Chapter 4:

[Blog #2] - Feb 18

Puchi Pura Midori!

Updated: Feb 18 2026

So, newcomers usually end up inevitably asking what the title actually means.

Puchi. Pura.

And I'm here to tell you, as the premier leading, foremost authority of all things PuchiPura on the internet (joking, of course, I joke, I joke; I'm quite humble actually; I'm literally the most humble otaku who's ever lived) that, uh, well …

It doesn't really mean anything!

(Oh, how anticlimactic. I know. Sad trombone noises.)

Fun fact, none of the characters actually say Puchi (Petit) in the series, anyway, at any point. Or Pura, for that matter.

… Weeeeeell, unless you consider the episode previews part of the show.

There's one exchange, in the preview at the end of Season 1, Episode 3, that goes something like this—

LOTTE: Nee, nee, Tomo-chan, what's the Pura short for?

TOMOE: How should I know? …

LOTTE: How about, Purachina (Platinum)?

HANAKO: M-maybe it's … Purasutikku (Plastic) …

SANA: I'm supremely confident that it's short for Puranku Teisuu (Planck constant).

LOTTE: I have no idea what that is, Sana-chan.

SANA: Well, by definition it's 6.6260701 … (continues on in background)

TOMOE: (If you know that, Sana, why are your grades so bad …)

MIDORI: Midori thinks it's the noise of friendship and happiness! 'Pura!~' E-he-he!

ALL: Next time, on PuchiPura—Episode 4, "The Trouble with the Disciplinary Committee!"

LOTTE: Look forward to it!

… Heh.

I typed that all out by memory just now.

Impressive, right? (Okay, I admit, I had to look up the Planck constant. But that was the only part, I swear.)

But those end tags kinda happen outside the continuity, don't they? Such as a certain hypercompetent operations officer promising, Service! Service!, at the end of an episode.

(Because, as you know, the canonical status of the next-episode previews is probably the single most imperative facet of a moeblob show.)

(Actually, hold on. Maybe it is an important consideration, because PuchiPura is not really a self-referential, meta show at all. The characters certainly never make self-aware jokes or anything like that. It's not that kinda show. The end tags are the only place where that happens. Let's consider the narratological implications of this …)

… Hey, you know, it's kind of a shame, if I'm being perfectly honest, a missed opportunity to keep the acronym PPP for each title?

Season 1: PuchiPura Panic!

Season 2: PuchiPura Passion!

Season 3 (upcoming, unaired): PuchiPura Revival! (PPR!??! C-c-c-combo breaker …)

Of course, these days, if you type in PuchiPura in the YooDoob search bar, you usually just get a bunch of beauty tutorials about cheap makeup. The Pura in this case short for, Price.

But I … believe (?) the manga actually came first, beating out the colloquial term by a few years? I dunno. I'm not really the target demographic for beauty products. I don't know anything about that side of the internet, so don't quote me on that.

Oh, speaking of the manga—

You might find yourself wondering what exactly the new upcoming season (man, summer is honestly still so long away; these next six months will be absolutely intolerable …) is going to adapt.

Because first off, the manga itself hasn't been updated in more than a decade now. Matter of fact, the original serial publication it was part of no longer exists anymore.

… But!

I am here!!

To tell you!!!

That in no uncertain terms, that PuchiPura the anime, honestly has very little to do with the manga in the first place.

As such I expect the third season to mostly, if not entirely, feature original stories.

After all, that's what happened with the first two seasons.

See, folks, PuchiPura is kind of a unique case among other shows of its brethren. (By which I mean shows of the teenaged-girls-doing-mundane-things variety.)

For the uninitiated, AKA those unaware with how anime adaptations work, (because clearly that's the type of person who would click on to a long-running Heisei-era blog about a show nobody talks about anymore), let me explain:

… Ya see, anime adaptations are usually made to advertise the source material.

That's the reason every show, other than the ultra-giga-popular mega-franchises, only gets a single cour (that's 12 episodes; again, for the uninitiated), and often you're left without any sort of closure. 12 episodes is usually enough for a few arcs, and maybe the first major 'big bad' villain arc for a fantasy or action anime. (Which honestly is fine for plotless iyashikei shows.)

But rarely does your average show see so much as a second season. You might get an OVA with the physical disc release, and that's it. (Invariably full of fanservice, of course. … Well, at least that's how it used to work. … Things are different now.)

So yeah, your average show adapts the few first arcs of a manga, and that's it.

Now. PuchiPura is not that show.

Aside from the initial formation of the Flower Arrangement Club (Tentative), the anime has … little in common with the manga.

And you know, I'm just gonna put this out there now (which I don't even think is that spicy of a take, I think most of the Puchi Fans out there would agree with me here), but:

The manga really isn't all that good.

I have all the volumes, of course, what sort of Puchi Fan would I be if I didn't have them?, and I rarely open them up to re-read.

In fact: take a look at them, the whole series in tankoubon, sitting on my bookshelf, which serves as my PuchiPura shrine.

… Let me take a picture.

[ attachment: IMG_20260118_030314.jpg ]

Like it?

Those magical figure outfit figures, were a limited edition, available only at crane game machines. I think I spent several Yukichis on that alone. (… I'm not good at crane games.)

Oh! The acrylic figures next to the FAC(T) plush dolls were part of a cafe collaboration a couple years ago. I have the cafe pictures too, if you want to see, here, in my writeup for that.

(And I'm sure you're interested in the penlights on the middle shelf. Heh, don't worry. I'll do a whole entry on that, coming later.)

Anyway, what was I saying?

Oh, yeah, the manga.

Yeah, it's the epitome of mid.

Like, it's … fine. The art is … fine. The writing is … fine.

But Asteroid Produce really took what was an essentially, let's be honest, forgettable manga, and really went above and beyond. It's the director, the animators, the storyboarders, the composers, and of course the voice actresses, that really make what we recognize as PuchiPura today, and what we love about it, what it is. The endearing characters. The trademark humor. The cuteness.

Although, there is one extra unique thing about the manga worth mentioning.

The mangaka doesn't … exist.

Okay, that sounds a bit spooky when I put it that way.

They don't actually not exist.

I mean, nobody knows who they are.

PuchiPura (the manga) is effectively a creator-less work. It's not even published anonymously.

There's just … no mention of the mangaka anywhere.

I suppose they just want privacy. Which is not really that strange.

It's pretty common for mangaka to publish under pseudonymous mononyms. (Even using alternative ones to separate mainstream stuff from any, ahem, spicier material, should they choose to work in that latter field.)

Among message boards and the broader otaku sphere, sometimes the mangaka is referred to, somewhat facetiously, and verbosely, as The Anonymous Artist Behind PuchiPura (Manga Version). Which is mostly just a meme more than anything. Anytime we need to refer to them as an individual, we just say the mangaka.

I didn't even know the manga existed when I first watching the first season, all those years ago.

2009, man. Seriously.

Let's see—I was still in college at that time. Third-year, to be exact.

(Don't try to figure out my age based on that, by the way. Hey, you don't know, maybe I was a super-genius who skipped a bunch of grades.)

(Spoiler alert: I am not a super-genius who skipped a bunch of grades.)

(Anyway, I later dropped out anyway, so it's a moot point.)

For various reasons, I was going through a pretty dark period in my life then.

The only real bright spot I had was, sitting in my dorm room at 2AM, looping the previous week's episode of PuchiPura as I hit refresh on MicoMicoDouga on another tab, waiting for this week's episode to drop. (Some of those sideways scrolling comments are probably still mine, in fact. … Yes, that's right, PuchiBro, yours truly, still sits there among that fifteen-year-old spam of wwwwwww, like a fossil in amber.)

There's something really liberating about being by yourself, behind a computer screen in a dark room, at an hour when everybody else in the city, nay, the entire nation, is asleep. Even if you never leave your room otherwise, you don't feel the presence of everybody else around you.

At that hour, it's like you're the only person who exists.

It's funny—at the time, every day was like being trapped in a pit of misery and despair.

But when I think back on those days now, I only remember the good parts.

Waiting for new PuchiPura.

Posting with other Puchi Fans on the threads, insulting each other, or laughing about the crazy stuff Sana says. Arguing over Best Girl.

It's so weird: I spent most of my days during that time, not wanting to be … there anymore.

But when I think back on those times, I don't remember those parts. All that pain and suffering.

I mainly just remember the good times, as few as they were. And as alone as I was then. (Well, I'm still alone, but that's … beside the point.)

I remember my ritual of making a cup of midnight coffee, sitting down to watch PuchiPura when the rest of the world was asleep. Listening to the character songs on my headphones, on repeat, lying in bed.

Good times.

… Good times.

Sometimes I find myself even wanting to go back to those days, which is insane when you consider that I spent entire days just lying in bed, numb.

But then again, when you really think about it—

My days now, seventeen years later, aren't that much different.

I'm no longer in a dorm room, of course.

Actually, I'm back in the same bedroom I grew up in as a child.

And even now, I'm still nocturnal more often than most.

I mean, I'm writing this blog post at—what is it? Let me check.

3 freakin' AM in the morning.

So maybe I never left those days.

I dunno.