In the whimsical Penguin Village, inventor Senbei Norimaki builds Arale Norimaki, a robot girl meant to be the perfect assistant, only for her to turn out severely nearsighted, wildly naive, and strong enough to level a mountain by accident. Arale means well, but her cheerful cluelessness, paired with the antics of neighbors like teacher Midori Yamabuki, keeps dragging the village into escalating disasters. This 1997 series re-adapts the original manga with new character designs, more than a decade after the 1981 TV series first told Arale's story.