Kodomo no Omocha (Japanese: こどものおもちゃ, lit. Child's Toy), also known as Kodocha for short, is a manga series by Miho Obana. The series was adapted as an OVA by J.C. Staff and released on December 16, 1995 by Shueisha under their Ribon Video label. An anime television series was created by Studio Gallop and NAS and broadcast on TV Tokyo every Friday from April 5, 1996 to March 27, 1998.
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 Entertainment and has been released on DVD.
Both the manga and anime have been well received by publications for different media for the character interactions and the comedy. The manga won the 1998 Kodansha Manga Award for shōjo. At the American Anime Awards held in 2007, it was nominated for best comedy anime.
Sana Kurata is a cheerful, popular and energetic 11-year-old child actress who enrolls in a regular school only to find out there is chaos in the classroom, led mainly by an aloof boy named Akito Hayama. At first, the two come in conflict with each other because of their opposing ideals, but as they get to know each other, they start helping each other out in Akito's family life and Sana's career, as well as helping their classmates and peers.
Kodomo no Jikan (こどものじかん, lit. A Child's Time) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Kaworu Watashiya. The story revolves around a grade school teacher named Daisuke Aoki, whose main problem is that one of his students, Rin Kokonoe, has a crush on him. It was serialized between May 2005 and April 2013 in Futabasha's Comic High! magazine and is compiled in 13 volumes. At one time, an English-language version of the manga was licensed by Seven Seas Entertainment for distribution in North America under the title Nymphet, but the Los Angeles–based company ultimately decided not to publish it due to controversies over its content.
A 12-episode anime adaptation of the series aired in Japan between October and December 2007. While content of the broadcast version was sometimes heavily censored, the DVD releases of the individual episodes remain unedited. A second anime season was released as four original video animation episodes between January and July 2009. A third original anime DVD was released in January 2011.