This review may contain spoilers
Not a great show. Had potential, which was not developed.
I tried this show after watching the EXCELLENT "The pride of the Temp" since it promised to be also a comedy about the Japanese workplace and its quirks. However, this show is much, much less funny.The Takano character is a kind of Forrest Gump, but much weaker. Not only talentless, but basically completely dumb, on the verge of autistic. She does absolutely nothing at work, except watching cat videos, she doesn't have any qualifications. However, when she is brought to business meetings, the potential customers cannot believe she is truly stupid, instead they think she did/said something really clever that they don't understand, or that she has a really original view on the topic, and she saves the day. The contract is signed!
However, the writers didn't try to much on this one. The humor is weak, the jokes are barely laughable and somewhat inconsistent. For instance, we witness her using the computer, at least to find cat videos on the Internet, but later when they try to teach her data input, she doesn't know what a mouse is, or what "double clicking" means.
Not much happens, in general. In the final episode there is a small Easter Egg in my opinion, in which Takano is assimilated to the whole show: After Takano has already left, they begin to talk fondly about her, and seem to remember how fun she was, and how great it was to work with her... until someone says "In fact, she was not so great" and everybody agrees and they drop the praises. This is exactly how the whole show is. You don't remember much about it, only that you smiled expecting a great scene to follow, because it did have great potential, and then... the scene is "meh". There were very few memorable jokes or well-developed situations. With some exceptions of course, but I don't believe they were worth of my time.
There are many other characters who are interesting but, like the rest of the show, their relations are weakly developed, there is some promising story about everyone, but most stories seem not to go to the expected end, they simply dilute and they do not really reach a conclusion.
My verdict after watching dozens of Japanese shows: Takano has one of the weakest scripts. Everything else is very nice, the actors, the acting, the environment, the filming, etc... except for the script. As if the script writer quit right before the start of the filming, and they have to improvise on the spot.
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This review may contain spoilers
Frustrating in the end!
I enjoy watching everything Japanese, since their culture is so different from Europe/America but be warned, this is one of the many J-Dramas in which it's obvious the writers did everything to shock you ! This guarantees you don't forget the drama easily, but it also makes you angry and frustrated because the WRONG message it convenes, even if it has a "happy" ending.Episodes 10, 11 are especially frustrating because of the inconsistency. Everybody seems to forget the clearly horrible and even illegal things Maya has done and instead she is remembered as such a great teacher, and all the kids cry when she is [justfully] dismissed.
What is the message here? would it be OK for a Army Sergeant to train soldiers as if they were 12-year girls ? NO ? Then, why is it ok to educate 12-years girls as they were soldiers going to the most vicious war? There is a line in which one of the teachers says about Maya: "Probably she received by mistake military training instead of teacher training?". No other teachers react, but it is one of the best lines in the show !
The idea seems to be, "Maya is educating them well because she is preparing them for the harsh realities of life". I DO NOT agree for 2 reasons:
1) she clearly crosses the line, for instance when she takes away the summer break and then punishes Kanda and her friends for missing the last summer classes, and in such an unprofessional way, she removes their desks and then makes 12-year old carry heavy desks on the stairs ?!? Or, while she knows who really stole the wallet, she allows Kanda to be viciously bullied for it, including the risk of death when her classmates try to drown her in the pool, or when she falls thru broken glass and is seriously injured ?!?!? Basically the teacher contributes to bullying ! These are almost criminal acts! For these, she could go to prison, not just to the Reeducation center !
However, all these terrible things are forgotten in eps. 10, 11 and she is just remembered to being "a strict teacher". This is unbelievable and, I say again, just wrong, immoral and unethical.
2) all this Maya speeches "society is bad and cruel, and I prepare you for it, only 6% of the Japanese are happy and in this class NONE of you will be happy", I believe is a chicken-and-egg problem. Society is bad because the are bad people, people who learn from childhood to be bad, and are allowed to be bad, and are even encouraged to be bad, because of teachers like Maya who basically contribute to the bullying and do nothing, and teach an evil system of values and rewards and punishments ["be my friend, spy for me and then all bullying will stop"] and of course, in the future, colleagues like Maya, bosses like Maya and so on. It even contradicts how she criticizes her husband in the prequel episode, after she discovers he did acts of corruption at his company - it is not an excuse to do bad things just because everybody does them!
The 2 prequel episodes transmit a weak message about how and why she becomes a "demon teacher". Her inadequacy in solving her initial class problems when she was a kind and caring teacher is just that - inadequacy, lack of training, lack of support (all the school Principals and Vice Principals in Japanese movies seem to be utterly incapable, spineless and only make things worse).
It's like an engine only has two speeds, 0 and Maximum RPM. You can only be a weak, ineffective teacher who tries (and fails) to love everybody, or a Demon teacher which actively bullies and mistreats everybody. This is the message of the movie.
The only way to enjoy this movie is to try to detach from reality. I always try to think that probably all Japanese writers hold a meeting in which they say "this is the normal, expected course of action. How can we alter it so it is unexpected, shocking and utterly unbelievable, but will make everybody talk about it?". So you ditch morality for views and ratings.
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