Of all the things I ever expected to see in a manga...

...a throwaway pun referring to Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern books is pretty low on the list. And yet there it is. I'm reading Viz's first volume of Here is Greenwood. The characters are chasing someone, and in the midst of the chase, we get this little exchange:

Mitsuru: C - Can't...
Shinobu: Something about F'nor's dragon?
Mitsuru: That's "Canth"!

I mean, WTF? Greenwood happens to be one of the few manga I also have in Japanese, so I double-checked, and that does appear to be an accurate translation/adaptation. I'm so curious now. Were the Pern books really popular in Japan at some point, making this a reference that many readers would get? Is it some sort of inside joke? Or was Yukie Nasu just a big fan who wanted to give a shout-out to the series? Does she share my love of F'nor (my fave Pern character) or am I just lucky that his dragon's name was the most punnable?

Oh, and how cool would a Pern anime be?