Iguana Girl
is a 1992 manga written and illustrated by Moto Hagio. A 52-page one-shot (single chapter series) originally published in the manga magazine Petit Flower, the story follows a mother who rejects her daughter because she perceives her as an iguana; the daughter internalizes this rejection, and in turn comes to regard herself as an iguana. Iguana Girl is a semi-autobiographical story that reflects Hagio's own strained relationship with her mother, while also utilizing fantasy elements to comment on the role of women in post-war Japanese society. In 1996, Iguana Girl was adapted into a live-action television drama that aired on TV Asahi. An English-language translation of the Iguana Girl manga was included in the anthology A Drunken Dream and Other Stories, published by Fantagraphics in 2010. Synopsis Rika Aoshima is the eldest daughter of an ordinary Japanese family in the mid-twentieth century. Though Rika is regarded by others as intelligent, athletic, and beautiful, her mother Yuriko believes that her daughter is an iguana; she frequently belittles Rika, and openly favors her youngest daughter Mami. Rika has internalized her mother's rejection and perceives herself as an iguana, and comes to believe that her true parents are iguanas in the Galápagos Islands.