First Impressions / Series Introduction

Some people would love to be in Aoki-sensei’s position – personally, you couldn’t beat me with a baseball bat hard enough to get me to do it. Cuz from the crap he has to go through in this ep, he has the worst job in the world. And the only perk is that he gets to peep on third grade girls every once in a while. And only about 0.00001% of the population (about 85% of people who come here) consider that a perk at all.

You probably know by just watching the anime and the previous OVA that Rin has been orphaned after her dad took off and her mom died some time ago. So naturally, when Aoki-sensei asks the class to write about their parents, she’s bound to feel a bit alienated and probably pretty sentimental about the whole thing. Of course in reality, I don’t think any third grader, orphan or not, would possess the level of emotional maturity to even get sentimental to the point that it gets them all emo and stuff, but as we’ve found out, these girls are actually a lot older than most girls you see in anime – they just happen to be conveniently stuck in the body of third graders.

Aoki eventually realizes his blunder (which to say, isn’t really a blunder, but as her teacher he should’ve known anyways), which makes him feel pretty bad, which of course makes the situation even worse. Like getting all sad and teary-eyed around a cancer patient. You’re not helping anyone. Leave the room. Aoki tries to be super nice to her, tries to be sensitive, but being the loser that he is, makes it so obvious that Rin picks up on it, making her pissed off at him. And probably for good reason. He did it all with good intentions, but come on man.

When he confronts her to apologize, she realizes that he really was just being nice to her to apologize, and the dramatic moment ends with… Rin taking off her school swimsuit in the changing room and a big censor block covering her. Wow guys, way to read the mood.

Aoki eventually decides to visit Rin’s place to get a better grasp of her situation. Ultimately, it’s this move that cements his position as a teacher and not just some sap who’s getting molested at school by his third grade student – he really does care about them in the nicest sense of the word, and he is honestly making an effort to try to understand them and help them grow. Reiji realizes this and tosses aside his prior thoughts about Aoki, and the two have a nice chat over a cup of tea.

Rin forgives him the next day after some smooth talking by Aoki, which leads up to Rin jumping off the stairs face-first onto Aoki’s face. Probably not Rin’s first kiss, but definitely Aoki’s. Sheesh…

Preview:


Thoughts

Ok, this is probably the last time I do this, but I’m going to complain about the censoring one more time. It sucks! See, the censors in this episode were nowhere near as often as the previous ep, but one of them really stuck out and totally destroyed the mood. I’m talking about the one “shower” scene where Rin figures out what Aoki’s deal was, and her heart sinks in disappointment as she walks into the changing room (don’t follow me) with that cheerful facade. Up to that point, it was a great scene that really had some emotional depth to it, but then came the spinning “no” and the smoking pseudopedobear. Totally unnecessary. And we can’t blame it on just the stripping part either, as the shot that followed right after (screencap 19) showed that while Rin usually appears confident and in control, inside she is ever so fragile and wants to be loved.

And that’s all I’ll say about the censoring. It’s clear that’s the path they chose, so we’ll just have to learn to deal with it.

Ultimately, what impresses me about this show is that while it has massive, massive train wreck potential, it avoids all that and ends up being a solid show. There’s a good balance between the childish antics and the severe drama – and it’s convincing, too. Episodes like the Mimi bra debacle could have easily been spun as a Shuffle-esque Barbie-doll dress-up session, but to see Mimi so distraught and her friends so awesomely supportive of her turned what should have been a childish issue into a real problem. The issue of parents (or lack of) in this episode was even more serious – and it was appropriately given more emotional weight. To see Rin hold up her facade and then have it crashing down when Aoki comes through with his bulldozer of ignorance was painfully good to watch. Which makes me wonder – what kind of show would this have been had the girls been older, say 15 or 16? Granted, some of the issues might need tweaking, but in terms of the character dynamics, it would be pretty much the same. And I wouldn’t feel like slicing my balls off as penance for watching sexually mature lolis.

And what was up with Kuro’s outfits? I dig the neko mimi and all, but lol??

Sorry, no captions this week!

38 Comments

  6. I really like this episode. With Aoki finding out about Kokonoe’s mother and all. I was surprised to know that Renji is his cousin and not his brother; I see why he’s waiting for her to grown up as her mother. Damn it!

    Aoki’s first kiss was fro ma Kid, sweet

    Syaoran Li
    Reply

  11. You can’t “finish the manga” because its still in progress. Volume 4 was only released in September over in Japan.

    reggie: do you have anything productive to say? Yeah, the show has some pretty ridiculous ‘loli’ moments but the core is a drama-story angle that is as thick as most pretentious anime. The author of the manga has said she wants to make people a bit uncomfortable, hook them, and then deliver a nice psychological drama. The anime is simplifying things a bit and adding some buffoonish ‘loli’ bits (like the way-over-the-top award-for-unnecessarily-excessive-use of the censor block).

    vexx
    Reply

  14. BEST ANIME EVER FOREVER!

    This episode has a dark mood and is full of overwhelming sadness and tension. Some of Kokonoe’s family problems became visible. Aoki Sensei feels somehow guilty and Kokonoe thinks Aoki is nice to her because of pity. I don’t want to spoil the fun more than that.

    @F(_)ck
    all existing manga chapters are translated to English. there are only 31 chapters ’till now.

    @reggie
    how can anime like this encourage someone to offend actual child?
    I take it as you did NOT see real lolicon anime or manga.
    There are hundreds of them to list here, some full of violence and lust.
    You will change your way of thinking if you read something like ‘Imouto Pantsu’, ‘Cookie Gril’, ‘Life Is Peachy’ or really sick and hardcore one ‘Enjeru’ not to mention Lolicon Bestiality mangas. In some of them like ‘A Day in the Life’ there is a THING between young ones only, no adults involved. There are lolicon incest mangas as well such as ‘Bath Time’, ‘Hey, I’m Not a Child Anymore’, ‘Tashi-kun and his Big Sis’ or a good one ‘Onee-chan Exclusive’.

    Try to compare them to KnJ, will you? They have nothing in common.

    Quote: Phil Collins
    ‘Awwww, i’m really missing the captions this week.’
    Same here. Where are my captions?

    @vexx
    well said. A truly sane person!

    fake
    Reply

  19. sorry for the phony name and all…:|

    I just watched this and… what can I say… The kiss scene was… disturbing (the least to say) but it was “inferior” (i just can’t find a word) to the manga one. It’s obvious they just wanted to get it over with.

    I do reckon it treats some serious problems of society, but it treats them in a rather… dispersive way (Look at Evangelion for the same kind of conflict treatment).

    I mean Kuro is the rich kid archetype, but with WAAAY too much free time on her hands, Rin is… a normal girl (apparently), but with some SERIOUS quirks caused by …. ah I won’t spoil it for you. Mimi is treated in the most unfair way, the fact that her body is predevelopped and she’s somewhat of a geek are there to mean that the geek days are over, as in “she’s a past figure”. “Let the subculture invade your mind” attitude I guess…

    You want PROOF? look at “Eld”, “Atashi”, “reggie”‘s posts for starters. Would you have found this attitude, let’s say… 3 years ago.

    For the author: Clearly, you haven’t seen many children’s behaviours lately, have you?

    badbreath778
    Reply

  21. my opinion about this anime :
    1.girls are more mature than their appearence, in real life there are several case that underage girl realy fallin in love for an adult guy (but not me though)
    2.lolipedofin(a phrase from shuffle) is criminal act… but plezzz don’t mixed up an anime with reality… but this show might be base on true event…
    3.even without a triger like this show…. children are still molested every minute even when a type this… so pedophilia is a sickness….and this thing existed way long before pornography business flourish in this modern era
    4.i think we should take a lesson from this show and not take a B.S comment which is useless

    BAKABAKASHI
    Reply

  22. GOD, never mind that everyone is trying to make it sound like the story is gonna be better. Quite frankly, who cares? I don’t think there’s enough material to overpower the unnecessary loli-shit they’ve already poured onto the series. This show is retarded.

    kay0ss
    Reply

  23. I honestly think this show is somewhat mediocre. The drama is okay, but the comedy is TOTALLY ruined by unnecessary bleeping and excessive censorship. Also, all this is fantasy. To equate it to real life scenarios is beyond ridiculous to me. It’s out of the discussion.

    Shippoyasha
    Reply

  30. Quote:key0ss
    ‘never mind that everyone is trying to make it sound like the story is gonna be better.’
    If you would bother yourself to read the manga, you would understand what it is all about.

    Quote:key0ss
    ‘Quite frankly, who cares?’
    Well,… I care! and probably thousands of other people.

    Quote:nono
    ‘Such a ridiculous anime shouldn’t be blogged here’
    Why? Because YOU do not like it? You are selfish.

    Quote:nono
    ‘this is very bad anime and i hate this anime the story is crime’
    Very bad anime? In what way?
    The story itself is crime? So, you would place every person that thinks otherwise behind the bars? Or maybe thinking of loli alone is enough to report people?
    What is a crime and what is not depends on the jurisdiction. Something that would be called ‘crime’ in your country may not be a crime in other countries (eg. printing loli mangas in Japan is legal but in US isn’t).

    fake
    Reply

  31. And here I hoped all those “this anime is is childpornographic crap!!!”-people would’ve learned their lesson by now and just stayed out of the Kojikan threads.
    Firstly, if you’re so oposed to it, you’re not watching it anyway and are just reading the reviews (if that) before posting your attacks, then this thread isn’t for you.
    Secondly, it has been discussed to death why this isn’t childpornographic on boards, while here your side wasn’t even interested in discussion to begin with. If some of you guys want to have another reasonable debate about it, then start one. But so far most of your comments are on a level that to call flaming would be an insult fo flame wars.

    And most importanly, guess what? NOBODY CARES. Unless the producers fuck up really badly (and so far it looks strongly like they won’t), this show will not be dropped. Jaalin sounds like he is enjoying the show, and Omni stated that he backs his staff on such issues.
    So in the future, if you see a post in the format of “Kodomo no Jikan – ##”, JUST DON’T CLICK ON IT.

    Gloranor
    Reply

  32. I think this board need to be moderated, trolls deserve to be banned and ip blocked. I’m really disturbed reading these idiots comments against knj (and in other topics too), they ruin the peace and harmony of this blog. Also, i accept criticism, but not stupid and pointless replies. Please admin, do something.

    Niki-sama
    Reply

  38. I really enjoy this series for what it offers. It is balanced just right. And I can understand about some issues that the kids are going through in this series. Every kids gets crushes and girls mature a lot quicker than most guys do. Anyway, if you are so against this show please don’t watch it or view any of the comments or blogs about it. I really love this one. It is on my to watch list for this season and I can seriously only count five of the shows that are worth watching this season. Even romance drama e.i. Da Capo II: 2 and Kimikiss is not as good as this show. So please bring your flame wars somewhere else and let me see posts that are worth my while reading.

    Thanks for this Blog Jaalin.

    PajtshiabVaj
    Reply

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