This review may contain spoilers
Jyoou no Kyoushitsu is a drama which is intense,significant,educative and addictive. The main attraction of this drama is that it is an exception to the typical school dramas. All Japanese classroom dramas so far have been about the teacher saving the students from their own folly.On the other hand, Akutsu Maya-sensei is the teacher no one ever wants to have.She's Brilliant, manipulative, obsessive, and dead set on making sure that the students fall in line with her rules.
Another good point is unpredictability. The Queen's Classroom breaks from traditional drama with an apparently evil teacher who is out to prove that the world is a harsh place, and so is her classroom.She's a cunning and calculative teacher and systematically removes the parental and academic protection the children had enjoyed, and forces them to deal with their problems themselves.
The Queen's Classroom" is an astonishingly well elaborated and smart drama series, which points at the bad condition at Japanese schools or certain deficiencies in Japanese society in general, and does so in a very entertaining way. The show isn't just thought-provoking;it is also very touching, appealing and persuasive concerning its message.
Last but not least is the outstanding cast. Amami Yuki, the actress who plays Akutsu Maya, did exceptionally well in portraying such a devilish teacher. I think it's because She did so well that for the end credits of each episode, they decided to show her after a take and smiling, a facial expression only used when she does something particularly "evil "!!
Shida Mirai did an excellent job as the innocent-minded child. she's incredibly adorable and became my favorite teenage Japanese actress after this drama.
The two specials were indeed very special and did an awesome job in explaining the reasons why the characters acted the way they did.They reveal all they mysteries,answer all the questions and justify all the actions.
I can write so many things in praise of this drama!! But it’s very hard to continue without giving spoilers.
This is a drama which everybody should watch.If you believe that this is a show solely for teenagers or even children, only because almost all of the main actors aren't older than twelve and drop it half way then you are mistaken. It’s only if u watch it till the end then you would realize how ‘not-childish’ this drama is! This series suffers from minor defects in the story line but nothing is perfect and please don't give unnecessary importance to these occasional faults and belittle this great drama.
Although the atmosphere throughout the series is quite dark, Queen's Classroom is actually one hell of an entertaining show!Hope you'll enjoy this wonderful 'monogatari' as much as I did.
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‘The Queen’s Classroom’ is my only second Japanese drama, first drama was ‘Bloody Monday’. I enjoyed this show more than any other show. The story is very meaningful. It changed my views for importance of study, life and past-present-future. It is pessimistic and also optimistic; realistic and also idealistic. Every character in the drama and all 24 students have their own dream and problem to solve. They learned some important lessons as the time passed. Speech in last episode is very thoughtful, and it’ll create huge impact on you.
The actors were also amazing. The actress who plays Maya is both lovely and really talented. I can’t help myself fall in love with Shida Mirai. All kids are wonder kids; every kid played their role perfectly with emotions as if they are really in that situation and everything is happening to them.
All the episodes are extremely touching and made me cry, tears weren't falling because of only sadness but tears were falling because of happiness also. I highly recommend this drama to everyone. It’s one of the most meaningful stories I've ever seen and really makes you think about teaching, learning, and life. There are many great moments but ending scene of Maya in last episode is epic.
As I mentioned already that I enjoyed this show more than any other show. I hope they’ll air this show someday in India.
If you haven’t started this show yet then start it now……and don't forget to watch specials..."Tee Hee"!!!
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If you want something different from the normal idol driven/fluffy/romantic stories and need something fresh and new, this is it. This is not your normal teacher story, Great Teacher Onizuka doesn't even hold a candle to this.
From beginning to end this story has it all, you wont be able to stop. By the time you are done with this drama, you will have learned about yourself, the world, and life. You might even grow up a bit.
I do not give 10s out lightly. Only the creme dela creme get my 10s. And this is 100% one of the best dramas ever made.
Score:
Music was given a 7 because the music fits the show, none of it is bad, but I'm not going to run out and buy the OST.
As for re-watching. I never re-watch shows. So I had no idea how to score it. I do not believe the worthiness of this drama is on its re-watch-ability, so I will not factor that into the end score.
This drama should be watched at least once by everyone, so therefore I'm giving it 10/10.
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The reason why I decided to give it another try was a Japanese article I read about the news that Kaseifu no Mita might be made into a Korean drama soon, discussing why lately highly popular J-Doramas with exceptionally strong female characters have been getting adaptations into Korean dramas (haken no hinkaku & Queen of the classroom). I have watched none of the latter two but since I have enjoyed the former one a lot I thought I should be giving the other two a try as well.
I'll go right to the point:
The Story:
This at first look (reading the synopsis & such) might seem like a usual Japanese School drama. well, Japanese have successful created of famous School dramas like GTO & Gokusen. But I find that Other than the point that the teacher involved is an eccentric one, Queen of the Classroom's by no means similar to these dramas.
The story was quite entertaining and thought-provoking, shading light on some of Education issues in Japan, or sometimes even problems with the way how the Japanese society works like how people are evaluated and categorized and eventually discriminated. The story revolved mainly around 4~5 of the students but it also covered the whole class in an un-forced way. It never did it in the "One-student-per-each-episode" manner that other Japanese school dramas that I mentioned previously uses, it rather does it in a more natural and easy-to-relate to manner where the viewer finally realizes at the end of the episode which character was being dealt with. Also the drama successfully discussed the difficult ratio or balance between the role of School & family in a child's upbringing.
This drama provokes the viewer constantly to wonder and think; how far is a teacher allowed to go with his/her disciplines? What is the best and most effective way to teach them about what it really means to go into society and just how hard a thing it is. To educate them on how they should view and plan for their future and goals, to discipline them in a way that would make them always take responsibility for their own actions and lives. Though it's hard to reach a satisfying answer, it's still a very interesting topic to ponder about.
The Acting:
Outstanding job that Amami Yuki did in this drama!! I've watched other dramas of hers and already recognize her acting skills and charisma, but she definitely outdid herself in this one. Some may find that she hardly ever changed her expressions through most of the drama but I thing otherwise. She always managed to keep control over even the slightest of changes in her facial expressions throughout the drama and especially in the second half.
To talk about the cast one MUST mention Shida Mirai. I was highly pleased with her acting skills in this drama though I have to admit The first few episodes I found her acting to be a bit unstable and sometimes even irritating, but that's only normal especially at her age. Even veteran actors sometimes show wavering acting at the beginning of dramas before perfectly grasping the character they are playing.
The other cast (students & teachers) all did a fairly good job expressing their characters.
Music:
The music was one of the positive points in this drama, with a very unique background music that leaves a very strong impression and plays just at the right moments. The music composer is Ike Yoshihiro who also created other famous drama's OSTs like Nobuta Wo Produce & Tatta Hitotsu no Koi. Of course I can't talk about the music without mentioning one of my favorite pieces; Exile's EXIT. I'm the type that fast forwards openings and closings after watching 1/3 of a show, but the ending in this one is so addictive I hardly ever did.
Rewatch value:
My most favorite two genres in J-Doramas are detective & school dramas, and this was a very edifying and entertaining drama I think I might be watching again.
If you're a "Romance or comedy only" type, then it's better not to watch this, since it has nearly none of both aspects.
If you're the type that enjoys school dramas but is feeling hesitant to watch this because you prefer shows with teenagers not young primary school kids, then don't! Give this one a try and you won't regret it!
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Jyoou no Kyoushitsu is such a meaningful, addictive, intense, unpredictable, intelligent and educative story. It made me delve with many questions about the importance of life, learning, and the future. It managed to be both pessimistic and optimistic at the same time, both realistic and idealistic. It showed many difficulties of life, flawlessly relating the troubles the children experienced to the real, adult world.
This is the kind of story that will need you to have enormous use of your heart to appreciate its beauty and have patience too. It is one of the few dramas that not only does it provide the "entertainment" service but also offers you so much values, so much meaning and so much lessons. Usually such a slice-of-life kind of dramas do somewhat lack in the "entertaining" factor but not here, not this one.
Akutsu Maya is the show's best attraction. I wouldn't be exaggerating when I say watch it for her! She is the kind of teacher whom when you run into you'd wish you if hadn't! She is SCARY, mysterious, manipulative, controlling and idealistic. She will make sure students surrender to her and her "rules" no matter what it takes and is pretty much determined to do so.
The drama will take you into and intense journey where you will feel you might soon run out of patience because there are things that won't come to your liking and you won't understand "why" BUT that's what makes this story even more compelling, you just simply can't stop. It will suck you in from the very 1st episode and the characters will eventually grow on you. The students each one of them had their own problems to overcome. The more time went on and the more you learned, the more important everyone became, whether as part of the class or for something a bit more complicated. I felt I was one of the students too and Maya-Sensei will haunt me down if I break rules too.
What does it really mean to be a teacher? Who determines what is a good or bad teacher?
Whatever the answer may be, there are many risks involved here and taking responsibility for people's lives is a HUGE burden which teachers in general have to live with. I almost forgot how much of a big of deal a teacher's job is but Jyoou no Kyoushitsu has done a beautiful splendid job with reminding me that.
Another thing I loved here the realistic portrayal of the faults and deficiencies in education system (Japan specifically). That was such an honest portrayal of things that should be changed in order to make better people and better future. I honestly wanted to clap for the writer for being able to create an entertaining story while keeping things realistic.
Finally my new love interest, Amami Yuki!! I absolutely loved her. She is the queen of the show I loved her portrayal for Maya-Sensei. She was both lovely and luscious. I honestly believed her as Maya-Sensei (which is why I felt being haunted by her too). Not to mention the everlasting affect from her gaze and voice tone when she says "Open Your Eyes" (when you watch the drama you will understand the weight which this sentence carries trust me).
Jyoou no Kyoushitsu had so many beautiful quotes and dialogues, which I’d love to share, but I don't want to spoil things away. I just want to say that this drama has moved my heart to the point where I shed few tears not for a sad scene but for a happy one.
Overall: In my humble opinion, this is a drama for everyone and should be watched by everyone regardless whether the genre is your cup of tea or not. This is definitely not children/teenager drama it's different from all the school projects I have seen and I'm sure it will take you by surprise just like it did to me. I honestly think this is the kind of drama that if you miss out on, it would be such a loss. Give it a chance and you might end up feeling rewarded as I am now :)
I'll leave you with the queen:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwl70ZrX9D0
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This review may contain spoilers
I love this drama for many reasons, one of them is this cute little girl, Kazumi!However, if the story is taken seriously, it conveys a wrong, in fact, dangerous message. The teacher basically becomes a big bully to teach kids how to deal with bullies. She does all terrible things to her students, making an atmosphere in her class that encourages bullying. And when a student is bullied by her classmates, she does nothing with the excuse that if she does anything, it just makes the situation worse. Bullies are free to do whatever they want and all the pressure and blame is on bullied kids to do something.
So, the whole idea is to make the situation for these 12-year-old kids so horrible that makes them do something about it. Maybe this was the traditional teaching method in the far past, but now, it's more for psychopaths. I hope no one takes this aspect of the drama seriously.
To be fair, as said, there are many good things about the drama. Especially, I really enjoyed the sisterhood between Kazumi and her older sister. I really wish I'd had such a sister!
To summarize, it's highly recommended to watch, but not as a serious stuff on teaching methods!
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After this, I feel like I desperately need the soul equivalent of a long, warm shower!
I'll start with a warning: there was no way for me to properly review this dorama and explain why I loved it at first and ended up hating it (and believe me, I don't use this word lightly), without some spoilers.So, before you keep on reading, let me ask you a question: have you watched "Full Metal Jacket"? If you haven't, then maybe play it safe and stop reading. But if you have, here's one more question for you: would you say that Sergeant Hartman was a fine educator or a rotten S.O.B.?
If your answer is the former, then stop reading and start watching this dorama, there's a high chance you'll love it! But if your answer is the latter, then you might want to keep reading - spoilers included - so as to avoid wasting 9 hours or so of your life (over 12 if you include the SP) on this.
And now I'll proceed explaining why I think so (spoilers from now on, consider yourselves warned):
I was captured right away by the thought-provoking premise, and it kept me thinking and (probably over-)thinking for the first few episodes. I even thought, for a brief moment, that maybe the scriptwriter had had an incredibly prophetic view of his future (and our tragic present), thus using this dorama's distopian classroom to portray a society where those in charge seem to have loads of evil fun pitting us "commoners" against each other and even unleashing chaos - the only thing they care about being that we obey, don't think and follow their rules which are more and more absurd each day - and clearly counterproductive, at that. Ok, I was seeing too much into it, LOL, but that's just to show you how intrigued I was!
Slowly but progressively, though, the story kept getting sillier and sillier with every episode. Short after the middle of the series, I started suspecting where it was heading: to an utterly insulting ending where they'd say that this monster (Amami Yuki's character couldn't deserve titles like "teacher" or "educator", and sorry if you disagree, but this is my informed opinion as someone who's worked in this field!), I repeat, where they'd say that this monster had actually been a "good (hell, even great) teacher", that it had all been just some "tough love" and that it had all "turned out well after all".
And that's where I started hating it.
Because I believe that if you treat people badly (Akuma-sensei - sorry, Akutsu-sensei - pun intended - traumatizes her pupils day in and day out, and her behavior sums up to psychological torture in my book!), I repeat, if you treat people this badly, no good *whatsoever* could *ever* come from that. To even imagine such an idiotic development is total BS, sorry.
If you treat people like this, some bad sh*t is bound to happen instead! Just like with Sergeant Hartman and Private "Gomer Pyle" in "Full Metal Jacket", you know...?
Approaching the end of the series, each episode unfortunately confirmed my suspicion, and I was more and more disappointed, and then really *disgusted* by the lousy, idiotic last episode (*every single scene* of it felt like an insult to my intelligence: the commercial-like family scene, the fight with the punks - nani sore?!? Where the hell did those crawl out from? A Chuck Norris movie maybe?!? And then again, the 180° U-turn from monster to ideal teacher / hero, even lecturing the kids on how it's wrong to hurt others - true, of course! But....how dare *she* say that?!? You gotta be f***ing kiddin' me, c'mon! And I could go on and on but I guess you got the picture...in one word: "BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD!!!").
After watching Arimura Kasumi no Satsukyu" I had felt...cleansed, that's the word!
After watching this series to its end...I feel like I desperately need the soul equivalent of a long, warm, scrubbing-all-over shower! Such a terrible feeling it has left me with!!!
The acting was good (I mean, the kids' acting, as Amami Yuki's character being the expressionless monster she was, the poor actress couldn't show her acting skills, unfortunately. And the rest of the cast, alas, were little more than extras, so it's hard to judge them - except to praise Kaho for her adorable "onee-san"). The music was okay. I'll go with a 4/10, also considering that to correctly asses the "rewatch value" I'd need negative numbers...
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There were many heartwarming moments in this dorama. It may look like it is going to be a dark story.. and it was sometimes, but only a little. Mostly of how it was filmed. I love the direction of this dorama. The change of lights whenever Maya was near. I love how it was filmed from below to make her seem more impressive, scarier.
Finally! I watched Amami Yuki in a dorama. She was imposing, elegant, lady-like, yet terrifying. Always mysterious, never cartoonish. The female version of Snape. Is she a bully? Is she a good person? On the other hand, Shida Mirai was by far the best child actor. Her tears were so good. Her cute face so adorable. I believed her character, and I never felt she was acting. It was like she was Kazumi, with that silly yet cute "tee-hee" expression. The other child actress that was very good was the one who played Shindo-san. Looked like an anime-character too. And maybe the top student, Nishikawa, was also good. All the other children were ok, some of them even MEH. Kaho was excellent as the older sister, as always. Made me cry a little bit with all her love for her sister. I love her relationship with Kazumi. A protective teenager of her little sister? Who was always there for her. I think I've never seen this kind of normal, yet heartwarming sibling relationship in a dorama yet.
The ED sequence was so good, I always watched it with a smile on my face. Amami Yuki moves so elegantly, she looked like a 90's Pop Princess.
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Vibes like 3 Nen A Gumi: Ima kara Mina-san wa, Hitojichi Desu
After watching 3 Nen A Gumi: Ima kara Mina-san wa, Hitojichi Desu you can really learn a lot of advice for life with this show even if you didn't watch 3 Nen A Gumi: Ima kara Mina-san wa, Hitojichi Desu I like how they show that no matter what age you are you are prone to bullying and potentially power harrasment and it really tells you the dark truth about the world and life that sometimes people are capable of doing or asking the most absurd things that should not be asked or should be done other than that the ending song Exit by Exile was a big relief from the story for those moments that make you just mad or annoyed with Maya actions or other antics but the ending is nice seeing all the actors and staff dancing to this song really made the song have a special meaning for me, it's a recommended Drama that I would recommend to others who are trying to get into Jdrama.Was this review helpful to you?
The students, all used to the carefree day to day happenings of school life with study time, sports days, and lunch breaks, immediately feel threatened when their sensei, "Akuma," unleashes her strict set of guidelines complete with harsh penalties and unfair judgements with an unkind demeanor in which to carry them out. The students react in various ways depending on their individual personalities. Some attempt to do everything the teacher says in fear of punishment and some attempt to get others to help take down the teacher. In dealing with the teachers, the relationships between the students fluctuate just as it would have in a business or family environment -- exactly as the teacher seemingly enjoys describing to the students.
It's a tough drama to enjoy because the atmosphere throughout the series is quite dark. Many times I found myself shouting at the teacher or the students for acting a certain way that I found disgusting, but at the same time I valued these negative routes taken not because it made it seem real, but because they evoked questions that I believe everybody should ask themselves -- questions like What makes me happy? and Why do I act the way I act?. When a drama makes me angry, I know it's a good drama because the emotion I feel is real and I realize it has forced me to reflect on myself and my own life.
Amami Yuki, the actress who play Akutsu Maya, did very well in portraying such a devlish teacher. She did so well that for the end credits of each episode, they had to show her after a take and smiling, a facial expression only used when she does something particularly "evil." Afterwords, she dances happily with a bunch of kids in a lively romp that when seen for the first time after episode 1 completely threw me off kilter.
Shida Mirai did an excellent job as the innocent-minded child that cannot understand why the teacher acts the way she does. Perhaps she was chosen for the role because she's incredibly adorable, but when it came down to serious business, she comes through without fault. Her role required her to cry a lot, and while I thought it was a bit overdone, it was done as well as can be expected -- definitely better than all the students. My favorite character, though, was Shindo Hikaru. Dark and silent, her too-calm demeanor hides an intelligence and maturity that's just too friggin' cool. Her actress was okay, perfect for the role but seemed weird when required to smile.
I don't like to spoil much, and I definitely will not say what the ending is, but I will say that contrary to a lot of people out there, I actually enjoyed the series all the way to the ending. The two specials were okay and did very well in explaining the things they set out to explain, but the emotional impact was nowhere near as heavy as the main series.
All-in-all, it's a great series with a message or two for people to think about. Great acting by the main characters and decent acting from most of the kids, the series hides a warm-hearted message in a dark tale.
(Originally posted January 5th, 2007.)
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