Animal Land  Raiku chose the animal world as the main theme of the series because he wanted a topic that had never been attempted before in a "shōnen" manga. The animals are used as a metaphor to explore human themes, and because of the subjects it deals with it has been described as "darker" than it apparently was. This, however, did not prevent it from being well received by critics and winning the Kodansha Manga Award for Best Children's Manga. It has also sold reasonably, appearing in weekly top ten lists of best-selling manga both in Japan and North America. A tanuki (Japanese raccoon dog) called has her parents killed by lynxes; she feels lonely as she is the only tanuki without a family. A day while she is fishing, Monoko finds an abandoned human baby, whose name is , and decides to raise him as her child. In a world inhabited only by animals, the human baby is a mystery; he can speak with all animal species even when the different species cannot communicate between them. This ability makes him able to save , a lynx who questions the world's concept of "law of the jungle". He injures himself while trying to protect the tanuki and vows to protect Taroza thenceforth. Seven years later, Taroza has reunited many other animal species and constructed a village, where he lives with them. As the story progress Taroza meets with other humans: , a girl raised by lions; , a sadistic boy who lives along with a wolf; , a man who wants to destroy all animals using genetically-altered beings called "Chimera"; and , a girl raised by gorillas. In his quest to make all animals live in peace, Taroza discovers the existence of the "Eternity Fruit" that can be eaten by carnivore and herbivore. This fruit was created by , the last human who lived some years before the start of the series. He had the same desire Taroza has and found the Eternity Fruit and the ability to speak are the solutions. For this purpose, he created a machine to make all animals understand others cries, and brought Taroza, Capri, Jyu, Giller, and Riemu from their times to the present. Makoto Raiku declared he wanted to write a history that was never seen in a "shōnen" manga magazine before. The first character Raiku created was Monoko, having initially envisioned her raising a baby in the human world, which he changed after talking with his editor.