12-sai.: Chicchana Mune no Tokimeki

Reaching a period of life where they are neither a child nor an adult, 12-year-old Hanabi Ayase and Aoi Yui meet with life-changing events. Due to the mischievous demeanor of her male classmates, Ayase does not think highly of the opposite sex. However, her perspective begins to change after she is paired with the kind-hearted Takao Yuuto for a class assignment and unexpectedly shared their first kisses with each other on the school rooftop.

With her best friend discovering love, Aoi yearns to seek her own. She finds herself falling in love with the rash Kazuma Hiyama after protecting her from a rejected suitor who had talked behind her back.

12-sai.: Chicchana Mune no Tokimeki follows the four in this phase of adolescence. As they grow up alongside each other, this sweet romance depicts the innocence and excitement of first love.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Hiyama, Kazuma Main

Horie, Shun Japanese

Ayase, Hanabi Main

Kakuma, Ai Japanese

Aoi, Yui Main

Kimura, Juri Japanese

Takao, Yuuto Main

Saitou, Souma Japanese

Tsutsumi, Ayumu Supporting

Kakihara, Tetsuya Japanese

Mikami, Inaba Supporting

Tachibana, Shinnosuke Japanese

Hamana, Kokoa Supporting

Hara, Sayuri Japanese

Ogura, Marin Supporting

Makiguchi, Mayuki Japanese

Sasaki, Reiko Producer

Itou, Kaori Producer

Sakurai, Ryousuke Producer

Kanda, Ryouta Producer

Reviews

Jan 2, 2017

Sakura_megami

Recommended

If I had to choose a word to describe this anime, it would be "cute". This anime was so adorable and cute that it really touched my heart. I judge anime based on enjoyment and whether or not it executes it's stated genres to perfection. For example, This anime was romance and it gave us a lot of romantic scenes. I fell in love with all the romance scene. The characters where also adorable and I imagined myself as the heroine, Ayase.
This anime explores topics like first love, growing up and friendships and relationships at a young age. I know a lot of people ... are going to pass out on this anime because it is about children but I wouldn't recommend you doing that because it is a really good romance anime and focuses a lot on the two relationships in the anime. I can dare say that this "children" anime has a lot more romance in it then some of the other romance shoujo anime I've seen.

Reviewer’s Rating: 10

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Jul 17, 2016

LegendAqua

Mixed Feelings

12 years old???, then why do they act more mature than that????.

Ok look, LA knows this anime isn't for LA's demographic but LA is kinda a sucker for romance anime and LA watched the ONA for this years ago and wanted to see how this would get the full anime treatment that Houkago no Pleiades did.

12-sai follows the relationships of 12 year olds of Hanabi Ayase voiced by Ai Kakuma and Yuuto Takao voiced by Soma Saito as well as Hanabi's friend of Yui Aoi voiced by Juri Kimura and Kazuma Hiyama voiced by Shun Horie and follows their experiences and obstacles in first ... love and follows some typical cliches of the romance genre.

If LA could analyze the two relationships, Hanabi and Yuuto's one is the more generic one out of the two, with Yuuto pretty much solving EVERYTHING that comes into his and Hanabi's relationship with his smooth-talking to coincidental incidents, if anything LA is reminded of Usui from Kaichou Maid-sama as the main character who "can do no wrong and EASILY fixes any obstacles in his and Hanabi's relationship", Yuuto and Hanabi's relationship right from the start is TOO stable and leaves little room for growth as LA's biggest annoyance to this relationship is Yuuto solving everything by himself and for a relationship with no flaws and hardly moves up (sure their 12 years old, but still!!, we get invested into a relationship for them to grow, not do the same things over and over and over again), is a hard relationship to get invested in. Yui and Kazuma's relationship however gives us something more than that, that of a twice shy relationship but with a role reversal we usually see in a romantic genre, the role reversal in this relationship is that the male is the tsundere while Yui is the headstrong *ahem* "give no shit what you think" character of the relationship and because Yui and Kazuma goes through their own obstacles by tandem from Hanabi and Yuuto's but they however not only resolve their obstacle but they give us character development, growth and depth (most noticeably Yui as a character development angle and Kazuma in a relational development angle) and for that, Yui became LA's favourite character of this series.

Onto the other characters, Coco is your typical "rival-ojou love interest villain" girl for Hanabi and she is HIGHLY predictable in failure due to Yuuto resolving everything, Coco...you just can't win...just give up and on speaking of giving up, the three idiots are WALKING ANNOYING COMEDIC RELIEF and their running gags of "wanting to emulate Yuuto's manly quotes" to just plain out causing some of the cliche obstacles thrown at the two core relationships, the three idiots really are double edged swords, they move the plot forward predictably but are also annoying useless comedic trio. Huh...LA didn't think that Maid-sama would have more relevance in this anime review but whatever. Marin at the very least have a purpose to be a thoughtful best friend to Aoi and Hanabi and when they are in doubt, they go to her for advice, IRONIC as most of her advice although thoughtful as being the friend of the both of the core female characters, her advice is unneeded for the most part. Finally rounding up the cast, LA will point out the "other" love rival to Yuuto and Hanabi's relationship by the name of Ayumu Tsutsumi voiced by Tetsuya Kakihara, well the biggest problem with him is that his screentime is soo low he just becomes a one-off "love rival" against Yuuto...he's by the by for a love rival, very forgettable in the long run.

In terms of voice acting, there tends to be LOTS of squeak that can get really annoying (LA is looking at you Ai Kakuma and the three idiots), however once again Yui's voice actor Juri Kimura was LA's favourite voice actor, she actually tries to sound like a 12 year old and actually ACTS like on to without the squeak aside from Juri Kimura, LA actually liked Sayuri Hara who voices Cocoa as a "playing against the type" role for Sayuri as she usually voices genki-type characters...this role as Cocoa for Sayuri is a complete 180.

In terms of animation by OLM, Inc who helms this anime from SynergySP from the OVA, they're character designs have similarities to the OVA's but more "sparkly" typical considering this is a typical shoujo anime, however with it's comedic moments, the animation goes full chibi with blank circle eyes animation and LA can see that it IS a comedic moment thus can be playful but in animation sense, LA can just see this as being "kinda lazy" and not take the comedic moments in a stronger sense. Overall, animation is janky between it's shoujo-romance and comedy moments.

With all these faults and promising elements to 12-sai has, overall, LA can easily say that IT IS a cliche storm of romance tropes just heavily toned down due to the demographic they are trying to show this anime too and to be completely honest as cliche as it is, it's still hits the mark at pleasing it's demographic, it's cutezy puppy love with no high-tension drama, but still having the typical romance anime tropes we see, it even makes sense from it's animation quality standpoint as it's chibi and comedic for the most part shows us the tone of the anime throughout.

12-sai is getting a 2nd season so if the 2nd season can do something MORE especially with Yuuto and Ayase's relationship instead of being the ever-stable relationship that never changes, then LA will honestly say that the 2nd season will be pointless. 2nd season hopes aside, 12-sai's first season at best is an "ok" romance shoujo anime in the cliched view of a 12 year old and that's not such a bad thing.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Jan 30, 2022

AnimeEnjoyer420

Not Recommended

Recommendation: Skip it unless you have the highest possible tolerance for corniness and overly-sweet sentimentality. This review covers both seasons of the full length anime, not the original short OVAs.

Positives:

+ Sweet and innocent. Red flags may go flying up when you hear it's an anime about 6th graders in love, but there is zero fanservice or sexualization of the characters here. It feels like it was written for the actual demographic it portrays (middle school-aged girls), rather than for otaku voyeurism. Rest assured, there is nothing in this series that could possibly qualify as objectionable or creepy.

+ Convincingly portrays the transition from childhood to ... adulthood and all the anxieties and grey areas that come with it. All the blushing and nervousness in the romance comes across as more true to life when it's 6th graders doing it rather than high schoolers or even adults, like in most anime romcoms.

+ The chibi comedy stuff can be pretty cute. It's not like it'll have you laughing out loud, but you'll probably at least smile at how adorable some of it is, like when Hanabi wags her twintails like a dog when she gets excited.

+ The increased roles for Inaba and Tsutsumi significantly improve the 2nd season, and they are arguably more well-developed and interesting than some of the main cast. They both end up being pretty likable despite their initial portrayal as jerks trying to steal away the main girls from their boyfriends.

+ Marin as the romance teacher is a fun ongoing bit, though it would have been nice if they had given her more to do than just repeating that one gag.

+ Season 1 OP has a bitchin' guitar riff.

Negatives:

- This show is a fatal dose of syrupy sweetness. It is so overpoweringly corny that I had a hard time making it through, even with my high tolerance for that kind of thing. Every possible situation is a setup for one of the boys to deliver an embarrassing line laden with shoujo tropes like "if you ever cry, I'll be the first one by your side". The dialogue is cliché, cringeworthy and doesn't feel like the kind of things anyone would ever say in real life.

- The male leads lack personality or interior lives. Yuuto in particular has exactly one personality trait ("cool") and is never developed beyond that. You never even get basic details like what he likes or dislikes, what his family is like, or what his dreams are. He is like a robot that exists solely to deliver embarrassing lines of dialogue.

- Lacks balance. The show is primarily structured around its two main relationships, Hanabi and Yuuto, and Yui and Kazuma. Unfortunately, it tends to go into deep focus on one of these relationships for 2-3 episode arcs while totally ignoring the other during that time (Yui and Kazuma get the short end of the stick more often than not). It's not quite as bad in the 2nd season, but the relationships are forgettable enough that you will start to actually forget them when they get backburnered for long stretches.

- Kazuma is thoroughly unlikable and lame. His immaturity is probably accurate and appropriate for his age, but he's such a miserable little shit that it's hard to understand why Yui likes him at all or why she's so devoted to him when he treats her the way he does. Their romance falls flat largely because it's obvious that Yui deserves better and you don't really want to see Kazuma win, especially when a better character starts trying to woo her in the 2nd season.

- Cocoa's presence as a bitchy manipulator is grating and repetitive. Somehow she always manages to manipulate people and convince them that they're doing something wrong even though she gets caught lying and loses face in front of the entire class repeatedly. It's like everyone exists in a state of perfect naivete where their memory resets at the beginning of each episode and they all forget that she's a lying snake that can't be trusted about anything.

- Basic and cheap animation and questionable character designs, especially when it comes to some of the side characters

Reviewer’s Rating: 3

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A display stand at the International Tokyo Toy Show 2016 booth for the 12-sai.: Chicchana Mune no Tokimeki anime revealed that a second cours of the series will air ...read more

Jun 8, 2016 11:40 PM by removed-user | Discuss (19 comments)

Spring 2016 Preview

In this thread, you'll find a comprehensive list of Spring 2016 titles with an accompanying promotional video (PV), TV ad (CM), or trailer. This post will be up...read more

Mar 15, 2016 1:56 PM by Snow | Discuss (75 comments)

	Is this the same story as the 2014 OVA? MrYandereFan26 - Jan 10	1 replies	by Sakura_2345 »» Jan 12, 6:50 AM
	Poll: 12-sai.: Chicchana Mune no Tokimeki Episode 6 Discussion Stark700 - May 9, 2016	30 replies	by ims-tokyo »» Aug 30, 2022 7:17 AM
	Poll: 12-sai.: Chicchana Mune no Tokimeki Episode 10 Discussion Stark700 - Jun 6, 2016	31 replies	by XNohaco2468 »» Aug 3, 2021 8:40 AM
	Poll: 12-sai.: Chicchana Mune no Tokimeki Episode 1 Discussion ( 1 2 ) Stark700 - Apr 4, 2016	94 replies	by hanakocheeks »» Aug 2, 2021 1:32 AM
	Poll: 12-sai.: Chicchana Mune no Tokimeki Episode 2 Discussion ( 1 2 ) Stark700 - Apr 11, 2016	53 replies	by CalmTeaTime »» Jun 4, 2021 1:31 PM