Nijū Mensō no Musume

Nijū Mensō no Musume
Cover of the first volume of Nijū Mensō no Musume, as published by Media Factory
二十面相の娘
Genre	Mystery, Kaitō
Manga
Written by	Shinji Ohara
Published by	Media Factory
Demographic	Seinen
Magazine	Comic Flapper
Original run	2002 – 2007
Volumes	8
Manga
Nijū Mensō no Musume Utsushiyo no Yoru
Written by	Shinji Ohara
Published by	Media Factory
Demographic	Seinen
Magazine	Comic Flapper
Original run	October 5, 2007 – September 5, 2008
Volumes	2
Anime television series
CHIKO, Heiress of the Phantom Thief
Directed by	Nobuo Tomizawa
Written by	Michihiro Tsuchiya
Music by	Kazunori Miyake
Studio	Bones Telecom Animation Film
Original network	Fuji TV, Kansai TV, Tokai TV
Original run	April 12, 2008 – September 27, 2008
Episodes	22 (List of episodes)

Nijū Mensō no Musume (Japanese: 二十面相の娘, Hepburn: lit. "Daughter of Twenty Faces"^?) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by manga author Shinji Ohara. The manga was serialized in the seinen manga magazine Comic Flapper between 2002 and 2007, but continued serialization in the same magazine with the title Nijū Mensō no Musume Utsushiyo no Yoru since October 5, 2007. An anime adaptation aired in Japan from April 12, 2008 to September 27, 2008 and was co-produced by Bones and Telecom Animation Film.

The characters in this series have been used with permission from surviving members of the family of Edogawa Rampo, the renowned Japanese detective fiction author who had originally created the fictional characters of Kaijin Nijū Mensō and Kogoro Akechi.

The series is set in the Shōwa period, starting around 1953 in the anime.

Chizuko Mikamo is a young girl living with her aunt and uncle after her parents died. She behaves coldly toward them, despite their efforts to make her happy, because she knows that they are trying to slowly poison her so that they can take her inheritance for themselves. Because of her intelligence and knowledge gained from reading detective novels, she works to avoid eating the food her aunt prepares, but it is impossible to avoid all together and she still takes in enough to cause her to collapse. Her butler is revealed to actually be the world-famous thief Twenty Faces, who was there to steal Chizuko's rightful inheritance, a family heirloom gem known as the Anastasia Ruby. When he realizes just what Chizuko's been going through, however, he asks her if she wants to come with him and his band on their travels around the world. She agrees and Twenty Faces takes her back with him to join his gang, who affectionately shorten her name to Chiko. Two years pass and Chiko is now a strong thief, having learned the tricks of the trade from Twenty Faces and the members of his band. Now, with Twenty Faces and the rest of the band as her family, she has found a home at last.