Kodocha - An Anime Review by the Montoya Family

This is taken from the back of the first season of dvd's.



Kodocha
Sana Kurata is an 11-year-old superstar.  Her hit series, "Child's Toy," is broadcast all over the country each afternoon garnering her fame and fortune beyond any 11-year-old's wildest dreams.  It would appear her life is charmed, free of worry and regret.  However, Sana's life isn't all it's cracked up to be.  There's the constant strain of being a child star, filming her television series, commercials, and even movies.  There's pressure from her mother, an award-winning novelist, who insists Sana devour a healthy breakfast before leaving the house each morning.  And then there is her arch enemy, Akito Hayama.  Akito and his band of bullies torment Sana and her classmates each and every day.  But Sana has decided to take a stand!  She devises a plan to scare Akito straight.  Shock follows shock as Sana discovers that there's more to Akito than he would ever want anyone to know.  Might there be something in him worth redeeming?


Melinda's Thoughts:

I think you should watch Kodocha.  It's about a crazy singing girl.  She is a hyper and popular TV star.  The thing I like about Kodacha is that in a matter of seconds it can turn into a serious love drama and then into a goofy cartoon show.

I think the reason it can go from serious to goofy is that two main characters are complete opposites.  One character is a super hyper TV star.  The other one is an adult like and serious sixth grader.  The emotions on his face are very rare.

A little bit later on it is a love triangle.  Some of the characters even do things that shows affection to the hyper character.  But she sort of doesn't get the message well.

I love Kodocha because, IT'S SO RANDOM!! And because it is fun, and serious, and has love in it.  It's so hyper, that's why I like it.

The strange thing is that Zeb actually likes this show, he even said he loved it. Honestly, I thought he would have hated it, and ran away as soon as he saw the show.  He never really did like those types of shows.

The other thing I like is one moment she is comical and the next serious. It's so strange.  It doesn't mean I hate it. “I don't hate it.” (This is a comment you might not understand until you have watched the show.)

Ella's Thoughts:

Kodocha

Kodocha is about the life of Sana Karata, 11 year-old TV star.  San is a hyper girl who is almost always happy.  The show starts out with Sana's class being in total chaos.  The person behind all of this chaos is Akito Hayama.  From there Sana stops the chaos and they become friends.  But that is only the beginning.

Some things I like about Kodacha:

It makes me laugh a lot.

It can be serious when it wants to be.

Akito as a boss monkey.

Tsuyoshi snaping.

This picture.

Things I would change:

Add more Nattsumi, even though he never really had a chance with Sana. :(

Make a third season.

Favorite scenes:

When Tsuyoshi talked for Akito.

The part when Akito gave Sana the snowman.

Zeb's Thoughts:

Kodocha is an anime about an 11-year-old TV actress and her crazy and yet serious life. One of the reasons why I like this show is that it shows the characters, whom are mostly children, grow up and how they face problems as they occur. The first character that you will see is a very hyperactive girl named Sana Kurata. Other than her tendencies to randomly sing and her unconventional Mom, Sana is a mostly normal girl. Sana's foil, and other main character, is Akito Hayama, a acrophobic child whose mom died giving birth to him. His father worries mostly about his work, and his sister hates Akito from the bottom of her heart because of her mother's death. And this show was made for children.  

What I find good about this show is the character development and the story. Like I said before this show is about how they grow up. Akito, at the beginning, bullies two of the Teachers by blackmailing them and all of the girls in the classroom along with them. Sana however will not stand helplessly against the “Evil Boys” as she plots against them to stop the Bullying, especially the Boss Monkey, Akito. She soon sees that Akito is not evil, but has his own problems. She tries to help fix them. This is what I like about Kodocha.


Lisa's Thoughts:
The kids and I just finished watching the second season.  This is the second time we have watched this series.  The first time was several years ago.  The kids, especially the girls, loved it then.  But I think they loved it for different reasons this second time around.  What I remember about the first time is that it was a silly, crazy show with this hyper-active girl and her just as wild friends.  I suppose even that first time I saw and felt the serious aspects of the show.  But as we were watching it this time I noticed a few things that I thought would be fun to share with everyone.

I like how Sana's descriptions of the other characters in the opening changes as time goes on.  I guess as Zeb pointed out this would be related to the character development.  These people grow and change during the series.  We really get to know them and why they do the things they do.

There are so many times that Sana and the others are just silly.  It makes the show fun, and funny at times.  Sana puts almost everything to music.  Her mom wears the most outrageous hats/headgear.  Most of the time the headgear involves her squirrel, Maro.  The characters are so cartoon-like, I guess sort of like Bugs Bunny, silly jokes, the way Road Runner runs.  But in seconds it can change and be completely serious.  Some of the topics that they cover are death of a parent and how that affects the rest of the family, adoption and relationships with birth parents and adoptive parents, friendship, bullying, first love, divorce, abuse and abandonment.  There are of course even more.  But as you can see there are tons of very serious topics right in there between the craziness.

Scenes that just stand out for me are:
1.  When Sana's mom meets Sana's birth mother for the first time.  As the conversation finishes, Sana's mom just calmly slaps her birth mother.  This is because of how her birth mother had just left newborn baby, Sana, laying on a park bench.  Then she looks at this woman and tells her that she has nothing else to say to her and that it is Sana's turn to talk to her.  The whole scene it is just as if someone was squeezing tight my heart.  I had tears in my eyes.

2. I love the scene where Sana is pretending to be Akito's mother.  He never knew his mom at all.  She died giving birth to him.  Akito has his head laying on Sana's lap.  She is telling him that everything is okay.  She was so happy that he was born.  She loves him more than anything in the world and is happy that he gets a chance to live.  Here was the bully, and he is almost in tears from the things that Sana is telling him.. Feelings that, surely, his mom did have for him.  These things he had never felt before.  He always blamed himself for her death.  I cried here, as well.

3.  This was more of an episode, it might have even been two episodes.  Sana and Akito are going to celebrate their "Middle birthday."  Because Akito's mother died the day he was born, he had never celebrated his birthday before.  So Sana decided to fix that.  She planned a party right between their birthdays.  It is just so sweet as Akito tries to pick out a gift to give Sana.  But in the end he can't buy her anything, nothing is special enough for her.  But at the party as everyone else is leaving he goes outside and builds a tiny snowman.  Sana sees it and asks if it is her present.  He says yes.  Of course Sana is SOOO excited about it.  Then Akito tries to tell her that he likes her, "I like..  I like..."  But he just can't do it.  They are standing in front of each other and their eyes staring into the other's.  He leans in and kisses her.  WOW, so sweet!

There are so many times that this show has me in tears.  It touches my heart in so many ways.  And these are a few of the reasons that we love this anime.