St. Harenchi Girls' School

Cover to the Ribon appendix

**St. Harenchi Girls' School** (聖ハレンチ女学院, lit. "St. Shameless Girls' School") is a one-shot produced by Fujio Akatsuka, Mitsutoshi Furuya, and Keiji Yoshitani. It was serialized as extra material in the December 1968 issue of Ribon magazine.

## Overview

An unconventional, tomboyish young woman named Mary Pingpongs is transferred to the upper-class St. Hanagaoka Girls' School, a college for teaching ladies on how to be the most proper in their society.

However, Mary's non-conformist nature and ways of forward thinking help cause the rest of the student body to become as active as her, which winds up coming in handy during a gang's raid on the school.

The work was a collaborative effort, with Akatsuka coming up with the story and rough drafts, while Furuya and Yoshitani were mainly responsible for the finalized character designs; Yoshitani's gekiga touch was previously seen in the *Princess Shin-derella* one-shot in Shojo Friend, while Furuya had plenty previous experience with shojo and in assisting at Fujio Pro.

## Characters

### "Mary Pingpongs"/Himawari-san (Princess Mangaret)

Our protagonist, a tomboy that arrives to school in a bell-bottomed jumpsuit. She has no patience for the old-fashioned and classist mentality put out by the school, and strongly opposes any education that teaches other students to look down on the poor. She herself would rather read manga than study, and replaces the tea in the tea ceremony with sake to get the other girls drunk.

She becomes particularly close to three other students and they go off on exploits together, and uncover a nefarious plot for their school to be invaded. In the end, Mary is revealed to actually be an upper-class girl herself, the princess **Mangaret** (a pun on the "Margaret" magazine) of the Flower Country who wanted to motivate and empower others.

The flower name she is given as part of the school is Himawari (Sunflower).

### Keshi

A rather short girl, who wears her blue hair in a long braid. She becomes one of the more focused students due to her being part of Mary's group throughout the story.

She is named after the poppy flower.

### Ayame

A plain, dot-eyed girl with freckles who later makes up another member of Mary's friend group. Her name derives from the iris flower.

### Sumire

A snooty-looking, high class girl with glasses who is also converted to Mary's way of thinking and action. As with other girls, she is named after a flower; in this case the violet.

### Nobara

A strict, classy teacher who cannot withstand Mary's power in the end. As with other female characters like the students, her name is patterned after a flower; in her case, "wild rose".

### Akashiya

Another teacher of the school, though a short, somewhat disheveled man in contrast to those like Nobara.

### Principal

The headmaster of the school, notable for his Chibita-like baldness, his unibrow, and thick mustache. Even though he attempts to keep everything in line, it's Mary's influence that winds up saving his school and he becomes thankful for her help.

## Serialization

* Ribon: December 1968 appendix

The previous month's issue of Ribon showed a "New Work Notice" for this story, but with much different character designs; Mary was a blonde, while Ayame and Sumire were nothing like their finalized looks. Only Keshi would have seemed to have stayed remotely similar.

## Reprints

* Akebono: Appears as extra content in their release of "Hennako-chan" in the Fujio Akatsuka Complete Works imprint
* Shogakukan: The above volume was digitized for the Complete Works DVD-ROM set, and a print-on-demand version was made available through ComicPark.