The story of Norakuro and his family

It’s really hard to believe it, but Norakuro was one of the first Shōnen and Seinen manga protagonists who grew up with his intended audience. Which also means he is one of the main reasons why Shōnen and Seinen aimed mangas are still with us even today. 

Norakuro as a franchise is usually more popular in its native Japan than anywhere else, even though each one of its two major anime adaptations is a cult classic in countries like Italy and India. The franchise is currently owned (in an unexpected twist) by the Yamane Twins estate because its creator Suiho Tagawa passed away at 90 near Christmas 1989. The surviving twin owns the franchise because he and his slightly older brother adopted it from the dying manga grandmaster. 

As with the works made by Osamu Tezuka when he was alive, Suiho Tagawa’s own works are on the process of becoming public domain in 2040 for Peru, 2050 for India and 2060 for much of the world including Japan and Australia. But the character, or more accurately a legacy of characters under the same name, is trademarked anyway. 

The original Norakuro manga series and its first (militarised) sequels are sometimes regarded as notorious stereotype havens, although they’re frankly not as insanely fascistic as the first two full length Momotaro films in Japanese cinematic history. There are also a bunch of post war sequels which likely lasted from 1947 until 1981 in various magazines and newspapers. 

Since their love story was an unexpected marvel for its time, Norakuro and Ogin Chan are one of the first major power couples in modern manga history, with their gaggle of children and grandchildren appearing occasionally in various spin-offs. 

The anime adaptations are also pretty interesting! 

There are seven extant short films about the character, which were all based on the first series and released from 1933-39. 

The franchise’s first tv anime instalment has a pretty good Italian dub simply called Nero, likely because the same protagonist initially was a designated butt monkey. 

Meanwhile, its second anime instalment named Norakuro Kun, has slightly more fame than its distant prequel, since its Hindi dub is called Blackie the Funny Dog and is quite popular with Hindi speaking North Indian anime fans who grew up in the 2000s and 2010s. 



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