[Anchorman]

"Yama Onna, Kabe Onna" (Mountain Woman, Wall woman), cartoonist Atsuko Takakura's popular manga that touches on female protuberances -- or the lack thereof -- is now a humorous drama series on TV.

The fic-tit-ious saga began hour-long broadcasts on Thursday nights from July 5 on the Fuji TV network and its affiliates.

The story, says Aera (8/6), centers around the activities of two co-workers in the women's accessories department of the "Marukoshi" department store in Ginza.

In the drama, salesgirl Marie Mariya (played by the buxom, bubbly Kyoko Fukada, 25), is short, ditzy, and boasts a bulging bustline (the "mountain"), whereas the pectorals of lanky Emi Aoyagi (played by Misaki Ito, 30) tend toward the two dimensional (the "wall").

This shortage of sweater meat, needless to say, has Aoyagi perturbed.

"The only function my bra fills is to tell people 'that's where her chest is,'" Aoyagi laments.

Ms. Takakura's manga was first serialized in Kodansha's comic magazine "Evening" (circulation 213,000), and in 2005 was compiled into a book, the first in a series now up to six.

In real life, it's cartoonist Takakura who reputedly boasts the big ones -- and who has been traumatized for it -- while it's her assistant who is lacking in the lactoid department.

"Everything in her manga is based on a true story," says Evening's editor Yasuo Nishi.

Getting to the, er, point of this article, Aera wonders, is the manga's popularity any indication that women themselves favor small breasts?

Certainly women can empathize with Takakura's story.

"The topic may be approached from a humorous standpoint, but the producers make efforts to keep it from getting raunchy," drama maven Akihiko Kuroda tells Aera. "So even though it's about breasts, women find it appealing too."

"TV dramas with busty women in the leading role suffer from a jinx, and have trouble attracting viewers," Kuroda adds. "Maybe that's because while actresses with big breasts are favored by some men, the drama viewers are women -- and they prefer slender actresses. What's more, actresses can usually slim down if they make an effort, but it takes more than just an effort if they want to have bigger breasts."

Actually, intimates the female journalist credited with writing the Aera piece, the story was initially conceived as a means of confirming or disproving a male colleague's hypothesis that women tend to be more severe toward their large-breasted peers, favoring those with itty-bitty titties.

Tokiko Ikeda, a 28-year-old esthetician, tells Aera she's become a big fan of Mariya, the character portrayed by Fukada. "She comes right out and says what she thinks, fearlessly. I love to see that.

"Women who emphasize their breasts do so because it's their stong point," says Ikeda. "I myself don't have anything on top, so I wear a miniskirt and show off my legs."

"For a woman to be slender and have large breasts is something of a physical impossibility, it makes them look like baby dolls," observes author-translator Motoko Jitsukawa, a director of the Kyoto-based Nyubou Bunka Kenkyukai (Breast Culture Research Group) organized by bra maker Wacoal. "In the U.S., it's far more common for women to seek procedures for breast reduction than for enhancement.

"Women who envy other women's large breasts are letting themselves think like men," Jitsukawa asserts.

Perhaps, Aera advises, we should heed the old Chinese aphorism that goes, "It's not the height that makes a mountain precious, but the trees that flourish on its slopes." When evaluating these ponderous matters, quality must surely outweigh quantity. (By Masuo Kamiyama, People's Pick contributor)