The show centers around a girl named Birch Small, who plans to be a comic book artist, trying to survive high school with her friends. Birch is a manga and anime fan, and the art style of the show reflects this, using aesthetic elements typical of anime such as sweat drops, characters comically popping into 'super-deformed' mode, and comic book style speech bubbles. It was produced in part by Svetlana Chmakova, a Russian-Canadian artist who rose to fame with her comics for US manga publishers Tokyopop and Yen Press. The show attained mild infamy, however, for its attempted copying of manga aesthetics and tropes.