AMINE AND MANGA

The first chapter of a two-part "pilot" for Kodomo no Jikan appeared in the premiere issue of the Japanese seinen manga magazine Comic High! on March 2, 2004, published by Futabasha.The successful reception of the prototype prompted the creator, Kaworu Watashiya, to rework the title into a full-fledged manga. Serialization began a little over a year later in the May 22, 2005 issue of Comic High! and is still ongoing as of January 2008; the stories have been collected and released in six bound volumes in Japan thus far. While the aforementioned prototype is not considered part of the ongoing series' canon in spite of the shared name, largely identical main cast, and common central theme, many situations and ideas initially introduced there were revisited in the eventual manga series — and thus incorporated into official continuity — albeit in (slightly) altered or expanded form.

A thirty-minute, uncensored, single-episode original video animation (OVA) was released on September 12, 2007, available both on the anime's official website and in a limited edition version bundled with the fourth volume of the manga. The anime series, directed by Eiji Suganuma and produced by the animation studio Studio Barcelona, was originally scheduled to premiere in Japan on October 11, 2007, but two television stations — TV Saitama and Mie TV — removed it from their broadcast schedules. In an official press release, TV Saitama stated that their decision was heavily influenced by the then-recent capture of Takayuki Hosoda, a notorious Japanese child pornographer who was revealed to be an elementary school vice principal. Plans for Chiba TV and KBS Kyoto to air the series remained unchanged, and the anime premiered on Japanese television on October 12, 2007, running for twelve episodes until December 28, 2007. However, some of its content suffered censorship to varying degrees, from animated panels obscuring parts of the screen and sound effects being used to "bleep" out dialogue in some instances to full suppression of both audio and video in others. The uncensored version of the anime series is available on DVD in six volumes containing two episodes each. The first such collection was released on December 21, 2007, with future releases to follow in one month intervals, ending on May 23, 2008.
A second anime season has been announced, and a promotional video of this season was included with a special edition of the fifth manga volume released on July 11, 2008. This season will only be released in OVA format. An OVA special was released with volume six of the manga released on January 21, 2009 while the first regular episode of the second season was released on February 26, 2009.