TOKIO and Kakeru

eBook cover featuring Tokio and the early design of Kakeru.

**TOKIO and Kakeru** (TOKIOとカケル) is a gag work by Fujio Akatsuka and Fujio Pro, serialized in Weekly Shonen Champion. Its title and theme were loosely inspired by that of the 1967 Yasutaka Tsutsui sci-fi novel, **The Girl who Leapt Through Time** (時をかける少女, *Toki wo Kakeru Shojo*).

## Overview

A young boy named Tokio comes across a mysterious animal named Kakeru that was left behind in a box. However, he soon finds that by touching Kakeru or letting him wander about, bizarre phenomena like sudden time-slips happen, causing him to be transported through time or for aspects of the world to suddenly change around him.

The series takes more of a twist throughout, focusing less on Tokio and more about Kakeru's origins and family, ultimately culminating in the late arrival of his sister Koyomi and the final storyline involving Kakeru finding a bride.

## Characters

Aside from these characters, there is a fair usage of the Star System, including The Police Officer with the Connected Eyes as the usual cop figure. Tamadon from Chibidon also appears twice as Tokio's classmate Midori.

Tokio himself would also be used among the many characters for the anthology gag series "What Will Fujio Akatsuka Do!?", which ran through 1985 in Sunday Daily.

### Tokio

The protagonist, an elementary school boy. With Kakeru's meddling, he can freely travel to the future or past, but other unexpected pranks will be pulled on him by the animal. He will also meet historical figures like Thomas Edison through such matters, or even ancestors from the past.

He is also a rather curious and lewd boy, being depicted as sex-minded and desiring to get lewd photographs of the girls in his class (although this instance is foiled by the existence of Kakeru's time-manipulating camera in the chapter). After being acquainted with Kakeru's sister Koyomi, he starts to spend all his time around her and ignore Kakeru, leading the creature to try to seek out his own prospective bride.

### Kakeru

A koala-like being, described by Akatsuka as a "New Animal". He initially speaks only in calls of "Kerukeru", but is revealed to speak coherently as the series unfolds some more (and is also depicted as bipedal with art evolution).

Kakeru can cause random shifts in time to occur, such as setting things back to an air raid in WW2 or suddenly causing other time-space slips. He also shows an ability to cause historical figures shown on television to come to life. Another power, though more morbid, is for Kakeru to temporarily "rewind" corpses and restore them to life, only for him to reset them back to their corpse state or to let it wear off and others to be alarmed.

Kakeru is revealed to be from the Kerukeru Kingdom, a distant planet in outer space, as well as having a family messenger that can easily cart him or others through time with a single order. In the final two chapters, Kakeru takes a princess from Egypt to be his bride. After a fight and resolution between the King of the Kerukeru Kingdom and the King of Egypt (Dekapan), he and the princess are wed in what's considered to be a union of Japan and Egypt.

### Tokio's Parents

Appear early in the series and are subjected to Kakeru's early time manipulations of the world around them, to their confusion of what exactly is going on. An older brother for Tokio named "Susumu" is also mentioned in chapter 1, and the family is shocked to receive a letter from him informing them that he's become a kamikaze bomber for the Imperial Japan Army.

### Caveman Era Tokio

A young ancestor that Tokio meets when taken back to prehistoric times, but is taken back to the present day with him by accident. As he's a primitive boy, he sees nothing wrong in roasting pets alive for meat, or even doing so to humans.

He is killed by Edo-era Tokio, but this also reveals that he wasn't the direct progenitor of Tokio's family line as neither of the later boys fade away. When the other versions of Tokio go back in time to investigate, it is revealed he was one of three triplet brothers, though Edo-era Tokio quickly slaughters the other two and finds they weren't even the direct ancestors.

### Edo Era Tokio

Another Tokio temporarily brought into the present by Kakeru's manipulations. He quickly becomes a rival of the prehistoric Tokio and slaughters him, and makes short work of any other "Tokio" he finds. However, after Kakeru reveals to him and present day Tokio that their true direct ancestor of that era's family is an effeminate, flamboyant caveman (with a face much like that of Kaoru-chan), he becomes enamored with the other man's looks and comforts Tokio (dubbing him "Tokiko") on the unexpected revelation.

### Kakeru's Parents

The king and queen of the Kerukeru Kingdom, who Tokio gets to meet when Kakeru takes him to the planet. Their greatest crop in the kingdom is toilet paper, which they grow and harvest as if it were ordinary vegetables. The planet itself is simply a castle atop a floating hunk of rock, which they can teleport through space-time as needed.

### Koyomi

Kakeru's older sister, who returns to the Kerukeru Kingdom with plans to get married, searching for a lover from across time (her initial choice of Adolf Hitler is rejected). In contrast to the more animalistic body of her brother, Koyomi is depicted curvier and with human breasts.

She quickly falls in love with Tokio, which he reciprocates. In the final chapter, Koyomi is seen pulling a jealous Tokio's face and reprimanding him for his unfaithful ways during Kakeru's wedding to the Egyptian Princess.

## Serialization

* Weekly Shonen Champion: #1-2 merger number to #18, 1985

The series was ultimately short-lived, running for these 16 chapters:

1. **"One Day, a Sudden Catastrophe Attacked Tokio's Family Overnight"** (ある日突然、トキオ一家(ファミリー)を襲った、天変地異の大笑撃!!の巻)
2. **"It's Truly Strange!!"** (不思議だがほんとうだ!!の巻)
3. **"Crazy Hilarity! USA VS Japan"** (激笑!アメリカＶＳ日本の巻)
4. **"I am a New 1000 Yen Note"** (吾輩は新千円札であるの巻)
5. **"A New 1000 Yen Note Goes to America"** (新千円札、アメリカへゆくの巻)
6. **"Primitive Age, Tokio is the Sun!"** (原始、トキオは太陽だった!の巻)
7. **"Tokio of the Primitive Age and Tokio of the Contemporary Age"** (原始時代のトキオと現代のトキオの巻)
8. **"What are the Roots of the Tokio Family!?"** (トキオ一家(ファミリー)のルーツは!?の巻)
9. **"I am Edison, the King of Inventions!!"** (おいらは発明王のエジソンでごじゃる!!の巻)
10. **"Kerukeru, What is the Identity of Kakeru!?"** (ケル、ケルッ、カケルの正体は!?の巻)
11. **"The Kerukeru Kingdom"** (ケルケル王国の巻)
12. **"Kakeru's Jealousy"** (カケルのやきもちの巻)
13. **"The Time Camera Can Take a Picture of the Future!!"** (タイム・カメラで未来を写そう!!の巻)
14. **"A Woman Wishing to Get Married"** (結婚したい女の巻)
15. **"Kakeru's Love Adventure"** (カケルの冒険恋愛の巻)
16. **"Conclusion, Kakeru's Marriage"** (大団円、カケルの結婚の巻)

## Reprints

* Shogakukan: Digitized for the Fujio Akatsuka Complete Works DVD-ROM set, with print-on-demand version from ComicPark
* eBookJapan: 1 volume

## External Links

* "TOKIO and Kakeru" write-up at the Fujio Akatsuka Preservation Society (Japanese)
* Read "TOKIO and Kakeru" at eBookJapan (Japanese)