Air Date: Saturdays at 8:00 pm from July 10th to September 18th, 2010
Episodes: 11 Rating: 6.95% Theme Song: Liar by SPYAIR
Cast:
Mokomichi Hayami as Yonko Otowa but who went under the name Goro Hachisuka
Manami Higa as Ryoko Mizuki
Mirai Shida as Kaede Tachibana
Fumiyo Kohinata as Kenichi Mizuki
Naomasa Musaka as Shohei Imamura
Keisuke Horibe as Kouichi Tachibana
Hideo Ishiguro as Yuusei Shiba
Jingi Irei as Tamotsu Kai
Rina Aizawa as Mayu Mizuno
Mary Matsuyama as Yoko Saotome
...... and many more students, too many to list.
Well, I got it but this drama was so simple anyone could have, in a nutshell.....
Two prisoners managed to escape after the police truck carrying them crashed. One of them is a gangster called Shohei, the other is called "Otowa YonKo" though that wasn't his real name, that never came out, is a con artist whose cheats money from criminals or terrorists. Accidentally, "Otowa Yonko" then becomes the new teacher for the nearby high school, under the new name "Hachisuka Goro", and according to a deal of "Hammer Session" with the headmaster while Shohei somehow gets a job as a custodian.
How he became a teacher at the high school and one from Todai(!) too is that the real Hachisuka they stumbled upon one night as he was attempting to burn down the school. As this happened the principal Mizuki also came upon the scene and thorough a strange sequence of events Otowa takes the real teachers place and becomes a teacher at the high school, also taking the name of the ex-teacher by the advice of the principal who knew everything that Hachisuka and Shohei did.
Somehow Hachisuka is able to teach his classes effectively with some help from the principal's daughter who is also a teacher though her main goal, least at the beginning, is to find a rich man to get married to as she doesn't care much for being a teacher. Hachisuka, Shohei and the real Hachisuka live together and have formed a bit of a team to help the students out, they just have one crisis after another which they solve by using what the fake Hachisuka calls his 'Hammer Session', the real Hachisuka has set up a computer system for them including cameras at the school to monitor the students.
And they do solve all of the students problems ranging from poverty, being bullied, quitting school, being scammed, name it, these students go through everything but Hachisuka being a con man can see though anybody it seems, always has the knack for helping his students out but not by actually doing the things for them to solve their crisis but by putting them in position to do it for themselves, sounds nice but things always worked out too well for everyone but this being a drama of course it has to.
At the beginning the stidents really did not like him but slowly they of course grow to be quite fond of him especially after all he has done for them, at first they may not have realized that it was Hachisuka who was the reason they solved their problems and things worked out in their lives, but eventually they knew he was a sort of 'hero' was for them. Show ended up with Hachisuka finally about to be arrested but this was when we saw what the students really ended up thinking of him as they all jumped to his rescue and pleaded with the officer to let him go, perhaps he was a con man prior to this but single handidly he had changed the course of just so many students and in melodramatic fashion the officer agrees and lets him go.
That was a mini review, really that's all that's needed instead of a 5,000 word tome to explain a show or movie, not sure what to tell you on this. If you enjoyed GTO than this is one you would also enjoy, very similiar as each episode really deals with one student's problems and is solved by another different kind of teacher as in GTO. One minor storyline that could have been used more was that it wasn't really an accident in how the prisoners escaped but there was a major illegal police operation going on and they used the accident as a coverup but they didn't really go too much into that. Overall though it was a decent drama, sure a bit corny and things always worked out so well but it was enjoyable and the cast did a fine job, really all of them including the students get a big thumbs up. Final rating would be about a 7.5/10, much better high school dramas out there, there's actually too many of them, but it was interesting enough and well paced so would recommend it to any who enjoy J-dramas. One real complaint was they didn't use Manami well enough, big role but not enough meat to it, something between her and Hachisuka would have added much to the show. Speaking of Manami the next 2 posts have a mega amount of screenshots of her from the show, she was one good looking teacher. Here are some shots of Mirai Shida from the show, her character was actually the most interesting and funny of anyone, she was one spunky person!
