Appare Jipangu!

Appare Jipangu! is a manga by Yuu Watase. Set in Japan during the Edo period, it follows the life of Yusura, who, as a baby, was found under a cherry tree with the Kongoumaru (a sword than turns blue when people are sad) by her side. Now, 15 years later, Yusura has become the hikeshiya (or extinguisher of sorrow) and uses the Kongoumaru to 'absorb' people's sadness and hit it back at the people that caused it.

Compared to Watase's other works, Appare Jipangu! is considerably more light-hearted, with less sappy dialogues. Watase herself has stated that she wishes to make the manga 'even more wacko!'

Characters

• Yusura

As a child was abandoned by her birth-parents and found under a cherry tree. Now the hikeshiya, she goes around healing people's sadness with her Kongoumaru. Although she loves her adoptive parents, Yusura is still trying to find her birth-parents.

Hot-headed and tomboy-ish, she dresses like a boy and the inability of new characters to identify her gender serves as a running joke through the series.

• Samon

A member of the royal family, he is the son of the Daimyo. However, his mother was a prostiture and the Daimyo was not too happy to learn of his existence. Yusura met him after saving him from some assasins.

Samon is practically blind and has difficulty seeing without his glasses, often mistaking other objects for Yusura.

• Minekichi

Helps Yusura out with her sadness-hunting 'business'. He is in love with the lady at the bath-house and likes playing with strange puppets.