Does anyone know about the Narutaru/shadow star manga and/or anime?

[piloting]

One of the criticisms about Pokemon is the whole absurdity of little kids controlling and using powerful creatures in general and the mayham that would happen IRL if that were to ever happen (which has been more problematic ever since the more deified legendaries like Kyogre of gen.III).I suppose that Mohiro Kitoh was indeed thinking of the “what if these powerful creatures existed IRL?” question and made a whole manga to answer this.For this question he made an genre deconstruction manga that will answer ppl’s questions about that speculation.It’s Narutaru/Shadow star and IT IS the manga of the “Pokemon gone bad IRL” scenario.It’s about a little girl who finds a starfish like creature with powers but finds out that a few other kids also have such creatures but use them for more selfish pursuits including world domination.

What catches my attention is that it came out in **1998**.Back then one of the few *kiddy Mon series was Pokemon which had been established in Japan for 3 years and which was gaining momentum in the West at that time.Besides that there was the release of the 1st Monster Rancher game in '97 and Digimon had only a few promotional mangas out and still a year away from it’s anime release.I don’t really feel like watching the anime of this b/c I ‘ve heard that it’s sort of open-ended (`~` which I interpret as meaning not exactly like the manga like with the 2k3 FMA ending) and it was written by Chiaki Konaka who wrote the Digimon Tamers anime which was already a deconstruction of the 1st two seasons of Digimon by emphasizing the tech side of Digimon and consequences much more then the sentimentality and "power of virtue" stuff of the 1st two seasons,so I kinda have a feeling that if I do watch it’ll feel a bit predicatable and familiar to me.

`_` Really makes me wonder if Satoshi Tajiri (the dude who made Pokemon and Ash's Japanese version name) had thought of the those questions as far back as '98 or before.Does anyone know a/o can tell me more about Narutaru?.I've only gotten through 1/12 volumes and nothing much...yet.

*See here's the thing about the mon genre.It's sort of like how a lot of fairy tales as most of us know them today are sweetened and watered down versions of old grim European folklore.The true originator of the mon series is the Shin Megami Tensei games series which it's disturbing thematic dystheistic connotations.I guess all those like parental gruops who think pokemon is "demonic" have in an odd comical way been pointing there finger at the wrong suspect so to speak,I guess you can say.All the familar kiddy series that came after are heavily watering down the controlling fantastical beings model it uses.The Persona games are a spin-off of it.

[Melchior]

Basically, the anime is 'open-ended' because it gets through the first 7-odd volumes, and stops there. It also has a very deceptive opening, unless you are familiar with the series already. From what I have seen, it at least follows the American release of the manga pretty closely. On a side note, only 7 of the volumes were released in the US, with portions of the 8th released individually but never collected.

Though, as has been shown with his work Bokurano Mohiro Kitoh tends to use the fantastical to showcase concerns in Japanese society. Yes, people have strange, usually little, alien critters following them around and obeying them. But the reasons things get so out of control are these societal problems, the biggest shown being the bullying in school.... though there are plenty others, some which might be more important that my reading skills (and the fact I've only gotten through 7 volumes) have missed. I know apathy, the sexualization of children, eugenics, international politics, peer pressure, school pressure, terrorism, etc.

Anyway, if you do not believe me about the opening, here it is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIF5BLyh3Mk

[MrMancha]

Basically, the anime is 'open-ended' because it gets through the first 7-odd volumes, and stops there. It also has a very deceptive opening, unless you are familiar with the series already. From what I have seen, it at least follows the American release of the manga pretty closely. On a side note, only 7 of the volumes were released in the US, with portions of the 8th released individually but never collected.

Though, as has been shown with his work Bokurano Mohiro Kitoh tends to use the fantastical to showcase concerns in Japanese society. Yes, people have strange, usually little, alien critters following them around and obeying them. But the reasons things get so out of control are these societal problems, the biggest shown being the bullying in school.... though there are plenty others, some which might be more important that my reading skills (and the fact I've only gotten through 7 volumes) have missed. I know apathy, the sexualization of children, eugenics, international politics, peer pressure, school pressure, terrorism, etc.

Anyway, if you do not believe me about the opening, here it is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIF5BLyh3Mk

its funny cause its all there in the op
i liked Bokurano a little more cause least the most of the kids got time for closure,though narutaru gave the chance at hope that humanity would live on