The 1990s were still noisy and hectic, but a little slower than now. This is the world of a group of elementary school friends whose days are filled with the toys, trends, and fears that defined the decade for Japanese children. The story follows a boy called Kodomo-chan, a stand-in for the author, and his close friends: the clever and kind Kojima-san, along with Kotori-kun, Pero-kun, and Tako-kun. Together they navigate the end of the century with boundless imagination and childlike seriousness. They obsess over B-daman, modify their Mini 4WD cars to race in park gutters when they cannot afford official tracks, create original card games from scratch, and investigate rumors of school ghost stories. The looming threat of Nostradamus’s great prophecy is taken as fact, prompting them to try to prevent World War III by forming a world police force and sending a peace mark to the principal. As the millennium approaches, they also grapple with the Y2K problem and the shifting landscape of popular culture, including the rise of Detective Conan. Each chapter is a self-contained vignette of 1990s childhood, blending genuine nostalgia with gentle comedy, and every hobby and character is depicted with the permission of their legal owners, resulting in authentic details. The kids’ stories stretch from the end of the Showa era through the Heisei bubble and into the turn of the century, ending as they begin to grow up and leave their childhood behind.