Those are such lovely old pictures! The ones in color, were they touched up on the computer, or did color film actually exist back then?

Aw, those poor kids in the public schools stuck in uniforms. All the individuality just sapped out of life. I guess the Japanese don't embrace individualism as much as Americans do.

I saw the picture you spoke of. It doesn't look like those girls are in unis, though it's rather hard to tell as it's so small.

I think it's definitely easiest for me to set Kenji's elementary years in a terakoya. Then he can drop out of when he's ten to concentrate on swordsmanship. :-D