Published in the US Viz
Slugline: An incentive to throw your recycling into the dump
Noboru is a typical nine year old who wants to avoid trouble and have fun, in that order. He thinks that both of those goals will be easily meet when PET enters his life, for despite being a recycled plastic bottle, PET has all sorts of abilities, sort of like a super-robot such as Doraemon. Unfortunately for Noboru PET is not very smart and has far less common sense than him, which means that many of PET's attempts to help Noboru backfire spectacularly. The exceptions are when he does not properly understand what Noboru is asking for or is bored and decides to do something else. Despite feeling that he owes Noboru for recycling the plastic bottle that made him, PET does not try very hard to improve either himself or Noboru.
You would think that after the first few times that PET made things worse for Noboru he would stop being so willing to call on PET, but that is a lesson that Noboru never seems willing to learn, if for no other reason that it would end the series. As a kid's series it definitely is just for kids rather than being appropriate for all ages for if you are well into your teens the story will quickly become repetitive and is just not very funny. As for the series name, PET is an acronym for a widely used recyclable plastic though most plastic items are labeled by number rather than type. The story does gently tweak recyclable programs, if for no other reason that if you recycle you may get stuck with a robot friend like PET.
Leave it to PET!, vol. 1 is also available from Right Stuf, Intl., an online retailer specializing in anime and manga.
- Ferdinand
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