Preamble

The entire time I was watching Kodomo no Jikan, there was one thought in the back of my mind. “There is an important story here, one that deserves to be told”. A story that, to my knowledge, is not often talked about in this medium. More on that later but whenever I had doubts about wanting to finish the show I would remind myself of this and it made things easier. I’ve already thrown out my first attempt at writing an opening to this review as I didn’t want to prejudice the reader and trust me, there is plenty to prejudge here. There was another thought equally as loud but I am going to keep that one to myself for now. While I will not obfuscate the nature of this show, I will do my best to review it in an objective manner. Ganbatte, reviewer-kun.

Overview

Kodomo no Jikan or “A Child’s Time” is an ecchi comedy about a man, Daisuke Aoki, entering the workforce as a teacher for a class of 3rd graders. This is his first teaching assignment and he is the classic rookie. Excited to ply his trade while being hopelessly inexperienced when it comes to controlling a class of some twenty 10-year-olds. He is well meaning, humble, and eager to make a difference in the lives of his students. What he had not planned for was the shockingly irreverent behavior of some of the children in his class that often borders on, if not crosses the line into, harassment of a perverse nature. Can Aoki-sensei successfully navigate the turbulent waters of precocious prepubescent promiscuity and reach the hallowed shore of “beloved educator” or will he drown in the undertow of licentious loli libel?

First Episode

Skip this section if you want to watch without spoilers. At any rate, I am only going to cover the first half of the first episode in detail. As for the rest of the review, there will be spoilers but nothing too specific. Odds are good that you already know if you want to watch this show so I am not going to worry about it.

Aoki arrives on his first day of teaching and in typical ecchi fashion, he manages to walk in on the entirety of his class’ female population changing uniforms in the classroom. Once things have settled down, Aoki takes attendance and receives an impromptu proposal from Kokonoe, our female MC, on the grounds that he has already seen her naked anyway. We also learn that one of the students, Usa, has been absent for weeks.

Later, Aoki notices a stray cat in the courtyard during a break and here we are properly introduced to Kokonoe who was on her way to feed the cat. She is worried that Aoki will act like the other adults at the school and get rid of the cat. We learn a good deal about Kokonoe in this scene. She has trouble trusting adults and hints at past events that have led her to this mistrust. Being a cat person himself, Aoki assures her that he won’t get rid of the cat and he earns her appreciation. Then he reaches out to the cat and it scratches him, drawing blood on his finger. Without hesitation, Kokonoe takes his hand and in an effort to stop the bleeding takes his finger into her mouth. All under the watchful gaze of her friend and classmate Kagami from a second floor window. They are interrupted by the bell and Kokonoe runs off while Aoki is left to wonder what just happened.

Spoiler, click to view

Later on in the classroom during a calligraphy lesson, Sensei is helping Kagami with her brush strokes and she shows her jealous side, accusing him of being a lolicon. His retort is interrupted by Kokonoe showing off her work to Aoki. The assignment was to write the character for “hope”. Kokonoe has gone above and beyond to write a complete sentence using the word hope.

Spoiler, click to view

She claims that just writing hope would have been boring and follows up with, “So should I be your brush’s first ink” while pretending to fellate her calligraphy brush. His shocked reaction is latched onto by Kagami who accuses him of being a virgin. This leads to him panicking (thus confirming her suspicion) and the whole class laughs at him.

Some time after this, Aoki is stopped in the halls by Houin, his co-worker and supporting female lead who spends the entire series nursing a one sided crush on Aoki. She shows him the textbook belonging to the previous teacher, who had left under mysterious circumstances with the oft used cover story of “health reasons”.

It becomes clear that the previous teacher was bullied to the point of a breakdown by the class. As the conversation comes to a close we see that Kokonoe has been watching this scene play out from the top of the stairwell.

This next scene is what the whole episode has built towards thus far and it is played to perfection. In the classroom after school, Aoki is studying the vandalized teacher's aid trying to figure out how his young students could do such a thing. His thoughts are interrupted by Kokonoe who shows up and starts reciting the graffiti in the book, confirming it was her doing. She then explains that she did it out of revenge for and to protect her friend, the chronically absent Usa, who was being bullied and tormented by the previous teacher to the point of no longer coming to school. Aoki questions her actions and we can see that this disappoints Kokonoe as she had expected him to understand. Aoki turns his back on her to walk to his desk while saying that this needs to be discussed with her parents. When he turns around, he is greeted by the following.

Spoiler, click to view

Yes, I stitched this. Don't judge me.

Just then, to Aoki’s horror, Kagami shows up but is completely unphased by what she sees. Kokonoe pulls up her panties nonchalantly and skips off to leave with Kagami who stays after slightly and tells Aoki that Usa wasn’t the only one who was victimized by the old teacher and that everyone in the class supports Kokonoe for doing what she did. She leaves him with a warning that if he ever reveals what happened to anyone, “I’ll do you like we did Nakamura.”

This is the end of the first half of the first episode. It slowly builds tension and the confrontation at the end is unsettling for a multitude of reasons. The atmosphere of this scene is amplified by an approaching thunderstorm outside the window, the overcast lighting, and tense, string heavy background music.

I don’t want to cover it in detail but in the second half of the episode we have Aoki visiting Usa at home and telling her that he believes her story and convincing her to come back to school. Later the cat from earlier is stuck in a tree and Kokonoe climbs up to rescue the cat only to have the limb break. Aoki has just enough time to get under her and break her fall by catching her but is knocked out while Kokonoe begs him not to die.

The rest of the episode is a return to the “light hearted” ecchi by way of the three 10 year old girls doing a skirt lift to show their appreciation for saving Kokonoe. It’s a bait and switch since they are all wearing spats.

Basic Plot

If you didn't read my first episode overview above, the basic plot is centered around making Aoki feel uncomfortable with the shockingly aggressive and inappropriate flirting from Kokonoe, his 3rd grade student who shows a knowledge of skinship far beyond her years. Aoki is a typically well meaning but dense MC who, even after multiple assaults on his purity by this precocious pre-teen, still walks right into the trap every time. That isn’t to say that there aren’t touching moments, because there are. They just often get immediately followed by something inappropriate. When I say inappropriate, I mean it. Kokonoe does some outright unacceptable things throughout the series. You also cannot play it off as an innocence gag. There is no, “Oh, if only she knew that what she was doing could be taken differently...”.

Kokonoe knows EXACTLY what she is doing. She just doesn’t fully understand why she is compelled to do it and to be fair, most adults don't understand the subconscious forces that drive them to act as they do. As her backstory is fleshed out we learn some of the reasons for why Kokonoe is the way she is. There are several moments in the series where she even shows yandere traits after she notices a female teacher might be becoming a rival. Because she is unpredictable and has the mentality of a child you never really know just how far she might be willing to go to keep Aoki to herself. These darker moments where the tone shifts from ecchi comedy to dark drama can be unsettling at times. Like something out of a suspense/horror movie. The anime does a good job selling how unsettled Aoki is by her actions.

Jealous of the attention Kokonoe is paying to Aoki, Kagomi treats him with disdain and as a rival as she is infatuated with her. She would be the token hime-cut tsundere of the cast as she is always verbally abusing sensei and more than once hits him in the groin with an object or her foot while calling him some variation of lolicon or virgin. She is often in nekomimi gothic lolita attire, even when at school. Guess what her given name is. That's right, of course you can’t do a raven haired hime-cut nekomimi goth loli without calling her Kuro. It’s like the law or something. She also has the most outrageous costume changes overall as she openly cosplays in school and no one calls attention to it.

The third member of the female trio is Usa and she is the innocent oppai loli of the group. Innocent is not in quotations as she is a neophyte among a group of nymphets. She stopped going to school due to bullying from the previous teacher and only after Sensei visits her at home to convince her to come back does she return. She spends most of the time in episodes trying to get everyone to play nice and having innuendo go over her head. Towards the end of the series, Kagomi convinces her that Aoki is a masochist and that he likes it when people are mean to him so she spends the final few episodes trying to mimic the way Kagomi addresses him only to break down half way through and run away waving her hands in the air and apologizing. It’s kind of adorable.

Supporting cast includes the perpetually frustrated fellow teacher Houin who has eyes for Aoki but fails to make any headway as he is too dense to notice and is constantly being distracted by something the three main girls are doing. Sometimes, on the point of Kokonoe, this is intentional as she views Houin as a rival for Aoki’s attention. Oyajima is the older, wiser teacher who exists to offer advice to both Aoki and Houin. Shirai is the strict authoritarian type that always scolds Aoki for not being able to control his class. There are a few other characters but discussing them creates too many serious spoilers.

Art Direction

There isn’t much to talk about here. The art style follows the manga while softening the character shapes. Less wide and angular faces. It all feels pretty 2000’s to me. Maybe slightly earlier as the hair is pretty big but that might be a side effect of the heads themselves being big as well in relation to the bodies since, ya know, 3rd graders. There are very few “action” scenes that don’t have cuts in them and they look stilted and jumpy but nothing that isn’t forgivable given the age and likely budget for such a project. You aren’t here to watch the boys play tag at recess and if you are, I have several questions as to why you picked Kodomo no Jikan to watch.

Music

The anime is competently scored. Background music is playful during the fun moments, tender during the softer moments, and the two main tension tracks that are often used during the more dramatic moments can be unsettling and do well to amplify the mood. The one that plays during the classroom thunderstorm scene in the first episode is especially chilling when you consider how upbeat things had been up to that point. It’s practically a bait and switch if you weren’t paying attention.

During more “innocent” moments, the score goes with synth chords, a xylophone, and for obvious reasons, a recorder. I know what you are doing, KnJ. Stop it.

OP/ED

The OP visuals are your standard, generic “running in place with a partly cloudy sky behind them” as the characters are introduced. The music is upbeat and the lyrics are mostly about a girl yearning to be understood by the men in her life. (ignore the subs in the linked vid. They are machine translated at best but it's the only copy of the OP I could find on YT.)

Painfully Generic

The ED visuals are far more suggestive. Kokonoe lounging on Aoki’s desk in front of him as she caresses his cheek, blows on his ear and goes in for a kiss while others watch. Panning shots of the three main girls blushing and completely nude save for a “tasteful” silk cloth covering the naughty bits as transparent lace doilies spin in the margins. All culminating in Aoki superimposed over a red sphere only to zoom out and show that the sphere is a cherry that a blushing Kokonoe guides to her mouth with her tongue and smugly consumes. The music is a high energy “genki” track. The kind that tries to fill in more syllables than you would think is possible into some of the beats. It’s no Motteke! Sailor Fuku!, Pure Para-do or Easy Breezy but it rocks my socks off and I have listened to it many times since I finished the series. The lyrics seem to be about upsetting the rules and stigmas of society. Go figure.

Yeah OK real subtle guys

Additionally, and I don't know if this was intentional, but the ED, titled “Hanamaru Sensation” by Little Non is shockingly similar to “One Fine Day” by The Offspring, an American band. But, if Youko Kanno can do it, I guess I can let it slide.

Voice Actor/Actress

There isn’t really much to talk about here for me. I am only familiar with a few of the other titles that the VAs had worked on in the past. Yoko Soumi, who plays the officious school marm Sae Shirai, has a few outraged shrieks that could seriously stop a rampaging bull. The closest to a stand out is probably Kokonoe’s VA, Eri Kitamura as she has the most opportunities to show her emotional range. She also played Ami Kawashima in Toradora! which is fitting as Aoki’s VA also played Ryuuji Takasu. She also played the head kitsune from Senko-san so I guess she has a knack for portraying harlots.

The Elephant in the Room

There are many notorious anime out there. Grown men who brag about having watched Yosuga no Sora will bow their heads and look at their shoes at the mere mention of said infamous anime. The same person who proudly gives Eromanga Sensei an unironic perfect score will call you every name under the sun for liking such anime. The same people that encouraged everyone they met to watch Boku no Pico will insist, nay beg you to “go outside” if you don’t hold these titles in contempt.

I am confident that all else being equal, if you bumped the ages of every character forward 5 years, this show would not be nearly as controversial. This is, in case you forgot, because the main female character is 10 years old and is constantly making sexually explicit advances on her teacher. Actually, advances isn’t a strong enough word. There are some moments that amount to straight up sexual assault. In one instance, Kokonoe goes full chikan on Aoki. Moments like this were often censored when it was broadcast on TV.

Throughout all of this, Aoki is an unwilling participant. He just wants to teach and make a positive impact on his students’ lives. He takes a special interest in Kokonoe because he sees she needs help but he is painfully dense in this area as well. Let’s count the red flags in the first episode that indicate this 10 year old’s home life probably isn’t normal:

• Offers to become his wife as he has seen her naked.
• Says that grownups lie, are cruel, have no remorse, and hurt others.
• Writes “I hope you nakadashi me” for Aoki during calligraphy class and offers to be the first to “wet his brush” in her “ink”.
• Admits to coercing the previous teacher to quit through a coordinated campaign of harassment.
• Takes off her panties and threatens to blackmail Aoki if he tells anyone the truth about the previous teacher.
• Gets her friends to flash him with her as a “thank you” for saving her from falling out of a tree.

She scares me too

Any trained educator of children would immediately see this behavior as abnormal and at the very least bring this to the attention of his superiors. This is the other thought in my head I spoke of earlier. These are the classic acting-out behaviors of a child who has experienced emotional, physical, or possibly sexual trauma in their early life. While it is never straight up said, I assume it’s more or less implied that as a brand new teacher, even the suggestion that he had been inappropriate would likely ruin his career. Or at least, this is what all those thin books I’ve read tell me would happen. However the blackmail is never mentioned again so I don’t think it’s a credible continuing threat. Frankly any sensible person on the receiving end of this behavior would have done everything in their power to avoid being alone with Kokonoe but Aoki’s a well meaning ecchi comedy protagonist so there wouldn’t be a show without him playing the part he plays. In fact, anyone other than him and the cops are getting called one way or the other.

Additionally, the show likes to do that ecchi bait-and-switch where a mundane action is hypersexualized. For instance, showing Kokonoe opening her mouth and resting her tongue on her bottom lip in an extreme close up followed by a prodigious "spurt" of fluid traveling left to right across a black void, only to zoom out and show Kokonoe drinking from a water fountain. It is these scenes that make it very difficult to defend the show.

As a side note, while I was expecting it, not once did the show fetishize randoseru. I was looking for it and I still didn’t see it.

Personal Thoughts (spoilers)

While trying to explain my thoughts about this series to a friend he noted that he had never seen me so conflicted when evaluating what I had just watched. I have been aware, in one way or another, of this series since it aired in ‘08. I decided to watch it 12 years later since it’s a notorious anime and no one had done a review of it yet on this site. I wanted to challenge myself.

As I mentioned at the beginning, there were several times I thought to myself, “There is a good story here”. In her more vulnerable moments, when Kokonoe isn’t sexually harassing Aoki, we get to see some genuine quality character building. She is a scared, lonely little girl that has experienced some very unfortunate trauma in her life and she has an obvious fear of abandonment by the adults in her life. It’s genuinely sad. You feel bad for her. There are moments where you can tell that if she isn’t in complete control of a situation she would react like any other girl might. I just wish Aoki would sit her the fuck down and explain how dangerous the way she is acting can be. How bad things could have been if he weren't such a good person.

Take Episode 8 for example. Kokonoe passionately hugs Aoki in front of another teacher. He gets reprimanded for it, and is told to avoid all bodily contact with female children. Kokonoe becomes more and more desperate for his attention, culminating in her going full Rule 63 just to get him to notice her. In the end she tells him that getting angry at her and yelling at her is better than no response at all.

That first clip is also a perfect example of how the show can take character moments too far. It was riding the line rather well while giving Kokonoe a little more depth. It was a nice change of pace to see her lose the initiative for once. Then she reaches for his crotch and makes an erection joke. It’s very frustrating.

I don’t want to get into the morality of a sexually explicit 10 year old in a Japanese cartoon. As far as I am concerned, while dubious, it isn't real. This is the approach I took going into the series. I knew what to expect and I was still unprepared. I have watched and read similar but far, far worse in my time. This was different.

Perhaps it was due to it being a manga adaptation that was broadcast nationally in Japan? Maybe, but so was OreImo, Maid Dragon, Eromanga Sensei, Bakemonogatari, and Made in Abyss. All of these shows had teens or preteens in sexually explicit situations or child nudity. Or in the case of OreImo, a script that was gone over with a fine tooth comb to make sure it didn’t break the decency laws. (It’s against the law to show incest in a positive light in Japan). I enjoyed each of these shows without much reservation though they each did give me pause from time to time.

Maybe it was the age gap? Well, that can’t be it. I actually rooted for the MCs in After the Rain and that age gap was almost double this one. Garden of Words was enjoyable for me as well. My Senpai is Annoying is another of my favorites. Taisho Maiden Fairytale became an instant classic for me. The Voynich Hotel has several age gap relationships, one of which is consummated. Hell, I unironically enjoyed the manga ending of Usagi Drop. That shit was adorable if not a little uncomfortable.

Maybe it is simply the combination of all these factors.

I like that this anime exists. Boundaries need to be explored from time to time. However, in the now immortal words of George Lucas, “I may have gone too far in a few places”. With this much ecchi, and a cast this young, fictional or not, this anime was always going to alienate the majority of anime fans.

Breakdown

Plot: A 10 year old girl with abandonment issues declares herself the girlfriend of, and sexually harasses her third grade school teacher. He really wishes she wouldn’t.

Story: The story progresses steadily with the typical end of volume dramatic arcs around the 6th and 12th episodes with episodic content in between. As an ecchi comedy about a 3rd grader and her adult teacher, romantic progress is unthinkable as it aired on national television. However, a mutual understanding is reached at the end of the season in a touching scene that shows character growth from both the Sensei and his student that is of course completely ignored for the sake of a sexual innuendo where Kokonoe compares Aoki’s genitals to a musical instrument in the very next scene. Sasuga Rin-chan.

Animation/Art: When the focus is the three main girls, little expense is spared. New costumes each episode and fluid motions, especially when Kokonoe is interacting with Aoki. Outside these parameters, it's standard for the era at best with a few atrocious examples of a flip book that’s missing half the pages passing as animation. The confrontation scene from episode one is very well done as are several later dream sequences and dramatic scenes. The style is undeniably early 2000s.

Music: Background music sets the tone well. OP is average and the ED has made a fine addition to my “genki” playlist.

VA: Yoko Soumi and Eri Kitamura give their respective characters some decent vocal range. I would love to get Kitamura’s thoughts on voicing a 10 year old seductress. There is an interview somewhere but I can’t find it.

Should you watch it? If you’ve made it to the end of this review without reaching for your pitchfork, probably but only you know the answer to that. Personally, I’m glad I watched Kodomo no Jikan.

Special thanks to @Pixelspeech for proofreading and their advice on this review