Walkin' Butterfly

Walkin' Butterfly
Cover of Walkin' Butterfly volume 1 published by Aurora
ウォーキン・バタフライ
Genre	Drama
Manga
Written by	Chihiro Tamaki
Published by	Kodansha Kadokawa X Media Ohzora Publishing
English publisher	NA Aurora Publishing
Demographic	Shōjo / Josei
Magazine	Vanilla
Original run	2003 – 2007
Volumes	4
Television drama
Walkin'☆Butterfly
Directed by	Kensaku Miyashita
Written by	Uiko Miura
Original network	TV Tokyo
Original run	11 July 2008 – 26 September 2008
Episodes	12

Walkin' Butterfly is a shōjo manga by Chihiro Tamaki. It was serialized by Kodansha in the manga magazine Vanilla until the magazine ceased publication in 2003, then by Kadokawa X Media by mobile phone until the series concluded in 2007. The series was collected in four bound volumes by Ohzora Publishing. The manga is licensed in North America by Aurora Publishing. The series was adapted as a live-action drama broadcast on TV Tokyo from 11 July to 26 September 2008. It depicts a young woman's struggles to overcome her insecurity about her height by becoming a model.

Walkin' Butterfly follows the character of Michiko, a young woman with above average height for a Japanese woman. Because of this and her job as a pizza delivery person, Michiko is filled with insecurities and doubts. During a delivery at a fashion show Michiko is mistaken for a model and forced out onto the runway. Because of this Michiko ends up becoming entangled in the world of modeling and noticed by a fashion designer who tells her that until she truly sees herself, she will never be a true model.

According to Chihiro Tamaki in an interview printed in the North American edition of volume one, the story came about because she had an editor who liked to look at models, but she thought that a story just about the fashion industry as a business would be boring: "So the first thing I did was to decide upon a girl as a protagonist who would have average, ordinary characteristics—nothing outstanding, like celebrities who are known for extremely good or bad characteristics. I developed the story of the heroine Michiko overcoming her inferiority complex about being tall and rising to become a top model." The "butterfly" in the title is intended both to be a metaphor for a growing girl and to represent a beautiful model, while "walkin'" came from the images of a model walking down a modeling runway and of a struggling Michiko walking instead of flying. Tamaki stated that her intent with the story is not just depicting Michiko "growing up and becoming independent", but also to highlight Michiko's romances.

Tamaki claimed that, as a result of doing research for the series, her favorite model became Ai Tominaga, and that she was flattered when Tominaga wrote, in an endorsement for the first volume of the Japanese edition, that there were things she had in common with Michiko. Tamaki cited as specific influences Ashita no Joe for her plots and Rumiko Takahashi's Urusei Yatsura for her characters.