Animal Land

Animal Land
Cover of the first volume of Animal Land, published by Kodansha on March 17, 2010
どうぶつの国 (Dōbutsu no Kuni)
Genre	Comedy[1] Fantasy[2] Dystopia[3]
Manga
Written by	Makoto Raiku
Published by	Kodansha
English publisher	NA: Kodansha USA
Imprint	Shōnen Magazine Comics
Magazine	Bessatsu Shōnen Magazine
Demographic	Shōnen
Original run	October 9, 2009 – February 9, 2014
Volumes	14 (List of volumes)

Animal Land (Japanese: どうぶつの国, Hepburn: Dōbutsu no Kuni, lit. transl. "Country of the Animals") is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Makoto Raiku. The series follows a human baby abandoned by his mother who ends up in a world inhabited solely by animals and is raised by a tanuki (Japanese raccoon dog). It was originally serialized in Kodansha's Bessatsu Shōnen Magazine from October 2009 to February 2014. Later, it was compiled into fourteen collected tankōbon volumes by Kodansha in Japan. These volumes were licensed in North America by Kodansha USA and published from August 2011 to October 2018.

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.