#obana miho

[manekinekocake]

[hotwaterandmilk]

Series: Kodomo no Omocha Artist: Obana Miho Publication: Ribon Magazine (12/1994) Details: Sana-chan Wrapping Paper Source: Scanned from personal collection

[shoujo-memory]

Partner by Obana Miho

[saint-miroir]

Series: Adante

Artist: Miho Obana

Publication: Ribon Magazine (04/2002)

[dailykodocha]

小花です....

Happy Birthday to Obana-sensei! 🎉

Ft. my favorite cameo of her from the anime in episode 30

[morevnamorya]

Kidsh

[fudayo]

[uyallstars]

[dayinanimanga]

Today in Manga History

July 2nd, 1994

Kodomo no Omocha, also known as just Kodocha, begins serialization in Ribon Magazine. The series won the 1998 Shogakukan Manga Award in the Shoujo Category. The series also spawned a 102-episode anime adaptation.

Written and illustrated by Miho Obana

[kikyocaps]

[thatkodochagirl]

▶️🎉1 Year on YouTube ▶️ 🎉

Today marks my 1 year anniversary of being a YouTuber. When I started creating Kodocha videos, I never expected to make so many new friends and gain so many subscribers who feel just as passionately as I do about the series.

Thank you ALL.

Not only did I become a YouTuber last year, but I also became a wife and an official resident of a new state in the US. 2022 was a big, and difficult year for me. With all the changes and adjustments going on around me, it was comforting knowing that I had the Kodocha community to go back to each day. 

So what inspired me to create a Kodocha channel? There are many reasons, so let’s talk about them! First of all, Kodocha is my favorite animanga series, and sadly there isn’t many Kodocha content creators online. However, the ones that do exist do such AMAZING work for this fandom. I want to give a shout-out to my friend Li over on Twitter (https://twitter.com/kodomonomochaa) for her incredible work gathering Kodocha media and resources for fans to enjoy. She has been a big part of my channel’s growth and is just a sweet person all around. Make sure to give her a follow on all her platforms!

I also want to give a shout-out to @thekodochaarchive, another great resource for fans to see rare content. There is a lot of interesting rare Kodocha media over on that blog/channel, I highly recommend checking it out! Watching the old Kodocha commercials is like being able to go back and time and experience Kodocha at the time when it was first being aired. I would have loved to have been a kid who grew up with that show!

Last but certainly not least, I want to give a HUGE shout-out to my girl @dailykodocha aka M, who runs the BEST Kodocha blog around and writes INCREDIBLE fanfiction. Please go and check out her fic about Akito during the middle school years; it’s SO good and she gets the characters so well. It feels like it could be an official Kodocha novel. Here’s the link to that! (https://archiveofourown.org/works/41971272?view_full_work=true) She also co-hosts our unofficial Kodocha podcast, “19 O’Clock News” with me. We have so much fun with it, and I look forward to sharing many many many more episodes with everyone!

So wanting to contribute more to a series I deeply love, I decided to create my YouTube channel, as I noticed there weren’t really any video essays about Kodocha anywhere. This felt wrong given how much there is to talk about with the series, and how deep the characters are. 

Many of the videos that you’ve watched from me for most of 2022 were formulated from ideas I’ve had in my head since I first saw the series back in 2016. That’s why I was uploading almost weekly, as the writing flowed so naturally as I’d had a lot of time to think about the characters and plot. 

I’m very proud of all the content I have put out thus far - but I will keep improving! I’ve been re-reading the series and am about to finish volume 10, and noticed some things that I should have talked about in previous videos. It’s crazy just how detailed Obana was when she wrote Kodocha! Just when I think I understand a character, I notice a new detail during a read-through and it completely shifts my perspective on them. I used to feel very indifferent about Fuka until pretty recently! Now she is becoming one of my favorite characters.

Another reason I started my channel was for my mental health. Being creative is what keeps me sane. Unfortunately, making music (my main creative hobby) just didn’t have the same spark for me anymore. It used to be my go-to activity for my mental health - but I think I had done it for so long that I got burned out. Also, I felt very limited in what I could do with music, but with my channel, I feel like I can exercise and hone my writing skills and also talk about something I love in a unique way. This summer, I created a second channel which I hope to upload more content on that focuses on obscure media, which I will use as another outlet to discuss things unrelated to Kodocha. I watch YouTube more than anything and would love to create similar content to YouTubers that I enjoy, where they talk about interesting things from childhood or just niche internet mysteries.

Kodocha is the only thing in my life that has ever consistently brought me joy. Ever since I found the series, it’s turned my life around in more ways than one. When I first watched the anime in 2016, it made what could have been a miserable year for me into something hopeful. Sana’s enthusiasm and positivity really awakened my own, and it’s stuck with me ever since. Maybe taking life so seriously isn’t the answer. Sometimes you just gotta shut up and smile, and not worry about things you can’t fix, and just go with the flow. I never knew by 2023 Kodocha would have brought me so many new friends and just a better understanding of myself and life in general. I hope everyone watching my videos can learn not only about the characters of Kodocha, but about themselves as well. My latest video, part 2 of “Exploring Sana & Akito’s Relationship”, actually helped me in my own marriage. Yesterday, my husband told me that he’s the happiest he’s ever been. It made me feel so good because the research and time I put into that video helped me better understand my husband’s love languages, which ultimately strengthened our marriage. 

Kodocha really is my light in this dark world and I hope I am able to spread the joy that it’s instilled in me.

Thank you for reading, and sticking around until now. There is a lot more Kodocha content coming in the future, as always. See ya! 💖

[manekinekocake]

[hotwaterandmilk]

Series: Kodomo no Omocha Artist: Obana Miho Publication: Ribon Magazine (01/1996) Details: 1996 Ribon Calendar (January) Source: Scanned from my personal collection

[yampurro]

BABBIT! I needed to fufill my niche 90’s anime merchandise needs with this little bat rabbit… babbit… You can find him in my shop! ⭐️

[saint-miroir]

Series: Partner

Artist: Miho Obana

Publication: Ribon Magazine (08/2000)

[dailykodocha]

Photo of Obana Miho unearthed by @thatkodochagirl from the Internet Archive.