Iguana Girl — Season 1, Episode 8: A Friend for Eternity, Death, and Another Mother
Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Drama • 46 min • 1 season, 11 episodes • ★ 6.3/10
Episode synopsis
Yuriko tells Rika that a long time ago she had wanted to kill Rika, and herself. Shocked, Rika runs from the house. Nobuko hears of Rika's disappearance, and desperately searches the city for her. When she finds her, she takes her home to her house. The next day, Nobuko's mother tells Rika that Nobuko had a lot of problems in the past as well. Overwhelmed by Nobuko's kindness, Rika decides to tell her everything. Rika tells Nobuko, "I'm an iguana...
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".