YMMV / Gakuen Babysitters

• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Usaida, after the anime started. While some people find him a rather funny character, others are very put-off by the way he keeps letting kids get out of his sight and them leaving the daycare by themselves so easily, as well as the fact he seems to be sleeping in his work all the time.
  • Of all the babies, Taka is the most divisive. His acting up, constant loudness, and refusal to listen to Kamitani tend to frustrate many fans, especially since the other daycare kids are more well behaved by comparison. However, some aren't too bothered by his behavior since having a more realistically bratty kid in the cast keeps the story from getting too saccharine.
  • Inomata. Some fans think she's a sympathetic Jerkass Woobie and are happy to see her bond with the kids as well as making friends for the first time in her life, while others think she is the cause of her own problems due to her temper and dislike how everyone forgives her easily after her tantrums. Granted, some of the hate is fomented from Ryuuchi/Kamitani shippers who want her out of the picture.
  • Satoru, Kirin's father. There are those who find his Large Ham personality hilarious, and those who don't like how much of a Boyfriend-Blocking Dad he is towards Kirin and think that the Hypocritical Humor surrounding him (that he thinks all men are "beasts" who are after his daughter, but he'll still hit on other women himself) isn't very funny.
• Diagnosed by the Audience: Kotaro is unusually quiet for a child his age, and when he does speak, it's very little and in broken sentences. He's been strangely quiet ever since he was a baby, which made Ryūichi worry at the time. This has made fans conclude that A) his vocabulary isn't fully developed yet, B) he's just a really quiet child, or C) he has selective mutism.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Saikawa isn't actually featured that much in the storyline, since the Manga focuses more on Ryuu's activities at school, but he gets a lot of attention from the fans whenever he does show up.
• Fanfic Fuel: Chapter 84 narrates a dream of Usaida's in which all children and teens have their ages swapped; Ryuuichi, Kamitani, Nezu, Inomata, Ushimaru and Yagi are toddlers and Saikawa is the baby, while Takuma, Kazuma, Taka, Kotarou and Kirin are in middle school and Midori is a teacher. Combined with the endcards of the anime revealing their age-swapped appearances, works about it aren't uncommon.
• Fan Nickname: Kotarou has earned the nickname of "Marshmallow Baby" or just "Marshmallow" on Tumblr due to his cuteness.
• Fan-Preferred Couple: Between Inomata and Yuki's “competition” to be with Ryuuichi, a considerable amount of fans are cheering for the winner to be Kamitani. On that note, Inomata/Yuki has quite a bit of fans.
• Ho Yay:
  • Even after realizing that the girl he fell for is Ryuuichi, Inui still gets easily flustered looking at him, especially when he sees him wearing an apron shirtless, a reaction that mirrors Yuki's (who is confirmed to have a crush on him).
  • Ryuuichi and Kamitani appear to be each other's closest friends, and it's not hard to look beyond friendship.
    • The first time we see Ryuuichi genuinely angry, it's not because of anything related to Kotarou. Rather, it's when he sees how Kamitani's father Hebihara treats Kamitani.
    • At Christmas time Kamitani is the one to tell the chairwoman that Ryuuichi wants a new smartphone, after overhearing that Ryuuichi feels like it's he's overstepping his boundaries by asking for one.
    • When Ryuuichi disguises himself as a girl, Kamitani (as per Yayoi's orders) quickly puts himself in the role of his boyfriend to get Inui away.
    • When Inui is close to finding out that the girl he likes is Ryuuichi, Kamitani threatens to send him flying if he hits Ryuuichi when it happens.
    • Kotarou asks everyone he sees to hug Ryuuichi and wish him a happy birthday. Despite being The Stoic who doesn't enjoy showing affection even to his brother, Kamitani does exactly all that (yes, including the hug) without objection.
    • Ushimaru gets jealous of Kamitani for being able to roll up Ryuuichi's sleeves.
    • Kamitani's revealed to have rejected an offer to join a good baseball team from another high school as he prefers to stay with the baby-sitters club and his current team. It's meant to emphasise that he'll always prioritise Taka first, but the way he specifically mentions Ryuuichi as a reason for rejecting the offer and the way Ryuuichi clings to Kamitani's sleeve in happiness makes it easy to interpret it as the two wanting to stay together.
• Les Yay: Quite a bit between Inomata and Yuki as they become closer friends. Yuki is quite prone to remarking on Inomata's cuteness and calls her a pet name, Maria-chan.
• Misaimed Fandom: The hatedom behind Yagi (or how the manga depicts him) can be divided into two factions: those who know the author tries to portray him as a Nice Guy with a genuine Cuteness Proximity for kids (stemming from when Nezu and his baby brothers kept him company when his parents couldn't be there for his birthday a long time ago) but still can't stand the unnecessary Mistaken for Pedophile jokes that come with it (whether it be the nosebleeds or the characters calling him a pervert), and those who see him as a full-blown creep. The outrage is warranted but only the first lot acknowledge that it's the author's fault for thinking pairing nosebleed gags with children is tasteful to begin with, and that Yagi himself would be decent without them.
• Moe: All the kids at the daycare are so freaking adorable by virtue of being really cute little toddlers.
  • And for that matter, Ryuuichi is a very Moe teenager himself thanks to his sweet and lovable nature and appearance.
• Most Wonderful Sound: A lot of what the babies say is nice on the ears, since the voice acting makes them sound absolutely adorable. For example is the way Kotarou says "Nii-cha", and how he says "A~gatou" (because he can't pronounce "arigatou") in episode 5.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • Whenever a kid gets lost, expect yourself and the series to start filling itself with Missing Child. The very idea of a toddler alone in a public place can shake someone who has already had to take care of one to their core.
  • In Chapter 7/Episode 4B when Ryuuichi has a nightmare about the last time he sees his parents before they go on the plane they die on. Except that to make things more terrifying, the parents take Kotarou with them. Knowing they die, Ryuuichi gets more worked up as Kotarou is his last living family member and all Ryuichi can do is watch and pound at an invisible wall stopping him from saving his toddler sibling. By the time the door closes and we are back to visuals of Ryuuichi in bed, we get a harder reestablishment that Ryuuichi's greatest fear is losing his little brother and being left alone.
• The Scrappy: A large number of people find Yagi's behaviour towards the children off-putting, especially anime-only viewers (the manga at least attempts to explain why he genuinely likes children but still does a poor job at justifying the creepy pedo jokes the author's fond of).
• Ship Mates: Kamitani/Ryuuichi shippers will also often ship Inomata with Yuki, solving all tensions in the possible relationships.
• Signature Scene: One of the most memorable scenes is Kotarou's first errand in Episode 6/Chapter 14.
• Squick: One chapter has Usokawa, one of Ryuuchi's classmate who is desperate to be popular and have a girlfriend, attempting to hit on Kirin (a toddler mind you) with the mindset of her being pretty in the future.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Midori doesn’t have as much attention compared to the other daycare children since she's just a baby which makes it harder to have stories focusing on her. Nevertheless, her being the youngest of the group would make for other interesting unexplored storylines, for example her relationship with the older kids, her taking her first steps into toddlerhood, and even her family (who themselves are not as developed as the others).
• Toy Ship: As about half of the series focuses on the interactions between the toddlers, many fans enjoy the potential crushes the kids may have on each other. Most common ships are Kotaro/Kirin, Kotaro/Taka, or Taka/Kirin.
• Values Dissonance:
  • Kamitani constantly hits his baby brother Taka when he acts up. This is meant to be Played for Laughs, but Western viewers may not find the act to be at all humorous, even when (or especially when) it's depicted as harmless. This could be attributed to the more lenient attitudes toward family discipline in Japan, where striking one's child is generally frowned upon, but not considered grounds to call Child Services except in extreme cases. This is made considerably worse when Taka smacks his younger cousin Tsumugi for breaking his prized toy sword, when Taka only wanted to be a good older brother in his own right. This is further muddied by Kamitani also hitting Kirin at one point - hitting his kid brother is bad enough, but a little girl not even related to him is a big no-no, though at least in that case, he's called out on it.
  • Western fans tend to be put off by how often Usaida lets the kids run around the school by themselves while unsupervised; though they probably have a point considering how young the kids are, this still reflects how in Japan parents are more willing to let their children go out unsupervised than in most western countries (particularly in the United States).

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