Otherworld Barbara

 is a science fiction manga by Moto Hagio. It is set in a near-future Japan, and begins with a girl, Jyujo Aoba, who has been in a coma since she was nine years old, who was discovered next to her parents' bodies, with their hearts inside her stomach. To discover why she killed her parents, a specialist enters her coma dreams and finds that Jyujo is dreaming about and simultaneously creating the future. "Otherworld Barbara" was serialised in Shogakukan's "Flowers" between September 2002 and August 2005 and is collected in 4 volumes. "Otherworld Barbara" won the 2006 Nihon SF Taisho Award, and was the first manga in 23 years to have won this award. It is published in Traditional Chinese by Sharp Point Press. The series is licensed for release in the United States by Fantagraphics Books.
Development.
Hagio "wanted to do something about meat" when she created the story for "Otherworld Barbara", and felt that the story "turned out kind of gross". Thorn felt that Hagio also used her interest in the right and left brain, and the origin of language. She read Noam Chomsky's "Noam Chomsky on The Generative Enterprise, A discussion with Riny Hyybregts and Henk van Riemsdijk.", Vilayanur S. Ramachandran's "", and Andrew B. Newberg's "Why God Won’t Go Away: Brain Science and the Biology of Belief".
Reception.
Paste Magazine praised Hagio's sense of pacing.