This English-language Japanese textbook unwittingly spawned a viral fandom — much to its creator's distress

What do you get when a children's textbook update morphs into viral fandom? A public relations disaster, as far as its creator is concerned.

That's the situation in Japan, where a cute teacher featured in the New Horizon line of textbooks named Miss Ellen Baker has taken the public by storm after the textbook got a manga-style overhaul. The friendly fictional English-language teacher has spawned fan art, cosplay, memes, and more.

Meet Miss Ellen…

Google cache

…and her many fans:

How did Ellen Baker take over the internet?

New Horizon is a classic English-language textbook in Japan. It's been around since the late '60s and has become a staple of Japanese classrooms. It's known for its friendly cast of characters who may change over time but all help guide Japanese kids through the ins and outs of learning a new language.

Here's how the New Horizon characters used to look:

remi814 (Twitter)

But the publisher's most recent update gave the art a total overhaul, introducing a manga-style aesthetic and a cast of new characters:

Ikigaine Network

The inner pages look even more like a happy anime opening:

RocketNews64

Miss Ellen Baker introduces herself in the pages of New Horizon as a Boston-born Red Sox fan who's moved to Japan and is eager to teach her students English. Apparently it was love at first sight for many anime and manga fans across the globe:

But not everyone was happy — specifically Ellen's creator, Japanese artist Denchubo. In an interview earlier this week with BuzzFeed Japan, he confessed he was a bit worried about Miss Ellen's more, er, avid fans. You know, this kind:

According to RocketNews24, Denchubo worried that if her fandom began emphasizing explicit artwork and fantasy too heavily, it might make parents and teachers think twice about buying the book (though there seem to be no signs of that yet).

Still, Denchubo was clearly enjoying the phenomenon. On his artist website Friday, he contributed to the Miss Ellen craze with a little art of his own:

Denchubo

We're here to shed some clarity

One of our core beliefs here at Vox is that everyone needs and deserves access to the information that helps them understand the world, regardless of whether they can pay for a subscription. With the 2024 election on the horizon, more people are turning to us for clear and balanced explanations of the issues and policies at stake. We’re so grateful that we’re on track to hit 85,000 contributions to the Vox Contributions program before the end of the year, which in turn helps us keep this work free. We need to add 2,500 contributions this month to hit that goal. Will you make a contribution today to help us hit this goal and support our policy coverage? Any amount helps.

One-Time Monthly Annual

$5/month

$10/month

$25/month

$50/month

Other

$

Yes, I'll give $5/month

Yes, I'll give $5/month

We accept credit card, Apple Pay, and Google Pay. You can also contribute via