Iguana Girl — Season 1, Episode 5: My Birthday... The Present Mom Threw Away
Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Drama • 46 min • 1 season, 11 episodes • ★ 6.3/10
Episode synopsis
Rika's birthday is approaching. Nobuko asks Rika what her birthday wish is, and Rika replies that she wants to go to an amusement park with a person she loves. Since Yuriko has forbidden Rika to fall in love, Rika doesn't think her dream could ever possibly come true. Unexpectedly, Noboru invites her to an amusement park to thank her for helping him study for midterm exams! Rika is so happy, she's beside herself. However, Rika can't stop thinking of her mother's words, "You are an iguana!" and she turns down Noboru's invitation.
About Iguana Girl
Iguana Girl is a manga by Moto Hagio published in Petit Flower. It was adapted into a television drama in 1996. It is about a young girl, Rika, whose mother views her as being ugly, and favours her other daughter, Mami. Rika thinks of herself as ugly and as an iguana, but after her mother's death, realises that her mother was also an ugly iguana. Iguana Girl reflects Hagio's own relationship with her mother, and it took her "years to write this story". Hagio saw an iguana in a documentary on television and identified with it, feeling it was "lamenting its failure to become a human, just like me".