Anime Kodomo no Jikan

[2010DigitalBoy]

[COLOR="DarkOrange"]Let me say this now. In the entire world, Kodomo no Jikan is the best show airing this season. In addition, it might be a candidate for the best anime ever. However between the image below and the story's description, one might be thrown aloof from this anime. Do not be fooled. This is a genuinely deep, interesting, and amazing series that should not be missed. If you merely don't have the time, then I won't chew you out over it, but if you decide not to watch just because of the description or pics, I swear to god I will loose all respect for you.

[CENTER][IMG]http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b269/MetalSonic700/KodomonoJikan2.jpg[/IMG][/CENTER]

[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kodomo_no_Jikan] Read about it here[/i].

The first I heard of this was when Seven Seas (publisher of many of my favorite series in the US) had licensed the manga, and I was extremely excited about it. Unfortunately, they ended up deciding that the series was too controversial for them to bring over so they stopped midstream and decided to drop the license.

Well, no more than 6 months later, Japan decided to make an anime and I was once again mega-excited - especially since the manga's scanslations were getting such amazing review that I knew I needed to see what this was all about.

First, around a month ago there was released a 1 ep OVA for the series, and it absolutely blew me away. KnJ has some of the most complex and well-written characters I've ever had the joy of watching and the best group interaction since Manabi Straight of Hidamari Sketch. Plus the ability to handle controversial topics is handled excellently.

Of course, KnJ was doomed to face even more problems, and the anime series began right off the bat with oh... ****. Censorship - I've never seen it so heavily in any anime before. Every naughty word is bleeped, every panty shot or slight nudity iis covered up, even written words see full blockage. Half of what is meant to make the viewer laugh has been taken away, and I can only pray to god that the DVDs come out soon.

However, KnJ is so amazing that even with 50% of it censored, I'd still say it's the best thing airing right now and I hope everyone goes out to watch it regardless of first impression. [/COLOR]

[ImmortalGuru]

Hell, every anime deserves a try. I wasnt even gonna try Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei, but then when I downloaded and checked it out, it officially became my favorite anime right now. So yeah, I think I will give this a shot.

Mini Nov, here I come. ^_^ Will give my review later on.

[2010DigitalBoy]

[quote name='ImmortalGuru']Hell, every anime deserves a try. I wasnt even gonna try Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei, but then when I downloaded and checked it out, it officially became my favorite anime right now. So yeah, I think I will give this a shot.

Mini Nov, here I come. ^_^ Will give my review later on.[/QUOTE]

[COLOR="DarkOrange"]If you enjoyed SZS, then your taste can't be all too different from mine ^_^ KnJ also has a lot of good psychological elements which is why I wanted to watch it so bad, bu it mostly thrives on it's excellent characters.

...I can't tell you how proud I am of you man XD Make sure and tell me first the day you realize how much better other anime are than Naruto. I remember when I first realized, and ever since then I've lived a diligent, Naruto-free life. You, my friend, show great promise. [/COLOR]

[Dagger]

[i]Naka dashi kibou~[/i]

I believe you (and everyone else who says it) about the deeper elements. I have two reasons for not watching it: first, I like my titillation fluffy and meaningless (Umisho from last season is probably the best example of this). I feel weird about lapping up the fanservice when the characters involved are well-rounded people with actual psychological damage and so forth.

Now, as a corollary to this, I should enjoy the likes of Girls Bravo, but I didn't watch much of it, because it pushed its fanservice as far as it could without being an 18+ title. Shows that walk the line like that just aren't for me. I've seen the racier parts of the KnJ manga; if the anime were hentai, I would watch it, and if the manga were an ero-manga, I would read it. The same would be true if it went in the opposite direction by going lighter on the loli and boing. As it stands? Not really interested.

~Dagger~

[2010DigitalBoy]

[COLOR="DarkOrange"]Funny, cuz I on the other hand can't stand to see fanservice at all unless it's necessary to the story - even small amounts can bother me. I don't ****ing need to watch fake porn when I can watch real porn, lol. So KnJ's style is for the win IMO.[/COLOR]

[Dagger]

Hm, that's not really what I was getting at. Fanservice by definition (as I think of it, anyway) is not necessary for the story. At the same time, there are times when fanservice--by which I mean the heaviest possible fanservice, as in explicit sex scenes--and character development become almost inextricably entwined, but I've only ever really seen this in ero-games.

And ultimately, I'm convinced that concrete sex acts have more potential for plot/character development than, say, panty shots and the tired gimmick of faux-fellatio with bananas or ice cream. Does that mean every detail of it has to be plastered all over the screen? Of course not; there's always a gratuitous element. But you can't just fade to black in those situations, either. You'd lose something.

Perhaps every single loli-flashing incident etc. is necessary to show how messed up Rin is. Perhaps not. I don't think there's a concrete answer for that, and even if there were, "necessity" isn't something I particularly care about when it comes to story content (in anime or anywhere else). God knows one could argue forever about whether the roses are necessary in Utena, or the funky coloring in Gankutsuou. So for me it comes down to simple preference.

But that's neither here nor there. No more thread-jacking from me. :p

~Dagger~

[2010DigitalBoy]

[COLOR="DarkOrange"]T_T Every episode the story gets better, but the censorship gets even worse. I think this show would be 3X funnier without the cens, but it's still a great show. This **** needs to get out on DVD NAOW!!!

Ep 3: greatest moment is when sensei gets kicked in the balls and a kid yells "Are you a girl now for today?!"[/COLOR]

[Desbreko]

[color=#4B0082]Yeah, I'm planning on watching this but not before uncensored DVDs are out. Censoring that heavy just annoys the crap out of me and I doubt I'd be able to enjoy the show as it is. I don't even really care about the fanservice (which usually just makes me lol if anything) but censoring it only makes it more distracting.[/color]

[Fasteriskhead]

[SIZE="1"]I get the distinct sense that the constant, way-overzealous censoring is there to help sell DVDs more than anything else. In truth, it makes the show way more creepy than it already is to know that the creators are likely using this trick to get thousands of hopelessly blueballed perverts to shovel them more money.

Regarding the show itself: I'm a bit hesitant to talk about it, because I'm actually rather fond of the thing but just about anything I can say in its favor could be easily read as me hopelessly trying to justify my watching a fetish series (kind of a "reading Playboy for the articles" situation). Heck, I like to think the best of people, but were I in the outsider's perspective I don't think I could resist coming to similar conclusions. "Good characters, thought-provoking subject matter... yeah, yeah, you just want to see panties and school swimsuits, you perv." Kodomo no Jikan is just not the kind of thing you can admit to watching and come away looking better for it.

So, while giving the series a test run, frankly I was ready to drop it in the fail pile at the first sign of inadequacy (especially after the rather lackluster OVA). As an anime fan I'm going to get accused of sexual deviancy enough as it is, and KnJ looks to provide tons more justification for that kind of thing. Imagine my surprise - and, I admit, a few pangs of self-hatred - when it turned out that I happened to like the show a lot (I'm not sure, but I think this is how vegetarians must feel when they accidentally eat a hunk of beef or something and find it delicious). In any case, obviously I like the thing enough to talk about it a bit regardless of consequences, so off we go.

It's a surprisingly deep little series. The characters aren't particularly endearing: you've got the boring 20-something aw-shucks male teacher, the well-endowed female coworker whose crush on the previous is constantly played for cheap laughs, and a brood of fetish objects as the pre-adolescent girls (I am very, very well aware of the reason most of the viewers are watching this series, folks). The cast is serviceable, though, for what really makes the series interesting, which is the situations they get thrown into. KnJ is at its best when it puts a microscope on the (seemingly trivial) moments of child life and makes us see them as the crises they would be to someone in the third grade. It is, I think, the first show I've ever seen where an episode centers around one of the girls having to wear a bra for the first time - and they don't even play it for laughs! Sure, KnJ goes for the yuks frequently, but that's not the main point: the series forces us to take the concerns, desires, and opinions of these kids [i]seriously[/i]. The most infamous element, Rin's blatantly sexual crush on Daisuke, also has to be seen from this perspective. There's a temptation to take her behavior as the actions of someone who doesn't yet understand what she's doing and who isn't fully responsible yet - and who certainly isn't prepared for a sexual relationship (there's also, I might add, the temptation to think it was just cooked up to sell manga to lonely neets). But Rin - while she admits that a lot of it is just screwing with Daisuke's head - absolutely wants her feelings taken seriously, rather than brushed off as the fantasies of the immature. So, the show places us in a bind. Exactly how are we, as the adults, supposed to deal with this? How willing are we to grant children their own lives and listen to them as thinking, feeling beings? How do we teach them, and how do we understand them?

So, in a nutshell, there's why I find the series interesting - these kids and their dumb oaf of a teacher trying to find a way of living with each other. On the other hand, I know full well that this is [i]not[/i] why the manga is so popular, nor why the anime's (uncensored) DVDs are going to sell like a Halo sequel - a fact that should make us feel a touch of shame on humanity's behalf. I also know, even more, that you have no reason to believe anything that I've just said, and probably find it more plausible to just take me for a rorikon and move on. And that's fair enough, I suppose: in the world of anime fandom, believing someone when they claim to be without a creepy sexual hangup means making a shaky assumption indeed (the newer fans may object to this, but I think the vets will understand).[/SIZE]

[2010DigitalBoy]

[COLOR="DarkOrange"]Fasterisk, as I've said before, your posts are absolutely beautiful, and I had fun reading it but you are 100% wrong about the croud.

You see, while lolicon is a draw, no one is watching it just for that. (****, if I wanted that, I'd go watch Imouto Jiru again XD) You see, I remember when people were tlaking about their expectations for this show and 90% of everyone said it looked like lolicon trash they wouldn't touch. I looked at a lot of anime blogs who had it at the bottom of their lists for shows coming out this season. I know that over at megatoko, I was one of 3 people really looking forward to it. Yes, it's true, all 3 of us are lolicon, but all three of us were cheering on the incredible psychological element.

Would I have watched it anyway? Yes. I loved Moetan for what I've seen. But is that what makes KnJ a good show? No. IT's probably true that lolicon like me would have liked it, but nothing to make it the amazing show that it is.

I agree with you that it's hard to explain. Because every lolicon who looked forward to it was chastised for using the psychological aspect as an excuse, but you know what? All those people who were saying 'AVOID!' are now talking about how much they love it. That alone is proof enough for me that this show is deserving of it's likely popularity.

I'm just hoping the anime does well enough that Seven Seas thinks about picking the manga back up. I was ****ing pissed about that ****. [/COLOR]

[eleanor]

[font="trebuchet ms"] I watched the OVA and the first episode, just because of the controversy surrounding this anime.

I know that sexual thoughts do enter kids' minds as early as third grade. Especially now, with the media and whatnot... the show is extremely exaggerated, but what anime isn't? It's at minimum a decent anime withstanding all the taboo elements in it.

But I'm with Dagger on the fanservice. Some of is justified, as I know it's later explained in the series, but some of it isn't. Is a faux-[spoiler]cum shot on a third-grader[/spoiler] really necessary to 'character development'? I mean...not really.[/font]

[quote name='Deus ex Machina'][COLOR="DarkOrange"]

I'm just hoping the anime does well enough that Seven Seas thinks about picking the manga back up. I was ****ing pissed about that ****. [/COLOR][/QUOTE]
[font="trebuchet ms"] As pissed as you may have been, I doubt any American publisher will be ready to jump on this series. I'll be surprised if it's considered... there are just some things in [i]Kodomo no Jikan[/i] that disturb westerners on a fundamental and pretty much unchangeable level. DeAngelis did what any other reasonable businessman would've done. It's hard to champion loli-con as legitimate character-building and quality material when the anime/manga could easily just be a loli with a plot.[/font]

[Fasteriskhead]

T Deus I know you really want to defend the show (and the crowd watching it), but I think you've just helped prove my point. Quoting selectively:

[quote name='Deus ex Machina'][COLOR="DarkOrange"]I know that over at megatoko, I was one of 3 people really looking forward to it. Yes, it's true, all 3 of us are lolicon, but all three of us were cheering on the incredible psychological element.

Would I have watched it anyway? Yes. I loved Moetan for what I've seen. But is that what makes KnJ a good show? No. IT's probably true that lolicon like me would have liked it, but nothing to make it the amazing show that it is.[/COLOR][/QUOTE]Without pushing the point too strongly, I can imagine a situation analogous to this. Let's say that I go to a restaurant and order a hamburger, and to my surprise it turns out that the burger comes with a free salad. I am, of course, very happy about this because it turns out I'm getting a bonus with my meal that I wasn't expecting - but that doesn't change the fact that what I [i]originally[/i] ordered (and what caught my interest in the first place) was just the burger by itself. If I understand you fairly, the three people you mention were initially interested in KnJ because of the rorikon aspects (or, more exactly: it was a show that only rorikons were interested in), and even if the show were trash they would watch it for that reason anyways. The fact that KnJ is actually a good series, then, just acts as really nice bonus - more or less the same as the free salad. This shows pretty decisively that a large portion of the fandom for KnJ are there first and foremost for the "burger," so to speak, even though they may enjoy the quality of the series as well. And I suspect that the more rabid fans are probably of this type.

As for the rest of us? Well, if I can stretch the analogy a bit further, maybe we're a bit like someone who just really wants the salad, even if it also comes out with a mess of meat, bread, and ketchup that they have little interest in. KnJ is a good show, certainly, and it can be enjoyed solely for that fact. But I tend to think, based on your post and my own thoughts, that the people who liked it early on and like it the most now also have other reasons (reasons which, among other things, encourage them to check out the DVDs).

[2010DigitalBoy]

[COLOR="DarkOrange"]But as it turns out the salad is a thousand times more delicious than the burger. Bah, there's no way to make myself look good here T_T[/COLOR]

[Desbreko]

[color=#4B0082]I broke down and got the first two episodes since there hadn't been any other new releases for a few days. Well, besides Bleach but that hardly counts anymore. . . .

As I thought, the censoring—mainly of words—is freaking annoying but I still managed to enjoy the show. I can relate to the issue of struggling to be taken seriously as a kid, since I was always somewhat more mature than most kids for my age and it annoyed me to be dismissed simply because of my age. That side of the show really appeals to me.

Rin, Kuro, and Mimi are also just a lot of fun. The scene in ep2 where Kuro bangs her head against the wall and other such moments kept me laughing quite a lot. The conveniently located rubber ducky was also good; that kind of censorship is so much better than giant boxes covering the screen. I'm really looking forward to ep3 and beyond.

Making animated avatars is also fun.[/color]

[img]http://img152.imageshack.us/img152/8886/kodomonojikan150x80rinacx5.gif[/img] [img]http://img152.imageshack.us/img152/7564/kodomonojikan150x80bubuzz5.gif[/img]

[Twilight_Kioku]

I watched the OVA on a whim and enjoyed the rori aspects of it. Did some hunting around and found the manga. Enjoyed it for the plot depth to my great surprise and delight. Currently keeping up with the anime impatiently, both the aired versions and the DVD versions. The TV stations censoring the anime is a major drag, but I imagine I will deal with it seen as how I have the patience of a...yeah, something that isn't very patient.

side note - Kuro kicks ***!

[Desbreko]

[color=#4B0082]I was seriously disappointed by ep3. The first two episodes were great and got my hopes up that maybe, just maybe, the censorship wouldn't bother me too much. Then it went and ruined ep3 for me. Ep3 had the potential for much hilarity but instead we got a full screen censor box. That was so not cool.[/color]

[2010DigitalBoy]

[quote name='Desbreko'][color=#4B0082]I was seriously disappointed by ep3. The first two episodes were great and got my hopes up that maybe, just maybe, the censorship wouldn't bother me too much. Then it went and ruined ep3 for me. Ep3 had the potential for much hilarity but instead we got a full screen censor box. That was so not cool.[/color][/QUOTE]

[COLOR="DarkOrange"]I haven't seen past ep 3 pretty much for this reason - that I might as well not watch the show when I can't see half of it. Considering I have to much else on my pallette, I'm willing to push this back to wating for the DVDs. [/COLOR]

[Desbreko]

[color=#4B0082]I went ahead and got episodes four and five anyway and they were thankfully much better. There wasn't nearly as much to censor in them. It seems like episodes that don't rely on physical humor make it through okay.

Surprisingly, the pool episode was not filled with fanservice.[/color]

[center][img]http://img412.imageshack.us/img412/1732/rinpoolstalkzy7.jpg[/img][/center]

[Dagger]

[url=http://www.moetron.com/2007/12/21/kodomo-no-jikan-dvd-episodes-12-uncut/][u]If you wanted to know what was censored...[/u][/url] although the water fountain scene has zero impact compared to the manga, haha.

~Dagger~