List of Kodomo no Jikan chapters

The following is a list of volumes and chapters of the ongoing Japanese manga series "Kodomo no Jikan", written and illustrated by Kaworu Watashiya and published in Japan by Futabasha in the monthly seinen manga magazine "Comic High!". As of January 2008, thirty-three chapters have been published since serialization began on May 22 2005, of which twenty-eight have been collected in four bound volumes to date. At one point, an English language version of the manga was licensed for distribution in North America by Seven Seas Entertainment under the title "Nymphet", but the Los Angeles–based company ultimately decided not to publish it due to controversies over its content.citeweb|url=http://www.icv2.com/articles/home/10663.html|title= Seven Seas kills Nymphet|accessdate=2007-05-30] An anime adaptation of the series — roughly covering the first twenty chapters of the manga, albeit with plot points and scenes lifted from later installments and featuring an original ending — aired on Japanese television between October 12 2007 and December 28 2007 containing twelve episodes.

The main story revolves around newly graduated, twenty-three-year-old teacher Daisuke Aoki, who has just landed his first teaching job as an elementary school instructor at Nihongo|Futatsubashi Elementary School|双ツ橋小学校|Futatsubashi Shōgakkō. He is placed in charge of class 3-1, where one of his students, a mischievously precocious eight-year-old girl named Rin Kokonoe, develops an intense crush on him. Though he does his best to discourage her efforts, she nevertheless continues with her aggressive campaign to win his affections in spite of the problems that ensue that are her attempt to get closer to him. The situation is further complicated not only by the often complex, intertwining relationships existing between them and their respective friends, families, and peers, but also by the everyday life lessons they all learn together, as well as from each other.

Establishment of a series chronology

A timeline for the series can be extrapolated by taking advantage of canonical references and the well-defined structure of the Japanese elementary school year.

Canonical references

"Kodomo no Jikan" takes place in the mid 2000s, based on in-series evidence. A class photo of Rin, Kuro, and Mimi's grade one, class one orientation session seen in chapter six of the manga [cite book |last= Watashiya |first= Kaworu |title= Kodomo no Jikan Volume 1|chapter= Class Period 6 |publisher= Futabasha |date= December 12 2005 |id= ISBN 4-57-583177-8 The class photo of Rin Kokonoe, Kuro Kagami, and Mimi Usa's grade 1-1 orientation session on page 143 has a banner identifying the year as Heisei 15, which corresponds to the Gregorian calendar year 2003.] indicates that it was taken in the year Heisei 15, which corresponds to the year 2003 in the Gregorian calendar. Since the picture was two years old at the time, this corresponds to a then-current year of 2005, a figure which reflects the original publication date of the story in question. A variant of that same photograph is briefly glimpsed in one of Rin's flashbacks in chapter thirty-one, with the aforementioned date intact. However, while the events in the story take place some sixteen months after chapter six in official continuity, the story itself only published nearly two years later in late 2007, leaving an eight month delay between the passage of time in the series' fictional universe and the real world. That the originally given date was maintained and retconning was not used to correct the discrepancy indicates that "Kodomo no Jikan" has a fixed timeline rather than a floating one.

Japanese elementary school year structure

The Japanese elementary school year, which begins in April [cite web |url= http://web-japan.org/kidsweb/explore/calendar/april/schoolyear.html |title= Kids Web Japan - Explore Japan - Calendar: Start of School Year |publisher=Web Japan |accessdate=2008-01-13 |id= jesstart] and ends in March, [cite web |url= http://web-japan.org/kidsweb/explore/calendar/march/graduation.html |title= Kids Web Japan - Explore Japan - Calendar: Graduation Ceremony |publisher=Web Japan |accessdate=2008-01-13 |id= jessend] can be divided into discrete time periods of two types: trimesters and vacations. [cite web |url= http://web-japan.org/kidsweb/explore/schools/q4.html |title= Kids Web Japan - Explore Japan - Schools: Vacations |publisher=Web Japan |accessdate=2008-01-13 |id= jesvacation]
*The first trimester begins in early April, ends in late July, and is followed by six weeks of summer vacation.
*The second trimester begins in early September, ends in late December, and is followed by two weeks of winter vacation.
*The third trimester begins in early January, ends in late March, and is followed by two weeks of spring break.As of April 1 2002, a five-day-long school week has become the norm in all public elementary schools. [cite web |url= http://www.japantoday.com/jp/shukan/109 |title= Five-day school week: Good or bad? |publisher= Japan Today |date= April 4 2002|accessdate=2008-01-13] Given that "Kodomo no Jikan's" fictional Futatsubashi Elementary is such a school, [cite book |last= Watashiya |first= Kaworu |title= Kodomo no Jikan Volume 3|chapter= Class Period 18 |publisher= Futabasha |date= February 10 2007 |id= ISBN 4-57-583328-2 Kuro Kagami comments in a flashback about how "public schools (like Futatsubashi Elementary) really are filled with nothing but talentless children."] the first chapter takes place well after this aforementioned date, and the structure of the Japanese school year is well-defined and consistent between academic institutions of the same type, events in the series can be assigned to a specific trimester, vacation period, or even day if sufficient information is provided.

List of tankōbon volumes and manga chapters

In keeping with the academic setting, the individual chapters of "Kodomo no Jikan" are formally referred to as Nihongo|"jikanme"|時間目, which means "class period" in English. This same naming convention is employed in the manga series "" by Ken Akamatsu.

Notes and references