Cover of the second volume.
In a small town in Tokyo, the PTA is discussing the school curriculum for the fifth-graders. When the subject of sex-ed class is brought up, the parents begin to voice their concern about teaching it to children at such a young age.
What they do not know is that, while they are discussing whether it is right to teach sex-ed so young and how it should be taught, 11-year-old Haruna ends up pregnant. When she refuses to tell any adults, her classmates begin to step up.
No relation to Kodomo no Omocha nor Kodomo no Jikan.
Tropes
- Abortion Fallout Drama: A downplayed version with Tomoko. Knowing that people in their small town will gossip if she goes to the local obstetrician, she initially tries to get an abortion in another town, but can't afford it. When Akimi gets caught stealing money from her parents to help Tomoko, she's forced to admit what's going on. Tomoko ends up getting the abortion from the local obstetrician and is subsequently the talk of the town for awhile.
- Absurdly Youthful Mother: Haruna, of course. She ends up giving birth when she's close to the age of 12.
- Adults Are Useless: To asinine levels.
- No one believes Haruna is pregnant when she tells them to their face. Her family tells her not to joke around, and Miss Yagi's response is that she shouldn't tell her parents because otherwise they'll blame Miss Yagi for having taught sex ed.
- When Haruna's classmates tell their parents about her pregnancy, they dismiss it as children playing or joking around.
- No adult can even be contacted during childbirth.
- While Miss Yagi was understandably working under very stressful personal conditions, she was in fact not a very good teacher, constantly lashing out against her students with awful consequences.
- The closest we get to a competent adult is Haruna's grandma, and she literally drops dead before doing anything.
- Artistic License – Biology: Is it possible for an 11-year-old to give birth without complications? Yes. Is it likely? No.note
- Babies Ever After: For Miss Yagi, in the epilogue.
- Boyish Short Hair: Haruna, starting the story as a stereotypical tomboy.
- Cassandra Truth: Haruna tells her family, after Miss Yagi taught them a sex-ed class, that she's 'gonna have a baby'. Nobody believes her, of course, but Haruna is already pregnant at the time.
- Children Are Innocent: A major theme of the story. Haruna and Hiroyuki had no real idea about what their intercourse would mean, because they never understood it. A more positive example is of how all Haruna's friends accept Haruna's pregnancy with no bias, and a few adults in the tale too.
- Delivery Guy: As Haruna starts labor in a shed with no adults present, her classmates are forced to be this. However, the kid who actually delivers the baby at least knows what to do because his father is an obstetrician.
- Diabolus ex Machina: Haruna's grandma dying just so the story doesn't get a relatively easier, more reasonable ending.
- Did We Just Have Tea with Cthulhu?: According to Haruna, her grandmother once managed to talk an intruder out of robbing their home and convinced him to have tea with them instead.
- Entitled to Have You: Miss Yagi dated her college boyfriend Nomura for two years, but didn't want to have sex with him. When his attempts to get her drunk enough to have sex fail, he grows outraged and begins stalking her.
- Generation Xerox: Mitsuo is the son of an obstetrician, though he says he would rather be anything but a doctor when he grows up. He ends up taking charge when Haruna goes into labor, and after a 12-year Time Skip, he's revealed to be in medical school.
- Good Girls Avoid Abortion:
- Averted with Tomoko. When she realizes she is pregnant, she immediately decides to get an abortion.
- Abortion is discussed in Haruna's case, when Mika finds out and tells her that past the 23rd week, abortion is no longer an option. Haruna decides that the baby needs her and doesn't abort.
- I'm Crying, but I Don't Know Why: In the epilogue, the now 12-year-old Hajime describes his secret hideout as a place where he, for some reason, can really relax. Later, his mother reveals to him that that place was where he was born.
- Informed Attractiveness: Haruna apparently grows up to be a model, but considering the artwork...
- Law of Inverse Fertility: Discussed by Hiroyuki's parents. While his parents apparently struggled to conceive, Hiroyuki and Haruna conceived their very first time, before the two even knew what sex was.
- Live-Action Adaptation: In 2008, with Koji Haguida directing and
Haruna Amari playing Haruna. - Miss Conception: Neither Haruna nor Hiroyuki even know that they had sex, much less that sex can result in pregnancy, and Haruna thinks semen is pee. It's Miss Yagi's sex ed lesson that makes her realize what the two of them actually did.
- "Near and Dear" Baby Naming: Miss Yagi names her daughter Haruna at the end of the manga.
- No Periods, Period: Averted. The girls talk about having just gotten their periods in the first chapter.
- One-Night-Stand Pregnancy: Sort of. Haruna has a crush on Daigo, a boy from Class 2, but she has gets pregnant by having sex with Hiroyuki, who she only sees as a friend. It's complicated by the fact that neither of them understand sex, so neither Haruna nor Hiroyuki find it strange to be nude around each other.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: Pigman's real name is Mansaku, but none of his peers actually call him that.
- Pregnancy Does Not Work That Way: Haruna's grandmother tells her that she wouldn't have gotten pregnant if she couldn't give birth. In reality, being able to get pregnant doesn't mean you can safely carry the pregnancy or give birth.
- Scatterbrained Senior: Haruna's grandfather is suffering from senility. He ends up taking Haruna's child out for a walk and forces Haruna to admit the baby is hers.
- Sex Miseducation Class: Discussed prior to Miss Yagi's sex ed class. Miss Yagi wants to teach the correct anatomical terms, but the principal says the school board has decided they can only use the term "weewee." While it's implied that her colleague disagrees with her, he does acknowledge that the term isn't particularly educational, as the girls wouldn't know what the term is referring to.
- The idea of skipping sex ed entirely is mentioned, but shot down.
Another teacher: Anyway, I managed to figure things out on my own without being taught.Miss Yagi: I don't think a teacher should say something like that! - Sexy Discretion Shot: When Haruna and Hiroyuki have sex, all that's seen is a bush with its leaves rustling. Which is fine as these are kids who are just fooling around. For obvious reasons, this part is completely absent from the film adaptation.
- Space Whale Aesop: The story implies that the whole thing never would have happened if the children had proper sex education. Now, that is an important thing for children to learn, but still...
- Snow Means Death: Haruna's grandmother dies during the first snowfall of the winter.
- Stress Vomit: Miss Yagi is often seen vomiting in the toilets due to stress.
- Teen Pregnancy: Quite possibly the youngest example in manga history...hopefully.
- The Talk: A major point of contention in the town is whether sex ed should be taught in school or not. It's not outright stated in-universe that it should be, but it gets pretty damn close.
- When the parents discover that Haruna has given birth, they initially speculate that Miss Yagi's sex ed class led to Haruna's pregnancy. The principal tells them that the lessons occurred after Haruna got pregnant, but that leads the parents to get upset that sex ed is being taught after the students have hit puberty.
- Three-Month-Old Newborn: When Haruna and her friends get to look at a baby that was just born in the Namatame clinic, the baby looks rather normal and can easily open its eyes.
- Troubling Unchildlike Behavior:
- The entire premise might qualify, considering Haruna and her classmates are 11-year-olds. While it's developmentally appropriate for kids that age to be curious about sex, it's far less common for them to actually have it.
- Miss Yagi's class will skip school on a moment's notice, and at one point, a student outright throws his desk out the window in defiance. Even Class Representative Mika won't listen to her. Some of this is justified, as Miss Yagi often lashes out at her students, but the class's behavior makes the school principal question whether she should keep her job.
- Truth in Television: Pre-teens having children is still quite common across the world and even in more advanced, industrial societies in which the age of first birth is typically much higher than more agricultural societies.
- Wanted a Son Instead: Haruna's grandfather wanted to have a grandson, but Haruna's mother Ayaka had two girls. When he discovers Haruna in the shed with Hajime, he mistakes her for Ayaka, then praises the actual Ayaka for "giving him an heir." This ends up being attributed to his senility.
