It's both. The story titilates the reader at the outset by suggesting a loli love affair, but that's a red herring. Manga creators do this a lot--put hints of some violation of morals that looks like it's going to happen in the story, but in fact the manga never delivers. The hints are there to keep you reading when and if you get bored.

So the moral upset that a lot of people get when they start reading Kodomo no Jikan is because they got faked out by the artist at the start. They don't stay around to read it all; so they don't find out that many chapters down the road the teacher does turn out to love the little girl, but always like a brother or uncle or something.

The stuff about who married the teacher and who loved him way back then--I can never get it straight.

Oh I see, you and I are focusing on different parts of the story!

In the second half of the story it's 50 or 60 years from the events in the first half. The 2 old ladies in the second half of the story are drawn as if they are still young--there may be a note by the scanlator saying so in the manga.
Anyway, 50 or 60 years ago it would have been very hard for them to be together in any way, without getting into big trouble! To me, It's mainly a terribly sad story about a love that couldn't be because of the way society was when the two were young.

last edited at May 26, 2014 7:22PM

Wow, Dynasty Scans Reader is getting cooler! I just found Kodomo no Jikan on it. The former all-Yuri format was fine with me, but this is better. If you're planning on having sexy manga outside the Yuri category, but short of hentai, that would be nice. If you're planning on such stuffs also being high quality like KnJ, that would be wonderful.
But whatever you do, thank you for Dynasty Scans and its reader!

I wouldn't say Tiger Lily is dumb, since it's a part of life. We only live for a few decades. Loves and longings that we didn't follow up on during those years may nevertheless be remembered for a lifetime. Then, when it's time to leave life, it will be as if they'd never been.
This is part of the human condition. That makes it a fit subject for manga, which really does seem to be able to handle any subject well.

"True - KnJ was a great read. I just can't seem to understand those people who immediately go all defensive if something approaches a topic they feel uncomfortable about or which they consider taboo - stick a label at it and trash it without even giving it a chance."

1. Some aren't used to making moral or aesthetic judgments on their own. They instead adopt the morals of the people in their community who are moralists. Then, whenever they encounter anything that is in any way related to a thing likely to be forbidden by their community, they can't be sure what their community would decree about it; so they condemn it out of hand.

2. Some are afraid of being labeled lolicons, or maybe even shamed/arrested, etc. in the next puritan crusade of America, which may then be aided by the records of the NSA. If I were young, I would be afraid of that too. Those records may be around for decades, and you never can tell when the USA is going to start up another"moral" crusade.