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 by

Satomi Ikezawa is a Japanese manga artist. Her works include ''Guru Guru Pon-chan'', ''Othello (Satomi Ikezawa manga), Othello'' and ''Sue-chan wa Himitsu''. In 2000, she received the Kodansha Manga Award in the ''shōjo'' category for ''Guru Guru Pon-chan''. ...

about a

Labrador Labrador () is a geographic and cultural region within the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. It is the primarily continental portion of the province and constitutes 71% of the province's area but is home to only 6% of its populatio ...

puppy, named Ponta, who turns into a human and falls in love with Mirai Iwaki, who's very popular in his school. In 2000, it won the

Kodansha Manga Award is one of Japan's major manga awards. The event is sponsored by publisher Kodansha. It has been awarded annually for serialized manga in its third iteration since 1977. Categories The award was originally called the until 1968. In 1970, it was ...

for shōjo. It was published in the United States by

Del Rey Manga Del Rey Manga was the manga-publishing imprint (trade name), imprint of Del Rey Books, a branch of Ballantine Books, which in turn is part of Random House, the publishing division of Bertelsmann. History Del Rey Manga was formed as part of a cr ...

Plot

Ponta, the Koizumi family's

labrador retriever The Labrador Retriever or simply Labrador or Lab is a British list of dog breeds, breed of water dog retriever gun dog. It was developed in the United Kingdom from St. John's water dogs imported from the Newfoundland Colony, colony of Newfoun ...

puppy one day eats the 'talking bone' that the grandfather invented to allow an animal who licks it the power of speech. Instead of just being able to talk however, she transforms into a human girl. When she rushes out into traffic as a girl, she is saved by the most popular boy at school and falls in love with him. To be near him she enrolls in school and tries to learn how to live as a human.

Characters

* Ponta Koizumi — The lead character of the series. Grandpa Koizumi's invention transformed her from a

puppy A puppy is a Juvenile (organism), juvenile dog, generally one less than 12-18 months old. Puppies are markedly underdeveloped and dependent on their mothers at birth (displaying ''altriciality''), but healthy puppies grow quickly and begi ...

into a small child. * Mirai Iwaki — A popular and attractive boy at school. * Go Fujinaga — A boy who loves animals and is attracted to Ponta. * Yuka Koizumi — The granddaughter of the transformation bone's creator, Grandfather Koizumi. Yuka initially has a crush on Mirai, but later finds a different boyfriend, and becomes a more minor character. * Soichiro Koizumi — Brother to Yuka, who does not feature significantly after volume 1. * Grandfather Ji Koizumi — Creator of the transformation bone, headteacher of the school attended by the children, and teacher of Ponta. * Hana Yamaguchi — Mirai's manipulative ex-girlfriend. She is very suspicious of Ponta, and wants to defeat her.

Release

Del Rey licensed ''Guru Guru Pon-chan'' for an English-language release in North America and published the volumes from July 26, 2005 to July 31, 2007. In the United Kingdom,

Tanoshimi Tanoshimi was the United Kingdom arm of US publisher Random House and was responsible for the publication of their English-language manga titles. Its relationship with Random House was the same as Del Rey, which released the same Manga titles fo ...

published ''Guru Guru Pon-chan'' from August 3, 2006 to August 2, 2007.

Volume list

References

External links

''Guru-Guru Pon-chan''
Official site by Del Rey Manga * {{DEFAULTSORT:Guru Guru Pon-Chan Del Rey Manga Kodansha manga Romantic comedy anime and manga Shōjo manga Winner of Kodansha Manga Award (Shōjo)