Kodocha

Kodomo no Omocha (Japanese: ã"どものおもちゃ, lit. Child's Toy), shortened to Kodocha, is a manga series by Miho Obana, helped periodically by her sister, Kaori Obana. The manga won the 1998 Kodansha Manga Award for shōjo. In the year 2007, At the American Anime Awards the anime was nominated for best comedy anime. The series was adapted as an OVA and later as an anime television series.

In 2002, the manga was published in North America in English by Tokyopop as Kodocha: Sana's Stage. In 2006, Tokyopop lost the license to the manga, leaving it out of print. In 2005, The first half of the anime series was licensed for North American distribution by FUNimation and has been released on DVD; the second half remains in limbo.

Characters

The main characters of Kodocha are Sana, Akito and all of their other friends at school, in Sana's work, and their families.

Sana Kurata

An overly cheerful and outgoing 11-year-old girl. She is a child actress whose best performance is in a popular variety program called Child's Toy. During sixth grade, she butts heads with Akito Hayama who causes trouble in their classroom, so she sets out to stop him. After some time passed, she learns more about him, of the reasons why he chooses to be a mean and disobedient person, she becomes understanding towards him. Along with her daily hardships as a child actress, she strives to deal with her personal problems. She lives with her 'mother', Misako, and agent, Rei. It is later revealed that Sana is adopted; she was abandoned by her biological mother soon after she was born and was found by Misako, who then adopted her. Her friendship with Akito grows stronger and she eventually realizes that she's in love with him, but doesn't realize this until after she learns he has started dating Fuka, her best friend. Despite the frequent misunderstanding, which comes with pain and suffering, Sana and Akito find their way to each other and become a couple. In a 2009 manga one-shot called Deep Clear, Sana is 26-years-old, married to Akito and is pregnant with his child. She gives birth to a girl, whom she names Sari.

Akito Hayama

A sullen boy of few words and physically strong, with a powerful karate chop. At the beginning of the series, it is shown that Akito has acrophobia. Akito's mother died when giving birth to him, which leads to his older sister Natsumi resenting him, frequently becoming angry with Akito and calling him a "Monster" or "Demon Child". In addition, Akito has a distant relationship with his father, who works long hours. He is well known as a delinquent and the leader of his and Sana's class. Despite his troublemaking ways, Akito is smart and gets good grades. His friendship with Sana softens his behavior, and she helps him have a better relationship with his family. Although capable of cruelty, Akito has his own code of honor: even the teacher who he terrorizes will admit that Akito will never lie, and Akito refuses to pretend to be nice to anyone he doesn't like or respect. Inspired in part by Sana's devotion to her acting career, Akito takes karate classes. He is always jealous when he sees Sana with another boy. He has kissed her 3 times (and touched her chest throughout the series), but he becomes angry with the dense Sana, who fails to realize his love for her. He uses the words "he doesn't hate her" to say that he really loves her. Sana and Akito always argue, often that makes Sana angry and pulls out her hammer and hits him with the hammer. Due to Sana's month-long departure and Fuka's request, he briefly dated Fuka, Sana's best friend. But later he and Fuka break up after she realized that Akito needed Sana, and will never be with her and he starts dating Sana. In a 2009 one-shot, Deep Clear, Akito is 26-years-old, married to Sana, and has a daughter named Sari.

Manga

Kodomo no Omocha was originally serialized by Shueisha in the magazine Ribon from August 1994 to November 1998. It was collected in ten tankōbon volumes. The series was published in North America in English by Tokyopop under the title Kodocha: Sana's Stage. As of 2008, this English edition is out of print and Tokyopop no longer has the license.

Anime

The anime consists of 102 TV episodes, which aired in Japan weekly from April 5, 1996 to March 27, 1998. The opening theme songs are "19 O'Clock News" by Tokio (episodes 1-44) and "Ultra Relax" by Tomoe Shinohara (episodes 45-102); the ending theme songs are "Panic" by Still Small Voice (episodes 1-39), "DAIJO-BU" by Tomoko Hikita (episodes 40-74), and "Pinch (Love Me Deeper)" by Rina Chinen (episodes 75-102). The first 51 episodes deal with the elementary school story arc and the remaining 51 episodes deal with the middle school story arc.

A single-episode OVA was also released earlier to the series, with significantly different character designs.

The series was partially broadcast on American TV in a syndicated FUNimation Channel programming block airing on CoLours TV and Los Angeles KSCI-DT channel 18.3. The first DVD was released in the U.S. on August 2, 2005, containing the first four episodes of the series. While no actual footage was removed from the series, the first two episodes of the dub has removed references to Rei being Sana's "pimp". (The Japanese word used, himo, can mean either "pimp" or the less problematic term "gigolo".) The first opening song, "7 O'Clock News", could not be used for contractual reasons concerning the Japanese boy band Tokio and "Ultra Relax" (the second opening theme) was used instead. All references to Tokio in the Japanese version of episode 001 have been removed from the subtitles and are replaced with (XXXXX) where Tokio would be mentioned and the audio is silent as well. The name Tokio still appears in the end credits.

Funimation has released the first 51 episodes in two boxsets. Unfortunately, it is currently going out of print.

Omake endings

The anime included omake epilogues, including various alternate-universe scenarios. These include:

• Akito fails his black belt test twice.
• Asako marries the gloomy director from The Water Palace
• Akito gets attacked by a pickpocket
• A very angry Shizu gets her vengeance on Fuka for stealing Takaishi.
• The son of a Yakuza boss demands Sana that she marries him, and when she refused, the gang beat up her and Akito. Misako and Shizuka Kurata brought together the entire Kurata clan and teams up with another clan to get back at the yakuza.
• Naozumi discovers that his family, the Hamiltons, have gone broke.
• Akito wins his black belt, confesses to Sana, and they kiss.

Deep Clear one-shot

Released in 2009 as a 100-page manga. It combines Kodocha and Honey Bitter.

The story takes place ten years after the end of Kodocha. Shuri, the heroine of Honey Bitter, is hired by Rei to spy on Akito because he had separated from Sana earlier. At this point, Sana and Akito are married and expecting a child. As she follows Akito, Shuri becomes good friends with Sana. She eventually discovers that the reason Akito separated from Sana is because he is afraid that she will die giving birth. When Sana gives birth, Shuri convinces Akito to face his fears by going to the hospital and seeing Sana and the baby. Sana gives birth to a daughter whom she names after Shuri. After their daughter's birth, Sana and Akito reconcile and begin raising their daughter together.

Reception

Kodocha was generally well received by critics and readers. It won the Kodansha Manga Award for best shōjo manga in 1998 and received a 3.5/4-star rating in Jason Thompson's Manga: The Complete Guide.

References

Further reading

• Divers, Allen (25 August 2003). "Procrastination is a State of Mind - TT". Anime News Network. 

External links

• NAS webpage
• Kodomo no Omocha (OVA) at allcinema's website (Japanese)
• Kodocha (manga) at Anime News Network's encyclopedia
• Kodocha (anime) at Anime News Network's encyclopedia