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Kodomo no Omocha, or Child's Toy, is a hyperactive and hilarious shoujo anime/manga series created by the manga artist Obama Miho. It manages to balance both drama and absolutely insane comedy. How could you not love an anime where the first episode is titled: "I'm An Elementary School Girl with a Pimp"? Kodocha follows the life of an eleven year old girl named Kurata Sana, who is trying to survive adolescence just like any other kid. Except Sana is slightly different. She's the daughter of a famous writer and she's famous herself as lead star in a national television show titled "Child's Toy," which everyone watches and loves. Balancing school life and a full-time career might be hard on some girls her age, but Sana has a superhuman amount of energy and a constant smile planted on her face. She's an energetic actress, no matter how hard the work load may get. Her die-hard attitude and positive outlook are two of the many reasons why everyone loves her show. Few things can ever bring her down. We first meet Sana when she wakes up late for school. She jumps up, screams "AAUUGHH! NO! IT'S 8:30?!" and runs around trying to get ready. Her mom isn't worried. "If you sleep well, you grow well. If you oversleep, you grow more," she comments while reading the newspaper. She looks up, but finds that Sana is gone, first in her room furiously washing her face, brushing her hair, putting on her clothes while dancing, and then dashing to the front door in a flurry of chaos. Suddenly Sana is intercepted by her mother, who comes up beside her in a miniature red car and bonks her on the head with a hammer. Next thing Sana knows, she's being dragged into the kitchen complaining loudly about being late to school. This, my friends, is your normal morning in the Kurata household. Sana then introduces her manager Rei: "This handsome young man is my boyfriend and my pimp." At this point you're left wondering what an eleven year old is doing with a twenty year old pimp, but there's no time to wonder about such things, as Sana and Rei have already rushed out the door in a blur and gotten in the car. Her mom calls out while they leave, "Drive safely but recklessly!" When Sana arrives at class, we find out that the chaos surrounding her life at home doesn't stop there. The scene in the classroom is total havoc: desks, chairs, students, clothes, soccer balls, umbrellas, everything one can possible think of is flying across the classroom. The teacher is begging the kids to stop, but she's so soft-spoken that they don't pay any attention to her. The boys in Sana's class have been extremely rowdy, getting worse and worse every day, causing their class to fall behind on all their schoolwork compared to the other classes. We find out that the cause for this mess is Hayama Akito, the ringleader of the boys. Sana, in the other corner, is the leader of the girls. The moment Hayama and Sana meet, she greets him with a mouthful of colorful insults and he proceeds to ignore her. Eventually the rivalry between Sana and Hayama escalates as Sana calls Hayama and his henchmen "baboons" on national television. Then she finds out that Hayama had been blackmailing their teachers all this time. She makes it her personal agenda to stop the boys' rampaging under Hayama's control, and get the class back on track. However, Sana gets more than she bargained for; she finds out that Hayama comes from a troubled family and sympathizes with him. Sana barges into Hayama's life uninvited, and ends up changing both of their lives. They go from hating each other to tolerating each other, to friends, to an unexpected kiss! But adolescence and shoujo anime are never that simple; as Sana and Hayama fall for each other, many obstacles come in their way. Sana's status as a national television star also complicates matters. Kodocha follows these two as they mature and grow, sometimes apart, sometimes together. Of course, since this is Kodocha we're talking about, one can't expect anything less than the most crack-induced and hyperactive humor imaginable. That's precisely what makes Kodocha unique; its sheer insanity sets it apart from all other shoujo series. As dramatic as the series may get, it never fails to make fun of itself. <-- Index |
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