is a Japanese

manga are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long history in earlier Japanese art. The term is used in Japan to refer to both comics ...

series written and illustrated by Mami Tsumura. It was serialized in

Shogakukan is a Japanese publisher of comics, magazines, light novels, dictionaries, literature, non-fiction, home media, and other media in Japan. Shogakukan founded Shueisha, which also founded Hakusensha. These are three separate companies, but ...

's manga magazine ''

Big Comic Superior is a semimonthly seinen manga magazine published since July 1, 1987, by Shogakukan in Japan. Its target audience is somewhere between the audience for ''Big Comic Original'' and '' Big Comic Spirits''. The magazine has published works by a numb ...

'' from March 2015 to June 2023, with its chapters collected in ten volumes. A ten-episode

television drama In film and television show, television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or docudrama, semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humour, humorous in tone. The drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional te ...

was broadcast on

TV Asahi JOEX-DTV (channel 5), branded as , and better known as , is a Japanese television station serving the Kanto region as the flagship station of the All-Nippon News Network. It is owned-and-operated by the a subsidiary of , itself controlled by ...

in 2021. A ten-episode

original net animation An original net animation (ONA), known in Japan as , is an anime that is directly released onto the Internet. ONAs may also have been aired on television if they were first directly released on the Internet. The name mirrors original video animat ...

(ONA) series adaptation was produced by

Liden Films is a Japanese animation studio and production enterprise headquartered in Kamiogi, Suginami, Tokyo, and has animation studios in Kyoto and Osaka. Establishment Liden Films was founded on February 22, 2012, and, shortly after, joined joint-holdi ...

and premiered in March 2022 on

Netflix Netflix is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service. The service primarily distributes original and acquired films and television shows from various genres, and it is available internationally in multiple lang ...

Premise

Kotaro Satо̄, a 4-year-old boy living on his own, moves into the apartment 203, next door to Shin Karino, a

manga artist A manga artist, also known as a mangaka (), is a Cartoonist, comic artist who writes and/or illustrates manga. Most manga artists study at an art college or manga school or take on an apprenticeship with another artist before entering the indus ...

Characters

; : : :The eponymous 4-5-year-old protagonist who moves into a ramshackle apartment building and becomes the next-door neighbor of

Shin Karino; he also enrolls himself into a local kindergarten. Forced to take care of himself like an adult, Kotaro is very independent for his age. He carries around a toy sword, and speaks like a

samurai The samurai () were members of the warrior class in Japan. They were originally provincial warriors who came from wealthy landowning families who could afford to train their men to be mounted archers. In the 8th century AD, the imperial court d ...

, mimicking his favorite cartoon Tonosaman. It is implied that Kotaro was neglected by his parents to the point of starvation. His mother abandoned him and his father, and later died from an unknown cause. Kotaro then left his abusive father and went to live at a foster facility. When his father found him (after seeing a picture of him online from the facility), Kotaro fled and moved into the Shimizu Apartment complex to hide from him. The residents of the Shimizu Apartment complex befriend Kotaro and come to care for him after realizing his situation. His father is actively looking for him despite Kotaro having a restraining order against him. There are implications that Kotaro was born from an unplanned pregnancy. He is financially supported by money he receives every week from a family lawyer who secretly knows about his family situation; Kotaro does not know that the money actually comes from his mother's life insurance, as he is unaware that his mother is dead. :Although it is shown he does suspect something about the money despite being told that it is from a benefactor, he has asked a few times where the money "really" comes from. ; : : :A lazy but kind manga artist who scrapes by. Upon meeting Kotaro, Shin takes it upon himself to look out for the boy and comes to care for him like a father. ; : : :A rather loud neighbor of Kotaro's. Isamu is divorced and not on speaking terms with his son, due to his ex-wife keeping him away. Because of this, he tries to be a father figure to Kotaro. It is not known what his job is, but because of how he acts and looks people tend to assume he is a low-level ''yakuza''. ; : : :A neighbor of Kotaro's and a hostess at a local nightclub. While she puts on a brave face, especially in front of Kotaro, it is implied that Mizuki is in a

domestic abuse Domestic violence is violence that occurs in a domestic setting, such as in a marriage or cohabitation. In a broader sense, abuse including nonphysical abuse in such settings is called domestic abuse. The term "domestic violence" is often use ...

relationship, as shown when she returned home one day with a blemish on the side of her face. Halfway near the end of the series, when Kotaro learns about this, he and the other tenants become concerned; when the situation worsens, Kotaro tells her to move out of the complex for her own safety. ; : : : A newer lawyer at the firm that handled the estate of Kotaro's deceased mother. Ayano regularly visits Kotaro to give him money from Mrs. Sato's life insurance. At the insistence of her boss, Ayano stays to play with him; she is one of the few people who knows the truth about Kotaro's mother being deceased. ; : :A private investigator hired by Kotaro's estranged father to find him and retrieve him. He moved into the building and built a relationship with the boy to ensure it was Kotaro. Despite the words of Shin and Isamu, Aota believed that Kotaro's father is the only one who should take care of him. However, a week after he moved in, Kotaro revealed he knew everything about Aota and Aota decided against filing the report, especially after revealing (through old scars on his upper body) that he too is a victim/survivor of child abuse. ; : :One of the older kids at the foster facility that Kotaro was living at before Kotaro left due to his father finding out about his whereabouts; he and Kotaro have a special friendship as he shares his interests of photography with the young boy. He has a fondness for stargazing and even took Kotaro to go see a

meteor shower A meteor shower is a celestial event in which a number of meteors are observed to radiate, or originate, from one point in the night sky. These meteors are caused by streams of cosmic debris called meteoroids entering Earth's atmosphere at ext ...

with him. He is later shown working as a construction worker. ; : : : Kotaro's kindergarten teacher. ; : : One of Kotaro's classmates and friends who he meets on his first day of school. ; : :An office worker who has moved in to live in the same apartment complex as Kotaro. She replaced Mizuki Akitomo in Room 201 after she left the apartment in Episode 7. She has a

fear of children Fear of children, or occasionally called paedophobia, is fear triggered by the presence or thinking of children or infants. It is an emotional state of fear, disdain, aversion, or prejudice toward children. Paedophobia is in some usages identica ...

. ; : :A cartoon samurai Kotaro loves to watch on TV.

Media

Manga

Written and illustrated by Mami Tsumura, ''Kotaro Lives Alone'' was serialized in

's manga magazine ''

'' from March 13, 2015, to June 9, 2023. Shogakukan collected its chapters in ten individual volumes, released from December 28, 2015, to August 30, 2023.

Volumes

Drama

A 10-episode

adaptation was broadcast on

from April 24 to June 26, 2021.

Anime

In September 2021, an

(ONA)

anime is a Traditional animation, hand-drawn and computer animation, computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, , in Japan and in Ja ...

adaptation was announced. The series is animated by

and directed by Tomoe Makino, with story composition by Hiroshi Satо̄, character designs by Tomomi Kimura, and music composed by Yūya Mori. It premiered worldwide on

on March 10, 2022.

Episodes

Reception

By September 2021, the manga had over 1.4 million copies in circulation; it had over 1.7 million copies in circulation by June 2022. In 2018, ''Kotaro Lives Alone'', alongside '' La La La'', won the Electronic Manga Award in the Boys' Category.

References

External links

* * * * * * * {{Netflix original animated series and films 2021 Japanese television series debuts 2021 Japanese television series endings 2022 anime ONAs Anime series based on manga Comedy-drama anime and manga Japanese-language television shows Liden Films Manga adapted into television series Netflix original anime Seinen manga Shogakukan manga Slice of life anime and manga TV Asahi television dramas