Kotaroh) was against the rules in Heaven, and she was scolded and ordered to be sent back to Heaven by Sacchan. After he overheard this, Kotaroh 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, Kotaroh is reincarnnated into Kotaro.

Music

 * Opening theme: "Wake Up Angel ~Negaimashite wa Mugen Nari~" by Funta
 * Ending theme: "Chiisana Mahō" ("Little Magic") by Miyuki Sawashiro