The US military is to use manga-style comics to teach Japanese children about the two countries’ security alliance. Four comics featuring a Japanese girl and a visiting US boy. In it the young girl, Arai Anzu – which sounds like alliance when pronounced by a Japanese person – asks the boy, Usa-kun – a play on USA – why he is protecting her house. “Because we have an alliance,” he says. “We are ‘Important Friends’.” “It’s good to have a friend you can rely on to go with you,” the little girl concludes.