The Meddling Family

Frontispiece to a later chapter, re-used for the Akebono reprint.

**The Meddling Family** (おせっかい一家  *Osekai Ikka)* is a short gag work by Fujio Akatsuka and Fujio Pro, serialized in Shojo Friend.

## Overview

The Osekai (小世界) Family, as suggested by the pun of their name, are a family full of people that'll try to help, but more than often than not wind up being a bother with their excessive meddling in others' business.

This feature was the second "Family"-themed series by Akatsuka, but would run for a shorter amount of issues than its predecessor The Mean Family.

## Characters

This family are all characterized by their long, pointed mouths and narrow, relaxed eyes. Jaretora and Deshabou are name-dropped in the feature itself, while Setsuko's name appears in frontispieces that were removed for reprints.

### Papa

A salaryman who has his family report on their successes and failures about meddling with the people around town. When the family sits to groom one another, his wife will pull stray hairs from his head.

### Mama

A housewife, who disturbs her daughter's teacher when he comes for a home visit by giving him too many provisions for his diarrhea in the hot summer. She is also shown to offer ramen to a poor student, causing a ramen owner to become upset at her taking away from his business. Her daughter attempts to massage her during the family grooming line.

### Setsuko Osekai

(小世界 セツ子)

The older daughter of the family. She doesn't seem to have much success with meddling, other than her bothering of her teacher in the first chapter. She is initially depicted with hair in a loose ponytail, but comes to have a long bob-cut similar to characters like Jajako in the last portion of the series.

Deshabou attempts to clip her toenails in the grooming line, up until the mouse bites Jaretora's tail and causes a chain-reaction of chaos.

### Deshabou Osekai

(小世界 デシャ坊)

The young son of the family. He is shown to have meddled in a painter's artwork, putting in a stick figure and flower over his cityscape (to the man's horror). He gets his back scratched by Jaretora, up until a mouse bites the cat's tail and causes it to become painful.

### Jaretora Osekai

(小世界ジャレトラ)

The cat of the family, who meddled with their neighbor Nakada's knitting to make himself a cat sweater instead, and is also shown to steal a cop's hat and baton in order to play cop and chase a robber.

### Kabayama-san

A hippo-faced man that the Osekai family try to help out with a marriage meeting in the final chapter. They set about on trying to give him plastic surgery so he'll look more like a handsome man for his potential bride, but can't exactly get the right result and wind up giving him an average face that turns hideous when he opens his mouth (though his hippo-esque features are removed).

However, without her makeup, his bride-to-be turns out to have a rather plain but exaggerated face when she laughs, causing both of them to crack up at each other.

### The Awate Family

A rival family who tries to hurriedly move into the Osekai family's space. They all wear thick glasses. This family consists of a husband, wife, a daughter, and two sons. They move out of the town as quickly as they came in their moving truck, but nearly leave the mother behind.

## Serialization

* Shojo Friend: Issues #8 to 10 for 1967

In reprints, the original frontispieces tend to be removed and the first two panels of chapter 1 were cut due to being on the same page as the frontispiece that was used in the magazine. Other edits were also made to make the chapters run as a seamless story. This is also the case with the eBookJapan version.

## Reprints

* Akebono: First reprinted as extra content in the "Mean Family" kashihon in 1967. It was later offered through the "Complete Works" collection in 1970 (with other "Family" stories compiled as extra content), followed by the later "Mean Family" release of 1975 and the bunko edition in 1976.
* Shogakukan: The Complete Works edition was digitized for the Fujio Akatsuka Complete Works DVD-ROM set, along with having a print-on-demand edition through ComicPark.
* eBookJapan: Appears in volume 1 of the "Fujio Akatsuka Family Collection" 2-volume eBook release

## External Links

* "The Meddling Family" write-up at the Akatsuka Preservation Society (Japanese)