Kodomo no Jikan TV 1, Hot of teacher, but teacher not hot for her.

 

     This episode starts with Daisuke Aoki walking up to the elementary school, watching the students playing in the schoolyard, and saying to himself that he’s going to be a good “big brother type” teacher.  Daisuke finds his new classroom and opens the door greeting everyone only to find all the girls changing out of their gym uniforms, embarrassed he closes the door and leaves. A while later he starts his teaching career by introducing himself to the class and taking attendance. When he gets to calling Rin’s name, she starts asking him questions about his age, girlfriend status, and then says she’ll be his girlfriend because he’s already seen her naked, the classroom erupted in laughter causing a commotion.

     The class is brought back under control when another teacher barges in, and she demands to know what he’s doing, his class can be heard all the way down the hall. Then in the teachers lounge Kyōko Hōin, a female teacher about his age tells him not to worry, his class has always been the noisiest. Then he asks why Mini Usa is always absent and he gets a round about answer that doesn’t satisfy him. outside after lunch Daisuke tries to call a black cat over, and Rin shows up, and they talk, she tells him that all adults lie, and hurt without a seconds thought, and he tells her he’s not like that. Then after school Kyoko shows him a book that basically said that Rin and Kuro drove the last teacher out of the school. Later Rin confronts Daisuke, telling him that she did it in retaliation for how badly the last teacher treated her friend Mimi.

     So, Daisuke pays a visit to Mimi’s house to meet her, he comes to the conclusion that she’s been mistreated, so he is kind to her and tells her to come back to school. She returns to school the next day, and everyone has a lot of fun in Daisuke’s classroom. At lunch Daisuke saves Rin when she falls out of a tree, he breaks her fall and slightly injuries himself in the process. While leaving school, Kyoko asks Daisuke out to dinner, and while she’s getting something, the three girls led by Rin lift their dresses giving him a flash. Well that’s all for this episode, below are some screen shots.

     Well, episode one of Kodomo no Jikan is finally here after all the controversy and debate surrounding the cancellation of the US publication of the manga. If your wish hear more info about the debate over the manga please view my post on the Kodomo no Jikan OAV. First of all let me say that the TV series is a lot milder and more toned downed than the OAV, or the manga series. Almost all of the risque behavior (visual behavior) is obscured by placards and so forth, so your left to use your imagination to show you whats blocked out, even so several Japanese TV stations cancelled or refused to broadcast this series. I’ll review the content of the episode based only on it’s content, not the manga’s (I’ve read the manga, if you wish to read it you can find it at the usual places). OK, so here we go, we have a young new teacher Daisuke (23 years old) starting his first job, and what does he end up with, a 3rd grade class with some problem students, mainly Rin who uses sexually inappropriate behavior behavior to show affection or threaten the new teacher. He manages to get Mimi, another student who’s been harassed by the previous teacher to begin to attending school again, and this endears him to Rin in the process.

     What I found interesting about this whole stories is the reverse sexual harassment/lolicon angle to the show. In Japanese society lolicon (sexualization of girls under the age of consent) and enjo kosai (older men paying high school/junior high school for dates that may include sex) has become almost acceptable, one survey of Japanese junior high school girls found that 17% of the girls found nothing wrong with the practice. So when the roles are reversed with a young girl chasing a older man who’s clearly not interested in her in that way, I found it to be quite funny. If all then Japanese girls who have ever been groped on a train, had up-skirt photos of them taken without their consent, or have ever been approached for enjo kosai against their will started to harass unwilling men maybe something would change. 

     One must remember that the Kodomo no Jikan story was originally intended for a seinen audience (men between 18 and up to 40 or more) so the humor was written and directed at men not children, so the situations are intended to be ones that would make men amused or uncomfortable. So I won’t make the argument that Rin should have been a middle/high school girl, because we’ve all seen the teen girl/grown man crush/attraction storyline in many movies and books. Even though I found this story interesting it will never be broad-casted or sold in the US, you can make a movie that shows every possible way to mutilate and torture a person and get a “R” rating, but show just a little too much skin and it’s “NC-17” all the way. So to me the whole point of the series will be about how Daisuke deals with Rin’s inappropriate sexual behavior towards him, he knows somethings wrong with her, and while she shows inappropriate behavior she’s also kind, caring, and protective to her friends. In the end he must deal with Rin, by trying to help her, and he must also deal with his attraction to Kyoko, a female teacher, who’s also attracted to him. So this series’ setup can lead to a lot of humorous and shocking situations, one of these that I can see developing is Rin trying to keep Kyoko from stealing “her Daisuke”.  But while this might lead to very funny stories, US culture is very uncomfortable with sexuality especially female sexuality, one just has to look at the different terms applied to outwardly sexual aggressive people; men are called Casanova, Jon Juan, rouge, and so forth; and females are called slut, whore, and so forth. So this anime might follow in the Japanese tradition of bawdy sexual comedy, which has been around for hundreds of years, in America it would be considered very inappropriate.