Shinobu

Wow, I was looking back at the first tankoubon, and it has been five years since KnJ came out. Has it really been that long?

I haven't been following it since the beginning, I wasn't even into manga in May 2005. I was a big time anime and manga fan, but my interest died out in the 90's about when Ranma 1/2 ended, and I didn't like the followup, Inuyasha.

I only got back into it, from a random visit to the manga section at a Borders in summer 2008, where Rosario+Vampire caught my eye. From there, I eventually found Kodomo no Jikan on Veoh.com, and then the manga.

Now KW is not Rumiko Takahashi. In that Takahashi-sensei came out with about 64 pages a month (Shonen Sunday - 16 pages a week) vs. 24 pages a month in Comic High. So back then, I got my fix every week, where with KnJ, it's a slog to wait a month between installments. Only eight takoubon in five years...

I guess it's not really "real time", if it were, Rin would already be in junior high school.

I guess it's the waiting. We're so used to instant gratification these days, it almost seems inconvenient to wait. At least these days, we have people to translate and send up the chapters almost as fast as they hit the newstands. Back when Ranma 1/2 was running in Shonen Sunday, the internet as we know it didn't exist (the WWW didn't become popular until around 1994) you had to know Unix and rnews, and go to the rec.arts.anime newsgroups to see what Ranma was up to. And I was about the only one that had a Shonen Sunday subscription. (Imagine getting a 300-page manga every week for three years. 156 books. Almost 47,000 pages!) No wonder they print them on cheap paper and toss them. It's impossible to keep them! (I still have mine) That's why they publish tankoubon.

Well, KnJ is by far my most favorite manga at the moment (I like Takahashi's Rinne next), and I hope it goes on for a while longer, and she gives us the ending we know has to be. No running off without a true ending, like Ranma and even Urusei Yatsura.

Dark Samus

I knew this manga four years ago, and I never thought that I will be a very important part of my life. I`m not an extreme Otaku, in fact, I hardly get atracted by something like this title. KnJ has something, forget the loli,forget the ecchi.....heck, forget the fanservice, KnJ has a very deep plot, rich caracters, a dinamic rythm and very life-like situations that sometimes touch very sensibles fibers in ourselves.This manga is, and will be legend for the years to come, and when our clones know it, It will become legend again and again.

SusanoSasori

I just found this whole thing out in september, and I'm glad I did too. I don't think I'd have the patience to sit around for five years waiting each month for the next chapter. Thankfully I was satiated with some 53 chapters and 16 episodes before having to do the "wait til next month" thing...

Samuraisedge

I didn't realized KNJ was around that long. Of course, I started reading it just a year ago. The series was getting flamed and ridiculed by people left and right due to the content, so I read it myself to find out what the big deal was. I'm glad I didn't listen to the narrow-minded zelots, because this is a fantastic series. Time sure gets away from you though. It's like watching your favorite TV series, then ten years later it feels like it just started last week. Hopefully KNJ will be around for awhile longer.

PS- By the way, cool avatar 'Shinobu', where did you find it?

SusanoSasori

You know, I really hope this manga continues as well, but I kinda wonder how many more years it can go...when I think about it I just don't know what's gonna happen after Rin graduates Futatsubashi. I can't help but feel the manga would end there...I mean what else would happen, Aoki becomes a high school teacher and then continues to help Rin? Personally I always wanted this series to continue until Rin grows up, but I don't know if that would happen...

Shinobu

I think I found it on KW's blog. It was 100x100 pixels, perfect size for avatars.