Kodomo no Jikan

Information of Anime

Daisuki Aoki is a new teacher at an elementary school.  It's his first job & has many things to learn.  However, he has three troublesome students named Rin Kokonoe, Kuro Kagami, & Mimi Usa.  Rin is like to play tricks & has a crush on Daisuki who troubles him.

Storyline (CONTAINS SPOILERS)

Below is a summary of the storyline I've seen.  If you haven't seen the series yet & don't want to be spoiled, skip this section.  If you want to know the story & want to see how I viewed it, read on.

Because of Rin & Kuro, Daisuki has a hard time teaching his class.  He starts off with problems in keeping the children under control & gets scold for it by some of his colleagues.  Rin likes to play tricks on him because she has a huge crush on him.  Kuro, who likes Rin as her play doll, hates Daisuki & calls him a pedophile which he isn't.  Mimi, a girl who's undergoing a huge growth spurt particularly at the chest area, tries to keep things under control as she's shy & polite.  Daisuki manages to win his students' trust well as he manages to overcome many obstacles.  However, Kyoko Hoin who is a teacher at the school & has a crush on Daisuki is seen as a competitor to Rin as a love rival. 

Things heat up when Daisuki understands Rin's situation.  By the time he learns this, Reiji who is the uncle & guardian of Rin takes her away as he's being protective to her due to a promise he made with her mother.  However, Reiji would go too far by trying to get Rin to transfer to another school & locking her up in her room. This not only draws concern to Daisuki, but for Kuro & Mimi as well.  Things would change when Reiji realizes that he's doing the same thing that his parents did to him & eavesdrop on Daisuki's conversation about his family to Rin.

The show ends with Rin going back to school & still in love with Daisuki.  In other words, everything is back to normal.

My Personal Review

Kodomo no Jikan is loli show at its best.  I'm pretty surprised on how far this show can go with this loli stuff going around, particularly in many parts of the world that's against these things as it's a serious crime.  I don't remember why I picked this up though.  I think I picked this up not knowing it was extreme lolicon show.

Animation

The character designs are quite nice & cute.  The three main girls look like cats with their sharp round eyes & round mouths.  They are quite chubby on the face & even the hair with its massive volume.  But there are times where the faces look a bit squished from the sides.  This is noticeable when you see the eyes being too close together.  The clothing designs are cute also with its different fashion.  Most of it is from Kuro as she's like a spoiled princess.

The backgrounds are okay.  Not a lot of details & are some of plain.  The sceneries are nice enough.

The colours are on the bright side.  Also, the lines seem to stand out quite bold on the faces.  The blending between the backgrounds & characters aren't bad as they don't overlap with one another which is pretty good with those bold colours.

In terms of the animation movement, it's a mixture.  Sometimes the movements are realistic & sometimes the movements are not normal.  But they aren't too smooth as some choppy frames can be found time to time; mainly from the walking & running cycles.  There are times where I think I seem some frames missing as the animation looks like it jumped a bit.

Sound

The sound effects are on the silly & realistic side.  Some of them are quite cute & funny.  They fit the show well & give it some comedic life.

The seiyuus here are pretty good.  But I have to admit that the elementary school girls voices sounded a bit older for their age.  Otherwise, it's pretty good.  Daisuki's role is played very good.

The music is mainly the pop & rock side.  Fits the show's image as it's all cute stuff.

Story

Aside from pedo goodness between Rin & Daisuki, the show actually has some good elements.  Rin's dead mother & unknown father, Mimi being teased for her growth spurt, Reiji's promise to Rin's mother, etc.  Pretty much the hardships that a child faces.  Although some of them are a bit unrealistic such as Mimi's case, it's presented pretty well.  But again, the meat is on Rin & Daisuki with the factors of Rin's family in it.

The pedo approach is different from what most of us have seen or heard.  A little girl is in love with a adult.  Usually it's the other way around.  But the teacher & student theme makes it somewhat easier to relate.  Rin's love for Daisuki is pretty high as she doesn't know what love is.  Daisuki's love for Rin is more of a family approach.  It can be a bit disturbing to some that aren't into loli stuff, especially at this level.  Nevertheless, the story is surprising good.

Because of loli stuff, the show does censor some parts with our friend pedo-bear.  But I find some of  the censorship to be a bit extreme.  Words are censored out & scenes as well.  Because of the heavy censorship, it's hard to find out what the jokes are & what words were said.  At times, a whole sentence is censored out.  I assume a lot of it is lolicon stuff, but I don't think it's the case.  The DVD version removes these censorship out & it can be a bit far for TV indeed.  A loli making sexual moves on you can be freaky.

As for the ending, it seems to be a bit rushed.  I was actually confused on what's going on & how it was managed to be solved so well.  It took me a lot of thinking to get it out straight.  Although it manages to wrap up the show with a happy ending, I think the show need to go a bit far on it.  Reiji's past & his promise to Rin's mother is still a bit fuzzy.

Overall Conclusion

Kodomo no Jikan is a nice show to watch & has a pretty good storyline.  However, this show may turn some people away due to its heavy lolicon approach.  The heavy censorship may be a problem as well as it kind of kills the show's jokes.  If you aren't disturbed by loli stuff, give this show a go.

Kodomo no Jikan receives a grade of 7.5/10.  The show is funny with a lolicon approach & has a surprisingly good story & character backgrounds.  However, the DVD version is probably your best bet to watch this show as the show is heavily censored on the on-air TV version.  I do find some of the censorship to be unnecessary, but I could be wrong as the jokes could be extreme than I think.  Also, the ending can be confusing for some as it felt rushed & left some fuzzy parts out.

Last updated on January 22, 2008