is a Japanese

science fiction Science fiction (often shortened to sci-fi or abbreviated SF) is a genre of speculative fiction that deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts. These concepts may include information technology and robotics, biological manipulations, space ...

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

Moto Hagio is a Japanese manga artist. Regarded for her contributions to ''shōjo'' manga (manga aimed at young and adolescent women), Hagio is considered the most significant artist in the demographic and among the most influential manga artists of al ...

. It is set in a near-future Japan, and begins with a girl, Jyujo Aoba, who has been in a coma since she was nine years old, who was discovered next to her parents' bodies, with their hearts inside her stomach. To discover why she killed her parents, a specialist enters her coma dreams and finds that Jyujo is dreaming about and simultaneously creating the future. The series was serialised in Shogakukan's ''

Flowers Flowers, also known as blooms and blossoms, are the reproductive structures of flowering plants ( angiosperms). Typically, they are structured in four circular levels, called whorls, around the end of a stalk. These whorls include: calyx, m ...

'' between September 2002 and August 2005 and collected in four volumes. The series is licensed for release in the United States by

Fantagraphics Books Fantagraphics (previously Fantagraphics Books) is an American publisher of alternative comics, classic comic strip anthologies, manga, magazines, graphic novels, and (formerly) the Erotic comics, erotic Eros Comix imprint. They have managed sev ...

. In 2006, ''Otherworld Barbara'' won the Grand Prize of the 27th

Nihon SF Taisho Award The is a Japanese science fiction award. It has been compared to the Nebula Award as it is given by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of Japan or SFWJ. The Grand Prize is selected from not only Science Fiction novels, but also various SF mo ...

Development

Hagio "wanted to do something about meat" when she created the story for ''Otherworld Barbara'', and felt that the story "turned out kind of gross". Thorn felt that Hagio also used her interest in the right and left brain, and the

origin of language The origin of language, its relationship with human evolution, and its consequences have been subjects of study for centuries. Scholars wishing to study the origins of language draw inferences from evidence such as the fossil record, archaeolog ...

. She read

Noam Chomsky Avram Noam Chomsky (born December 7, 1928) is an American professor and public intellectual known for his work in linguistics, political activism, and social criticism. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky is also a ...

's ''Noam Chomsky on The Generative Enterprise, A discussion with Riny Hyybregts and

Henk van Riemsdijk Henk van Riemsdijk (born 27 April 1948 in The Hague, The Netherlands) is a Dutch linguist and professor emeritus at Tilburg University. Career Van Riemsdijk studied linguistics at the Paris 8 University Vincennes-Saint-Denis and at the Univers ...

'',

Vilayanur S. Ramachandran Vilayanur Subramanian Ramachandran (born 10 August 1951) is an Indian-American neuroscientist. He is known for his wide-ranging experiments and theories in behavioral neurology, including the invention of the mirror box. Ramachandran is a dis ...

's '' Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind'', and Andrew B. Newberg's ''Why God Won't Go Away: Brain Science and the Biology of Belief''.

Volume list

Reception

''Otherworld Barbara'' won the Grand Prize of the 27th

by the

Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of Japan Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of Japan, or SFWJ (Japanese official name: , ''Nihon SF Sakka Club'') is an organization of SF-related people, professional or semi-professional. It was formerly a friendship organization, but it is a general inco ...

(SFWJ) in 2006 and was the first manga in 23 years to have won this award. ''

Paste Magazine ''Paste'' is an American monthly music and entertainment digital magazine, headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, with studios in Atlanta and Manhattan, and owned by Paste Media Group. The magazine began as a website in 1998. It ran as a print publi ...

'' praised Hagio's sense of pacing.

References

External links

Official site
(flash required) {{Fantagraphics translations Fantagraphics titles Josei manga Moto Hagio Science fiction anime and manga Sharp Point Press titles Shogakukan manga