This is Bikko, and You Can Help Us Bring Her To Life

art by kei http://gelbooru.com/index.php?page=post&s=list&tags=kei_%28artist%29

This is Bikko. She’s around 19 years old. Her right eye and left leg were lost in an accident, and her eye has gotten pretty bad since. Even though she has to use a crutch or a wheelchair to get around, Bikko is a guitarist and singer in a punk-rock band. She is also a prostitute on the side, since she doesn’t hold a normal job. However, Bikko is always in high spirits (her love of marijuana helps~) and she has a very bright outlook on life. She usually wears an easy smile on her face and just goes with the flow, wherever it takes her. She likes simple clothes, especially boys clothes and punk styles, and her hair has gone white from the stress of her condition, though one section has remained black. She is a heavy smoker and likes a drink as much as you might expect. Her little apartment is a bit of a mess, and her cats always running around, but it’s very homely. Sometimes, she hangs out with her high-school younger sister, and they have a smoke together. These are the facts about Bikko. These are all we know.

art by romantic fool http://gelbooru.com/index.php?page=post&s=list&tags=romantic_fool

Bikko was the star of an H-manga called Kesson Shoujo by the artist ‘Romantic Fool Since 1995’. Her character became very popular years back when illustrations began to circulate, and many people were inspired to do their own fanart. 2channel was apparently desperate to find information on this manga, however it proved very difficult to find. Luckily, the manga’s author provided some information via his site. Most of it is what you see in the above paragraph, but he also talked about how the inspiration for Bikko was a woman he knew who had lost an arm and some fingers in an accident, but still managed to be an incredibly strong and happy person. I guess he basically dreamed up a way to make her life even shittier, and then draw a character who could still be so strong.

Her sister is often drawn with cat ears.

However, in spite of this info from the author (whom US ambassadors to 2channel have told us that 2ch describes as ‘a very weird guy’), no one has any copies of the manga itself. Neither the Japanese nor American Bikko fans can find it, and we’ve been trying for years. As a matter of fact, Bikko’s popularity has largely come about from when people learned about her from joining the massive search parties for her manga. 4chan, 420chan, and gurochan all have routine investigations, with many ambassadors to 2channel pulling info and always finding that the Japanese are as dumbfounded as we are about this.

Some of her more fashionable attire

The reason is, apparently, that it was only a local print, with very few copies, all of which were sold. We’ve even found ebay auctions from years back of a copy getting sold for a very high price, so it’s perhaps no surprise that no one has been willing to break the binding on their rare manga to let the rest of the world see. No one knows why the manga author hasn’t released it to the net himself, to the point that some have suggested that he doesn’t even have a copy either!

art by big-d http://gelbooru.com/index.php?page=post&s=list&tags=big-d%28artist%29

Well, today, the denizens of /a/ decided to take action. After a long-running Bikko thread wherein new fans were filled in on the long struggle, many began to suggest that we produce a new Bikko manga. After all, we may never see the original work, so as long as we are all so obsessed with the character, we might as well create our own canon for her. Quickly, talks began to spark about how we would go about doing this.

art by romantic fool http://gelbooru.com/index.php?page=post&s=list&tags=romantic_fool

The idea is that we will create a script for a one-shot manga, and then commission an artist to draw it. Many people expressed their willingness to contribute to the cost, and when it became apparent that some members were taking it seriously, I decided to take action. Therefor, I directed everyone to IRC. (irc.rizon.net #fuzakenna). Once some members arrived, we began to deliberate on what kind of manga it would be, how we would treat the characters, and what the scenario would be. When ideas began to settle into place, I created a document to compile them all. (http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AQnXByJZ9gFtZGZ4eDV2bmRfNDVkcTlrc3hobQ&hl=en)

sometimes seen in a wheelchair. Art by Kei http://gelbooru.com/index.php?page=post&s=list&tags=kei_%28artist%29

So far, we have settled on the feel of story and characters, and we have completed a first-draft chronology of events. We are still waiting to see if others want to add things. A member named ‘ambassador’ expressed his desire to help in writing the conversation between Bikko and her sister, and others are willing to help in whatever ways possible. We are going to campaign further to find people who know how to write a proper and organized manga script. Other anons have stated their ability to translate whatever we write into Japanese in case we decide to contract a Japanese artist, and if we contract an American, than our work is cut out for us.

Art by chi http://gelbooru.com/index.php?page=post&s=list&tags=chi_%28pixiv2035%29

Threads on 4chan and 420chan have shown that many people are excited about our ideas, and I too am very excited. I’ve been a fan of Bikko for a long time, and I would really love to be able to introduce a solid piece of work around her not only to inspire others, but to grant her access to a wider audience. I believe that we can do it. Great things have come from humble /a/ beginnings before (Katawa Shoujo, anyone?) and that trend shall continue here.

So, you’ve heard my call. Now I want to know – what can you do to help? If you are at all interested in being a part of this movement, please comment on this post or go to irc.rizon.net #fuzakenna. We will be looking forward to your contribution!

(To see more delicious Bikko, simply search her name on your local image site!)

UPDATE April 7: I have been contacted by an artist expressing enthusiasm in doing the artwork for this project! Once I finish writing the script and layouts, I will be sending them their way. You can view some of the artist’s work here.

UPDATE September 28: A lot of people have been visiting this post lately, so I thought I’d update with how things’ve gone so far. I haven’t finished the script for this nor the sketches, though I sent sketches of the first three pages to the illustrator months ago. They told me that they were working on those pages back in June, but I never heard back from them since. That said, with the amount of support still going on for this, I still want to see it through to completion. I have some parties interested in helping me, but we want to keep it on the down-low until he have more clear plans. If you want to do anything with what we have so far, be my guest. To see the written layouts I have so far (9 pages) click here. You can also look at my sketches for the first three pages, but I warn you that they’re *really* terrible. (1 2 3)