Kokoro Library

**Kokoro Library** (ココロ図書館) (Romanized: Kokoro Toshokan) is a slice of life anime series based on the manga of the same name by Nobuyuki Takagi and Yōsuke Kuroda. It was produced by Studio Deen and aired from October 12 to December 28, 2001 for a total of 12 episodes, with a bonus 13th episode being released February 17, 2002.

As it features multiple elements from the genre, it is occasionally referenced online as being the first "cute girls doing cute things" anime, as Azumanga Daioh (which is more often referenced as being the first) was released a year later in 2002. However, the manga of Azumanga was released in 1999. and Kokoro Library's was first published in 2000, so Azumanga is technically still the first CGDCT series in that regard.

## Synopsis

(From Wikipedia)

Kokoro Library is a heartwarming slice of life series depicting the peaceful everyday lives of three orphaned sisters as they take care of the library which also serves as their family home. The anime delves more deeply into the library's history, its connection to the local town, and challenges faced by the sisters.

Kokoro, the youngest, has just joined her sisters Aruto and Iina as an official librarian. The library receives few visitors, and each visit is often the subject of an entire episode. Kokoro learns the meaning of being a librarian, meets her favourite author, and takes a family trip to the seaside. The library is called "the place where miracles happen", although we see nothing more magical than Kokoro's ability to produce rainbows with her watering can.

Events take a dramatic twist when phantom thief Funny Tortoise steals a mysterious locked book which belonged to Kokoro's father, who died when she was very young. Worse, the town mayor announces that the library will be closed due to lack of visitors. Kokoro is heartbroken, but believes the answer may lie in the stolen book, which has meanwhile been returned to the library.

The next episode is seen from the point of view of a young soldier named Sant Jordi, during a war which has seen the town heavily bombed. Jordi's positive attitude makes an impression on his comrades, who occupy a ruined library. When the town is approached by an enemy armored division, Jordi's decision to destroy the bridge without killing the enemy ultimately saves the town. He begins to distribute library books to the townsfolk to lift their spirits in the difficult post-war period, ultimately settling in the town and constructing Kokoro Library.

Kokoro, reading the story in what is revealed to be her father's diary of the war, finally has a connection to the parents she never knew. The sisters head to town hall to show the diary to the mayor, hoping to change her mind. They arrive to discover a massive protest against the library's shutdown—the people of the town have not forgotten Jordi's contributions. The mayor allows the library to remain open, and Kokoro and her sisters continue to live their peaceful days together in the library.

## Reasons for Obscurity

On MyAnimeList, the series has a total of only 6,583 members as of writing. It is hard to find any sort of forum or fangroup for the series online, and only a very small handful of Reddit posts and comments can be found referencing it. On YouTube, the outro animation for the series (uploaded December 22, 2008 by Aluminicity) titled in English has only a little over 25 thousand views at the time of writing. An upload of the OP from omoti2 published in 2009 and titled in Japanese has 28K views. There is a video titled デビュー初期の 金田朋子さん (Early debut of Tomoko Kaneda) of an interview with VA Tomoko Kaneda, who voiced the character Akaha Okajima in the series, which has 273K views at the time of writing; however, it's likely safe to assume that the majority of the views are from fans of Kaneda's work, rather than fans of the actual anime. Various uploads of the OST from the anime range from 20-30K views to less than 100.

Despite Kokoro Library being quite obscure, the Wikipedia page for the anime surprisingly goes into a significant amount of detail on the production and background of the series, other media related to it, a list of both manga chapters and anime episodes with brief synopses for said episodes, and a list describing practically every character that makes an appearance, even ones that are only briefly seen or have little to no impact on the plot, manga only characters, and one that only appears in a spinoff PC game.