My Daughter, the Dojikko

I’ve always thought my life would make a good basis for a 4-koma (4-panel) manga, perhaps called “Papa wa Gaikoujin” (Dad is a Foreigner). I think there’d be a lot of potential humor in a comic about an American who runs a company in Japan, and how his Japanese employees adjust to working for a foreigner who pulls out Gundam quotes at random. The comic would also feature my wife, who pretends to be an average Japanese woman despite having married me, and my overly-analytical son, a “physics otaku” given to pointing out everyone’s faults like Meru Otonashi from Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei. But the star of the comic would be my daughter, who is the classic Japanese dojikko or clumsy lead character, like Sailor Moon or Doremi from the magical girl anime. Her love of reading manga instead of studying, tendency to fail to know any English or Japanese word at the most embarrassing moment and general ability to make everyone else in the family say nyoro~n! a lot (essentially meaning “oh, I am so upset”) would be funny to read, I think.

Magical Girl Doremi (center) is an example of a dojikko or clumsy character, like my daughter.