The Governess tells Maria that she's been reading a comic book series by a Japanese artist named Sakakibara. She's not sure what to make of it, but she does know that it's about a character named Emil who's a "character" . Oh, and he's wearing a "saiga strap" , which is a strap that's supposed to be like a strap for a doll. The narrator says that the strap is part of a "lar series," which is basically a series of comic books written by Japanese authors. He's totally into the whole thing, though, and says that he'd like to read it.