Pita Ten, Vol. 01

ぴたテン [Pita Ten] #1

by Koge-Donbo*

Kotaru lives in a single parent household and needs a guardian angel. He gets his angel in the form of a new neighbor named Misha, but she ends up causing lots of trouble!

Genres: Manga, Fantasy, Graphic Novels, Romance, Fiction, Comics, Shonen

200 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2000

About the author

Koge-Donbo (or Koge-Donbo*) is the pen name of a Japanese manga artist. Koge-Donbo* started her career soon after college as a doujinshi artist. She got the idea of a unique pen-name, Koge-Donbo* from Akira Toriyama's pet cat. She made her first official US appearance at Otakon 2004 in Baltimore, MD as a Guest of Honor.
She's known best as the author of Pita-Ten, Kamichama Karin, and Kamichama Karin Chu series.

Reviews

[Bibliothecat · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review for the complete series

Pita Ten was one of my first manga and one I still love to this day. I was a little taken aback when I realised there are quite a few negative reviews floating around for this series - after a reread ad mulling it over, I think I can see why. Some of it seems to come down to the English translation which I personally haven't read so I can't comment. But Koge-Donbo has quite a particular style, both art and story telling, which mixes certain elements together that don't often appeal to the same readers, and I find this shows particularly strong in Pita Ten.

This story around Kotaru and the angel Misha who moves in next door has all the signs of being a cutesy manga. The characters are in their early teens, the plot and especially Misha appear quite silly and even random and the distinct but cute art plays right into that. But Koge-Donbo often likes to blend over the top cute content with silly humour and darker underlining themes. While all the going ons in this series may start off seeming silly and without direction, it's actually a bittersweet tale of realising one's own dreams rather than relying on others.

You have to get about half way through the series before the more serious themes start to surface, and some readers might have already been put off by the silliness before they reach that point. Had I read this manga now for the first time, I might have felt the same. Although I still think that this is quite a niche manga that might not appeal to all, I do think that one needs a little patience with it for it to unfold its messages and potential.

One thing that I did notice during my reread is that I think the story would have benefited a lot had the characters been a tad older. Even a year old two older would have helped, at least I think some of the more serious themes - especially around love and loss - feel less impactful purely based on the fact that the characters are just barely teenagers.

Despite its flaws, I very much enjoy Pita Ten and it's more than nostalgia that lets it keep a place in my heart. It is both sweet and bittersweet and I wouldn't expect anything else from Koge-Donbo.

[Keziah · Rating 2 out of 5]

2/5 stars...

I was very disappointed because I had great expectations for this book.

First of all, at first I thought I read it wrong because it was so confusing. Turns out that I read it right. I had to read the beginning twice to understand.

Then, Misha (the main character) appears out of the blue and starts stalking a guy for all the book, being quite loud and extravagant, but nobody seems to mind or tell her to stop! And 3-4 times, she tells them she's an angel, but nobody questions it, or asks her to explain. Everybody seems to go along with it. And by the way, I didn't like how the author made the angels be.

Also, sometimes, I found that the character are drawn so similarly that it is hard to know who's talking...

Bottom line, I was not that bad, but it was hard for me to reach for and enjoy. I don't think I would recommend. :/

[natalie · Rating 1 out of 5]

the story was bad and kinda confusing and the dialogue was so unbearable i wanted to kill myself. the art was kinda cute tho

[Karaoke OK · Rating 1 out of 5]

[Series Length: 8 volumes / Read: volumes 1]

I actually purchased the entire book series solely on the recommendation of a couple of acquaintances (who I've come to later learn really valued looks over substance).

In terms of character-design, female protagonist Misha is pretty cute and adorable. However, I just couldn't get past how annoying and intrusive she was in the first volume, so much so that I stopped reading the series pretty much afterwards. If I have the entire 8-book series sitting right there on my shelf and I still refuse to continue reading it, that should tell you something.

Never fear, though, since waste is one of my biggest pet peeves, I have loaned my copies to a military friend serving overseas. Hopefully, the manga will at least help take his mind away from his sometimes harsh realities.

[Nikakioy · Rating 1 out of 5]

Der erste Band hat kaum Inhalt und man hat nur wenig Lust weiter zu lesen. Ich hab sehr lange gebraucht, um mich durchzuringen. Die Story ist zusammenhangslos und dadurch verwirrend und nicht besonders spannend. Ich hoffe der nächste Band macht es besser. Die Zeichnungen sind schön, aber das alleine reicht nicht für einen guten Manga.

[Neide Gomes · Rating 3 out of 5]

3/5 stars!

“Because you are here, I am happy.”



This series contains: cram school, lunchboxes, close friends, angels, and demons.

*Review of the original 8 volumes*
*There will be some spoilers and comparisons to the anime throughout the review! Proceed with caution!*

I finally finished the Pita-Ten manga series!
I watched the anime version a few years ago and I didn’t even know this was originally a manga series, so when I found out I immediately wanted to get my hands on it!
I liked the anime version because it was light and very fun. I thought the story was creative and funny, and I ended up having a lot of fun watching it. On the plus side, it’s also not a very long series, so it was perfect to binge-watch.
In case you don’t know what the story is about, it follows a student named Kotarou. He’s living a very basic life (and kind of sad to be honest), but things quickly change after meeting his new neighbor, an angel-in-training named Misha!
It was interesting to see that there are a lot of differences between the manga and the anime. When I reached the 60-70% mark on the manga, I noticed the mood started to change a lot and the story became more serious and took a different direction. At this point, the story got really confusing and I admit I started losing interest. Some relationships are portrayed differently - some develop and others don’t. It was very interesting to see the different directions the manga and anime take.
The characters were great. I can see a lot of people being annoyed at Misha and the way she talks, but it wasn’t something that bothered me. I guess I got used to it! Kotarou was a great main character, and even though he had a lot going on in his life, he showed a lot of character development throughout the books! All of his friends were amazing and supportive, and I also loved Shia - although her story was a little complex and difficult at times to understand.
The ending was bittersweet. Not exactly a bad ending, but also a little unexpected to be honest. Still, I liked it and I understand the message behind it: we need to be responsible for our happiness and we can’t count on others to give us that! A beautiful message, if you ask me.
Overall it was an okay series! It’s far from perfect, but I still enjoyed it for what it was. I kind of want to binge on the anime again now that I finished the manga.

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[Neko · Rating 1 out of 5]

It's amazing how the anime entertained me and the manga did nothing of the sorts! I never finished the series for some reason and I never realised it was based on a manga soooooo when I saw the 4 volume set going for dirt cheap I splashed some money on the manga..I wish I hadn't.

It's not the story that annoys me...It's the translation! It's stupidly over the top and way over hyped. I don't remember rolling my eyes so many times when watching the series. However, I do remember it being fun and silly - a light bit of fluff. But this is like whoever translated it was hopped up on sugar all the time.

The angle is over the top with wooshie booshie, lovely wovey, silly illy billy nilly...All extra stuff that can be added in to a plot line but NOT in nearly every sentence.

I will keep on reading the series as I got this in a 4 pack...I'm thankful it's a quick and light read otherwise I'd probably just store it away. Only other thing that gets me muddled up is how the speach bubbles aren't well constructed SO it's sometimes hard to follow who is saying what..Plus I find the characters all look similar to eachother (especially the girls) soooo I muck them up more..

Plus adding 'su' onto the end of nearly every sentence is a little aggravating (Yes,yes...I realise anime/manga characters do this..it's not a new concept to me but in this instance it seems over used like all the cutesy wooties words).

[Marzia · Rating 3 out of 5]

“You want to make other people happy …. And not yourself?”
“If I’m not happy… then I wouldn’t be able to make other people happy either.”

I remember really liking this series when I was younger so I wanted to revisit it as an adult and see what I saw in the series. Now, this manga is painfully dated. It comes from the era of manic pixie dream girls and 'glomping' and tons of embarrassing early 2000’s slang, so I wouldn’t be surprised if someone were to write it off entirely. If not for the ultra-cute art style of Koge-donbo

Kotaro is extremely likeable. He’s a main character at the centre of some romantic hijinks, but he’s got a calm placid nature, if not a little gloomy. But overall he’s just a lost middle schooler who is grieving the death of his mom, and struggling the balance of trying to be independent after hes been left alone, and being unable to ask for help from people. He feels alone and lost but it’s clear from the get-go he is clearly very loved, if not by Misha then by his friends, Koboshi and Takashi. Kotarou is very considerate and self-sacrificing. He will take on punishment so his friends do not have to take it alone. He’s got a bit of a cold atmosphere around him and he’s also very assertive and scrappy when needed.

Edit: Kotarou, is in fact, not a middle schooler but an elementary schooler.... It is extremly hard to tell this from the fact that evoryone in Koge-Donbo's art style looks kind of the same in age, and none of these elementary schoolers really act all that different from how middle schoolers are in other manga (at least for the time) so I was assuming he was around 15 when in actuality he is 12.

Misha is very much the manic pixie anime dream girl. She’s touchy-feely, airheadedly positive, acts like she was born yesterday, a literal angel, and she forces her way into Kotarou’s life to fix it up. It’s a lot. But what I did appreciate was her interactions with Koboshi near the end of this volume. You would expect that she would try to get closer to Kotarou during this hot springs section, but instead it’s used to further our understanding of her. She does have ambition for herself; she wants to become a full fledged angel, even though no one else is understanding how she’s being 100% serious about it. She’s seems to be rather contemplative, and when around Koboshi her personality is much calmer, especially when talking about her wants for the future. It’s clear that compared to the students she’s interacting with, Misha does have somewhat of a more mature personality in that she knows her plan for the future, while in the case of Koboshi and Kotarou they do not have a plan in mind. I also think it’s very striking that Misha places value on her own happiness, seeing it as key to being able to help people, that she cannot make others happy if she herself isn’t too. (This could be an explanation for her manic pixie dream girl persona that she keeps in public that she only drops around Koboshi, as a misguided way to show how 'happy' she is so that the others around her will also feel happy). This is a deep contrast to Kotarou who is unhappy but sacrifices himself for the sake of others, and does not tell others about how he’s grieving his mother; not even when he’s over exerting himself during Halloween and is having flashbacks to his mother’s body at the time of her car crash, something he was present for.

Misha is repeatedly called stupid and air headed, which can be true, but she is observant of people’s emotions, and there is a contrast between the manic side of her personality to the quiet sincere moments that elevates what she is trying to say when she is saying something important for the benefit of the kids around her. She also knows to bow out when Koboshi and Kotarou are having a moment. So it’s clear that despite being “stupid” she has higher emotional intelligence than one would think .

Then there’s Shia, she seems to be the more kuudere side to contrast Misha's overwhelmingly energetic personality. Together the Misha, Kotarou and Shia become a spectrum: Misha who can give endlessly and does so easily, Kotarou who needs but will not ask for anything, and Shia who desperately needs and takes. She is lonely and in pain, and unlike Kotarou, will siphon life force away from people to stay alive. In a way her grief and loneliness are much more familiar to Kotarou on the surface than Misha’s exuberance is; that's why Kotarou can feel both repulsion and a deep connection to her. It creates a surprising balance, knowing that Misha is endgame, but also making Kotarou's connection to Shia too a very important and understandable while she is part of this weird triangle.

Considering this story features a love triangle? love square?, it is all oddly not catty as you would expect for the early 2000’s. Misha is very supportive of her rivals, she’s literally giving her life force and living with Shia by the end of the volume, and she supports Koboshi when she’s talking about her hobbies and activities, and is happy to spend time with her, stating clearly that she likes her a lot, and she bows out, not wanting to interrupt her moment with Kotarou. I am kind of surprised how well this holds up in terms of writing, even if it is bogged down by the annoying early-2000's-ness of the overall dialogue and events.

Edit: but please god why can't they just be in middle school instead of elementary. Knowing where this goes, I would much rather have the characters be 15 instead of 12 and nothing would have to change because the plot about entrance exams could just be transposed to the kids trying to get into a good high school together instead of a middle school. Not saying that 12 year old's can't have little kid dates, but considering Misha's age is ambiguous, not just for being an angel but for exactly how old she is supposed to look.

[Rebecca Lowe · Rating 2 out of 5]

Middle school appropriate. I disliked this so much that I gave up after three chapters and started my review but went back to finish out of a sense of spite. Misha the angel is not cute. She talks and acts like a baby (“sowwy for all the twouble”), has an accent or speech mannerism (similar to Harley Quinn) that is supposed to make her seem rustic but is just annoying (“I said I was gonna cook you somethin’ yummy and I sure ain’t gonna give up ‘till I wows ya!”), and her lack of knowledge about humans leads to scenes like her trying to “protect” the main character Kotarou by throwing herself in front of the soccer ball while he is playing and getting them both dunked in a pond. The book attempts deep moments to make you forgive the annoying clumsiness (Sailor Moon or Naruto both do a good job of having “annoying” characters that you love anyway because they have depth to them) but those moments come too late (chapter 4) and seem like a one-off instead of a theme. The reveal that Misha is an angel was so rushed that the audience is left disappointed. Kotarou apparently has no reaction or thoughts on this revelation at all. Chapter 6 is when the story finally starts to feel more settled. Misha’s character calms down and her kindness starts to come out more. But then we get confusing things like a scene where another character seems to attack main character Kotarou from behind for no reason—or maybe they were grabbing him as he slipped on a soda can??? I might read book 2 to see if book 1 was just an incredibly rough start to a series but only because someone gave me book 1 and 2 for free.

[Christina · Rating 3 out of 5]

To be honest I am really glad this was a 1 dollar blind box. I would absolutely recommend this for a young audience who wants to start manga/anime. This is because the story is predictable for a prolific manga/anime watcher, one of the main characters has a baby voice (pwetty and testie-westie being examples) without any explanation for it (which is annoying especially for an speech therapist in training). The art style is adorable but it is not unique in my opinion and in addition theres a love triangle but again it's not presented in a unique way for me. So because of these points I have to give this manga a 2.5 to 3 out of 5 stars. I definitely recommend this for a new reader of manga and anime but it was not for me.

[Othy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I bought this for my 8 year old daughter (who loves it), but I've had the Japanese version for a while. I always wondered why it was hard to understand, and I blamed it on my admittedly poor Japanese, but I think there are problems with transition and panelization. My daughter didn't complain, so maybe it's just me. In the end, Misha is cute, if a little TOO cute, and that carries an otherwise slow story without many interesting characters.

[Amberly · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was okay. Both the writing was okay and the paced of plot was fine also it was too short in my opinion. The cover of book was okay and the characters were okay but they need to be flash out bit more.

[Jill · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have no idea what happened in this book other than there is a character who is an angel (or almost an angel? I couldn't tell)

[Kaylee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really good book, just read it in a day! I am planning to read all the volumes. Overall, great manga series.

[mayday · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hey guys, remember this manga?

It was so pretty and I didn't even understand one thing about its whole concept except high school boy and pretty goddess?

[Leigh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a cute blast from the past. This was one of the first manga series that I read back when I was a teenager. Still love the cute story.

[Kurtis Burkhardt · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a cute manga and has cute art/characters but that’s about it! The story was crappy and confusing 🤯😁❤️

[Jessica Wimberly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cute

[Annelotte · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very cute manga. I'm glad to have reread it again.

[Rayn · Rating 2 out of 5]

ugh

[Nicolas · Rating 2 out of 5]

Kinda bad. The writing makes me sick and the characters are a mess of squiggles and shojo eyes, despite this being ostensibly shonen

[star · Rating 4 out of 5]

it a nice book but the uwu talk was some think best way to put it made the whole office laugh.
read it is you have been on tumbler and can read uwu language. <3

[Gabe · Rating 2 out of 5]

umm stuff just kinda happens. the art is very cute but the story is seriously lacking.

[R · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fast, interesting read, and the illustrations are quite different from Kamichama Karin!

[Nynke · Rating 3 out of 5]

cute, not really my thing but it's fun

[Nicole (Reading Books With Coffee) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pita Ten is cute! I've wanted to read it for a while, and I finally got around to reading it! I liked it, and Misha is definitely...interesting. She is pretty over-the-top, and while I liked Pita Ten, I think a big part of why I didn't like it as much as I thought is because of Misha. I did like that she wanted to protect Kotarou, and maybe she'll calm down in the other volumes. It seemed a little younger than I expected it to be, and I'm not sure why- maybe because of how Misha talked? It did get irritating as the book went on, and it was a little too cutesy for my liking. I love cutesy, but apparently, it has limits.

If it does get toned down later on in the series, I think I could really like Misha a lot more than I did.

Like Kitchen Princess, I really liked the artwork and how you knew what was going on, even when there were no words to describe what was going on. I definitely want to read at least one or two more volumes, if not the entire series.

My Rating: 3 stars. Misha and the baby talk got to me overall, it is pretty cute, with awesome artwork.

[Magik · Rating 3 out of 5]

Oh wow I read this series over a decade ago. That's wild! And it's nothing like I remember. It's more slice of life than I remember which isn't a bad thing. Maybe it's just this volume? Maybe it gets more supernatural like I thought it was? Idk, It's a cute slice of life story about a lonely boy whose dad is always at work and whose mom is dead. Out of nowhere a very annoying (good lord she is annoying) angel shows up to pester him and make him not so lonely. I don't remember her being so annoying but good god she is. But in like a cutesy way that towards the end of the volume isn't so annoying? I think? I dunno. I have the other 7 volumes and I don't remember if I ever finished reading the series but I am going to now. Might as well. It's not like they take all that long to read and the art is cute enough.

[Katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Misha, the angel, is infuriating and confusing and if I were Kotaro - the boy she clings onto for no apparent reason - I would tell her were to go. She is invasive and down right rude, which fits hand in hand with her annoying 'mooshy wooshy' baby-talk.

Although this annoyed me at the start, I shall endeavour to read the rest of the series because it became a bit more mysterious and darker towards the end with the appearance of another angel(!?) - who hopefully doesn't seem to talk like a fool.

The artwork is also pretty cute, so here's hoping that Misha tones down the 'cuteness' and starts acting with a bit more dignity.

[✟Roxanne✟(Death by Book Avalanche) ☠ · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have read the whole series of Pita Ten, there are 8 books in total. It's a very very cute series, I really enjoyed it. Misha can be a little bit annoying at points but her cuteness won me over. Shia is probably my favourite character in the series, she was always very mysterious. If I remember correctly I cried at the end of the series, you know it's a good story when you get so attached to the characters.

[Esme · Rating 5 out of 5]

This books is about a boy that lives by himself and in a random day he finds an angel in his building... you have to read it to find out there adventures and people they meet. I love this book it made me laugh,cry,scream,and even think about how life really is...? The only thing that got me mad was the ending in the anime the book was in-general wonderful. Would read it again if they re-release it with a different publisher because I believe Tokyopop is not selling manga books at all.