Kobo, the Li'l Rascal, also known as , is a 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...

 created by Masashi Ueda

Masashi Ueda

is a comic book artist who wrote Kobo, the Li'l Rascal .Ueda began drawing comic book strips when he worked in his brother's cram school. Ueda began producing Furiten-kun, a comic book strip about a mahjong player, in 1979. In 1982 Ueda won the Bungeishunjū Manga Award. During that year he began...

. Kodansha

Kodansha

, the largest Japanese publisher, produces the manga magazines Nakayoshi, Afternoon, Evening, and Weekly Shonen Magazine, as well as more literary magazines such as Gunzō, Shūkan Gendai, and the Japanese dictionary Nihongo Daijiten. The company has its headquarters in Bunkyō, Tokyo...

 published the book in a bilingual Japanese-English edition, and Kodansha America distributed the book in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

.

Kobo-chan began publication in the newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun

Yomiuri Shimbun

The is a Japanese newspaper published in Tokyo, Osaka, Fukuoka, and other major Japanese cities. It is one of the five national newspapers in Japan; the other four are the Asahi Shimbun, the Mainichi Shimbun, Nihon Keizai Shimbun, and the Sankei Shimbun...

on April 1, 1982. Beginning in December of that year, Soyosha published the series in book form. Nippon Television

Nippon Television

is a television network based in the Shiodome area of Minato, Tokyo, Japan and is controlled by the Yomiuri Shimbun publishing company. Broadcasting terrestrially across Japan, the network is commonly known as , contracted to , and abbreviated as "NTV" or "AX".-Offices:*The Headquarters : 6-1,...

 began airing the Kobo-chan strip on television on September 15, 1990. The weekly anime

Anime

is the Japanese abbreviated pronunciation of "animation". The definition sometimes changes depending on the context. In English-speaking countries, the term most commonly refers to Japanese animated cartoons....

 series ran on that channel from October 19, 1992, to March 21, 1994. Yomiuri had published 6,000 Kobo-chan strips by March 1999. Soyosha published Volume 60 on October 22, 2003. Houbunsha

Houbunsha

is a Japanese publishing company founded on July 10, 1950.-Manga Time magazines:*Manga Time*Manga Time Jumbo*Manga Time Lovely*Manga Time Family*Manga Time Special*Manga Time Original*Manga Home-Manga Time Kirara magazines:...

began publishing volumes on May 6, 2004. It most recently published volume 21 on July 7, 2011.

Characters

- The namesake of the series. - Kobo's mother. - Kobo's father. - Kobo's grandfather and Sanae's father - Kobo's grandmother and Sanae's mother - Takeo is Iwao's nephew

• 　 - kobo's younger sister