## Who is Professor Banzo and Mikachu?

Professor Banzo: an aging romantic who's hopeless in love. He has had 100 o-mi-a-i (lit. "looking at each other": the closest English approximation is an Arranged Marriage. Not as barbaric as it sounds: basically a professional match-maker, called a na-ko-u-do has a big portfolio of pics and stats of available young [or not so young] ladies/gentlemen which s/he takes around to other gentlemen/ladies. The ladies and Gentlemen usually meet a couple times on chaperoned "dates" and are free to dump each other after the 1st meeting.) Currently single.

Upon his 100th rejection, the Professor was wandering around the Sumida River feeling rather dejected and heartbroken when he heard something falling into the River. He looked, and discovered tiny little half-drowned creatures in a mini-ufo... and most [...] know the rest of the story. [For those that don't: The Professor built them little egg shaped protection cases so they could survive on earth, then Mikachu painted some, took them to school and started the Tamagotchi craze... -ed.]

The Professor is a hard-working/obsessive man: when inspired, he will go into his Unidentified Mysterious Animal Research Lab (somewhere in the Dai-to (sp?) area of Tokyo) and not come out for a week! (ah yes, the Tamagochi syndrome... person in enclosed area, no food goes in, no waste comes out, person emerges healthy as anything after a week)

Mika-chu: His 16 year old Lab assistant, who works there part-time. Since she refers to herself as Mika-chu (not a normal Japanese name: the equivalent would be a girl who calls herself Jay-Tee w/o explaining what the letter/sounds stand for), no-one knows her real name. Although she can be sharp-tongued at times, and has her feet firmly planted on the ground, she is a bright, cheerful girl, and can also be kind and sensitive enough to leave the Prof. in peace to have a good cry whenever he has been rejected, and to worry about his health. She claims to have designed and painted the cases for the tams.

The above information is taken from and translated from the Tamagotchi Daihyakka: Tamagotchi wo Sodateruchi by Keibunsha Books, which is authorized by Bandai Japan.

All of the above was reprinted with permission. "Juniper" from the Tamagotchi Email List, translated this for the list and allowed me to reprint it here.

Last updated: April 11th, 1998
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