is a long-running Japanese josei

Josei

also known as or , is a term that refers to the target demographic of manga created mostly by women for late teenage and adult female audiences. Readers range from 15-44. In Japanese, the word josei means simply "woman", "female", "feminine", "womanhood" and has no manga-related connotations at...

 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...

 by Nanae Haruno

Nanae Haruno

is a josei manga artist. She made her professional debut in 1979 with Kyupiido Beibi in Seventeen. She was a steady writer for Young You magazine, until the magazine stopped publication...

. It was serialized in the manga magazine Young You, published by Shueisha

Shueisha

is a major publisher in Japan. The company was founded in 1925 as the entertainment-related publishing division of Japanese publisher Shogakukan. The following year, Shueisha became a separate, independent company. Magazines published by Shueisha include Weekly Shōnen Jump, Weekly Young Jump,...

. The chapters were collected into 27 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...

. This manga was awarded the Shogakukan Manga Award

Shogakukan Manga Award

The is one of Japan's major manga awards, sponsored by Shogakukan Publishing. It has been awarded annually for serialized manga since 1955 and features candidates from a number of publishers.The current award categories are:...

 for shōjo

Shojo

The term refers to manga marketed to a female audience roughly between the ages of 10-18. The name romanizes the Japanese 少女 , literally: "little female". Shōjo manga covers many subjects in a variety of narrative and graphic styles, from historical drama to science fiction — often with a strong...

 in 1990, and it was also adapted into a live-action series, broadcast by NHK

NHK

NHK is Japan's national public broadcasting organization. NHK, which has always identified itself to its audiences by the English pronunciation of its initials, is a publicly owned corporation funded by viewers' payments of a television license fee....

. It was shown from April 12, 2003 to June 28, 2003, for a total of twelve episodes.

Plot

Chise is an elementary school girl who lives with her widowed father, a novelist. Her mother died when she was very young, but she is extremely close to her father. He is the one she loves the most, and because he works as a novelist, he spends most of his time at home, much to the delight of Chise.

External links

• Shueisha's page for Papa Told Me
• NHK's page for the live action drama