is a Japanese manga

Manga

Manga is the Japanese word for "comics" and consists of comics and print cartoons . In the West, the term "manga" has been appropriated to refer specifically to comics created in Japan, or by Japanese authors, in the Japanese language and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 19th...

 series written and illustrated by Yuu Asami. It began serialization in Princess

Princess (magazine)

is a shōjo manga magazine published monthly on the 6th in Japan by Akita Shoten. It is aimed at teenage girls, and its main competitors are Lala, Bessatsu Margaret, and Betsucomi. Its sister publication is , which branched out from the Princess magazine in 1979...

in June 1995. The individual chapters were collected and published in 17 tankōbon

Tankobon

, with a literal meaning close to "independently appearing book", is the Japanese term for a book that is complete in itself and is not part of a series , though the manga industry uses it for volumes which may be in a series...

volumes by Akita Shoten

Akita Shoten

is a Japanese publishing company established on August 10, 1948 in Chiyoda, Tokyo. Its main editorial target has always been teenagers , and it currently publishes mostly manga...

 with the first volume released in July 1995; the last volume was released in October 2003.

The series is licensed for an English language release in North America by Go! Comi

Go! Comi

Go! Comi was an imprint of the American manga publishing company, Go! Media Entertainment, LLC. They published such series as After School Nightmare, Cantarella, Her Majesty's Dog, Tenshi Ja Nai!! and Crossroad...

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Plot

The series focuses on Sui, the daughter of a genius engineer, and Vermillion, a new high tech robot created by her father that looks, talks, and acts like a human teenage boy. Sui is tasked with teaching him what it means to be human, not expecting to find herself falling in love.

Volume listing

Reception

Pop Culture Shock's Katherine Dacey compares the manga's artwork to those of Keiko Nishi’s "with its slightly stylized character designs, delicate linework, and sparing use of screentone." Manga Life's Ysabet Reinhardt MacFarlane commends the manga for its "detailed and very easy to follow" artwork. Mania.com's Sakura Eries criticises the manga for its "not very compelling" protagonists. Later reviews by Sakura Eries criticises the manga, which was published in 1996, for its "futuristic anachronism" of the story that is set in 2021. Eries comments that the scenarios would seem dated in the post 9/11 world. She also criticised the manga for its unrealistic plot.