For many years now, one of my favorite comics has been SPACE FAMILY CARLVINSON by Asari Yoshitoh. Unfortunately, it has often been a difficult title to find in stores. Serialized monthly in SHONEN CAPTAIN, it may not be the easiest title to find in bookshops but it has always proven to be worth the search.
SPACE FAMILY CARLVINSON was Asari's breakthrough work when it first began in 1986, and it remains perhaps his most popular comic. Readers of Newtype may recognize his art style from his "Let's Go!! Unagi-chan!" shorts that have appeared infrequently in Comic Genki. Unagi-chan, a bizarre parody of the Sailor Moon stories, is also a good example of his outlandish humor style. Asari keeps his art very clean and sparse, though his attention to certain details such as cerebral wrinkling and intestines can be quite impressive. His treasures, though, tend to be his facial expressions -- even though the majority of his characters are non-humanoid, he can bring life, character, and humor to them all. Knowledge of Japanese is a definite help in reading his manga, however, as much of his humor is at least partially verbal.
The story begins as a travelling theatre troupe's spacecraft grazes an unidentified ship along the borders of explored space. The mysterious ship crashlands on a nearby planet and the group lands to investigate. The ship is of a type never seen before, and the only survivor in the wreckage is an infant of an unknown species, shielded from the crash by the bodies of her parents. Because they have no way of knowing the child's race or home planet, they resolve to become her family and raise her on that frontier planet until another ship from her species comes along and they can return her to her people. Five years pass, and the young human girl Corona-chan grows up firmly believing that the odd collection of beings around her are her true family.
Corona-chan's family is by no means a normal one. Mother is a large, purple furball with vaguely cat-like features. Father is a compact piece of transforming mecha, not too bright but rumored to have once been a powerful war machine. Taa-kun, relegated to being Corona's "pet squirrel," is essentially a self-animate humanoid central nervous system. Belka, the group's only human-like member, takes over as the local sheriff. And their mobile computer, Andy, runs the local general store. Naturally, Corona's home life isn't exactly normal, but with nothing to compare against, she has no way of knowing.
Corona and her family live in a small town with a rustic feel, and many of the stories draw from the city and its inhabitants. Like a town in the old west, strangers wander into town with a grudge to settle or a scheme to play. Lyka, a devil-girl and an old school friend of Belka's, tracks her to the village to seek revenge for old wrongs. But her plans for vengeance never come out right because of Belka's near-invulnerability while she's asleep. Lyka moves in with Shovel Mouse (a four-foot high mouse who carries a shovel, obviously) until she can figure out how to achieve her ultimate revenge.
The local run-down movie theatre is owned by John, the dog-shaped proprietor whose tastes run to questionable science fiction and monster films. John also has the ability to grow tendrils and body parts, detach his head, and rearrange his internal organ s in a way familiar to anyone who has seen the 1980's remake of THE THING. Asari's fondness for Carpenter films becomes clearer throughout the series. (One of my favorite stories is a parody of THEY LIVE. True to form, a multi-page World Wrestling Federation-style fight scene breaks out in the middle of the story for no particular reason.)
It is difficult to briefly describe the series because most of the stories are short and self-contained; perhaps a luxury of a monthly-published comic. Yet most stories relate to Corona-chan and her unusual childhood. Mother is shrewd and strict, Father is overly generous and not too bright, and Taa-kun is long suffering as the often abused pet. In her unusual home life, we see the common experiences of childhood, and as she begins to learn that these are not her true parents, we see that it makes little difference. These are the people who care for her and love her. And that, more than anything else, makes them family.

SPACE FAMILY CARLVINSON
by Asari Yoshitoh
Shonen Captain/Tokuma Shoten
ISBN # 4-19-836540-7 (volume 1)
¥410