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nchristi
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Re: J-Drama Video Club: Now Watching - High School Teacher - Ep. 02
Episode 2
I wonder why they have male teachers in an all-girls high school?
Hamura's fiancée leaves a lot to be desired. From her point of view, her father is forcing her to marry him because he will be a 'good husband.' From her point of view, they have little in common and Hamura is a total bore to her—both mentally and physically.
Mayu's father seemed a little more 'human' this time. She comes home unexpectedly and finds him in her room going through some of her things. His reason is he's doing his parental duty in trying to keep some tabs on her activities/interests. He apologizes to her and seems half-way friendly.
Mayu is still stalking Hamura and sticking to him like glue. She keeps flitting about him in his rather dark lab, then runs up to him, stands close and takes a cellphone picture of the two of them. That will be damning evidence some time in the future, I'm sure.
She mentions to him that she saw his GF (girlfriend) on Saturday—but that's all she says. Hamura later tells his GF this. GF thinks she'd better nip this situation in the bud so she meets up with Mayu. This is when GF tells Mayu that she doesn't really like Hamura, her father has arranged the marriage. Mayu tells GF that she saw her come out of a 'love hotel' with a man... a man GF has just said was a business associate whom she was merely driving home after some sort of meeting. Her topper is that Hamura will not believe Mayu if she tells him, because Hamura loves GF. It ends up that Mayu gives GF a shove down the escalator. GF ends up on the landing below, a big gash on her shin, amid other injuries I suppose.
Mayu's friend at school has a crush on Teacher Fujimura. She ends up getting attacked in a darkened language lab. I'm not sure if I got the characters straight or not, but was it Fujimura who attacked her? Or was it the PE teacher, Shinjyo Toru? It seemed like it was Fujimura, the guy who is always telling Hamura not to hang around with the PE teacher (who has the little boy with the leg problems), because PE Teach is trouble.
Mayu meets with the producer of adult videos. He tells her they want her to star in their movies.
The episode ends after Mayu throws the fiancée down the escalator. She calls Hamura from a pay phone. She's pitiful. He's beginning to want to rescue her.
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11/7/2009, 12:11 pm
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Hiroshi66
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Re: J-Drama Video Club: Now Watching - High School Teacher - Ep. 02
I just finished watching Episode 2. Nchristi, I found myself asking the same question -- why does an all-girls high school have male teachers working there, especially if there have been many problems in the past with teacher/student relationships? The female geography teacher offered Hamura a stern warning a few times that any male teacher in the past who had a relationship with a female student was immediately dismissed. So if the school has had so many problems with male teachers in the past, I wonder why they continue to hire them? Things seem like they would be a lot easier at the high school if they didn't have male teachers working there.
Hamura's fiancée puzzled me a bit, too. Even though she tried to convince Mayu that the man she saw her with is merely a business associate, she pretty much admitted that she was having an affair Mayu mentioned that she saw them leaving a hotel -- the Hotel Nuts. I wonder why she proceeded to openly tell Mayu about how "bored" she was with Hamura and how she couldn't stand his stories about penguins and genetics. I thought that was a way for GF to belittle Mayu, since she made a point that even though she was in a rut with Hamura and was in a relationship with another man, she was still engaged to Hamura and thus had a higher position than Mayu -- who is only a student to him. Even though GF is bored of Hamura and has little in common with him, she's still his fiancée, and she flaunts that Hamura would trust her before ever trusting the words of Mayu.
I wonder what will happen when Hamura finds out that Mayu pushed his GF down the escalator? From the looks of the telephone conversation that the two were having at the end of the episode, Mayu hasn't told Hamura anything about even meeting with his GF. But I wonder what's going to happen with the GF... was she taken to the hospital?
Yep, the man who attacked Mayu's friend in the language lab at school was Teacher Fujimura, the English teacher. I was shocked that a disturbing scene like that was allowed to air on a TV drama, especially back in 1993. Mayu's friend had evidently knitted a brown scarf for the teacher, but she was attacked before she could give it to him. Ugh. Really unpleasant scene.
I agree, Mayu's father did seem more mellow this time around, didn't he? We found out from the geography teacher that he used to be a popular avant-garde sculptor years before, but his wife (Mayu''s mother) passed away from an illness a few years ago. He seemed worried that Mayu had been coming home late over the last couple of weeks. Little did he know that Mayu was following Hamura home to his apartment and waiting for him in the pouring rain!
Mayu sure is crossing over into some dangerous territory. Besides constantly following Hamura everywhere and shoving his GF down an escalator, she's experimenting with cigarettes and talking to adult movie producers. I guess we'll see what happens next time...
Episode 3 will be posted next Saturday, November 14th.
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11/7/2009, 1:19 pm
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Hiroshi66
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Re: J-Drama Video Club: Now Watching - High School Teacher - Ep. 02
Yep, I, too, have gotten the feeling that the female geography teacher (Ms. Miyahara) may be interested in Hamura. She was adamant in pointing out that though teacher/student relationships are strictly prohibited, there was nothing wrong with a teacher/teacher relationship... especially when it came to marriage!
Those cards are getting a little mysterious, indeed. Hamura didn't seem to care much the first time he got the mysterious card with "Help!" written on it, especially since it had no name. But now that he's gotten the same card again, he's a little alarmed and wants to know who is trying to reach out to him. The PE teacher tells him not to worry about it, and that he's gotten hundreds of similar cards during his teaching career.
We'll see what happens. But there is something very dark about this work that hasn't been in Shinji Nojima's other works like Love Shuffle. Hmm.
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11/8/2009, 6:46 am
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nchristi
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Re: J-Drama Video Club: Now Watching - High School Teacher - Ep. 02
I don't know why, exactly, but I've always thought those "Help" cards are from Mayu. Could very well be wrong, though.
The female teacher - Agreed, she is interested in Hamura and one of these days may—or may not—turn on him. She is surrounded by ineligible, undesirable, or uninterested men. When she was first introduced to Hamura, one of them made sure to introduce her as a single woman. But it seemed more like a label of 'old spinster' desperate to nab a man, as opposed to simply not being married yet. In her society the pressure is on that if she doesn't get married soon, she might as well take the tonsure and go live in a temple forever.
When this drama was written, maybe Japanese society was still less forgiving towards single women beyond their 'cuteness' years (younger than 30). Japan has changed a lot—Japanese women have changed significantly and are much more interested in living their own lives, establishing a career and financial freedom, etc. Both marriage and childbirth are markedly lower now, mainly because the women no longer accept the old ways of expected lifelong servitude of popping out kids and taking care of a husband's aged parents until they die.
I wonder if the social status of that era is why this drama has mostly male teachers? I haven't read up on it but I wonder if back then women teachers were still relegated mostly to very young children (women's work), while high school and college was seen as the realm of male teachers.
Shinji Nojima - A talented writer whose early motivation was to promote social commentary on the darker ills in life. In other words, he created disturbing, real-life situations that would cause people to think and force changes in society instead of simply bumbling along through their lives wearing blinders. It is very easy to keep oneself distanced from unpleasant circumstances (such as we see in this drama). That's someone else's problem—not ours. Shinji Nojima made people look into those 'other' lives, having to see those people as real humans, just like us or our next door neighbor, or their kids.
Through the years, Shinji Nojima has expanded his writing genre. He is a very good comedic writer, as we saw in Love Shuffle. Still, LS contained its own social commentary, too. Through humor and clever character development, he made us look twice and think about differing lifestyles and motives, perhaps making us not quite so comfortable in our personal prejudices or views of what is "right" or "wrong."
For these reasons, I am still here watching High School Teacher. The production itself is not as offensive (so far) as I first worried. I am still interested in seeing what Shinji's message is and what I can learn from this one. This is not to say, however, that I won't reach a point where I choose to stop watching it. Sometimes because of personal circumstances, or we just aren't in the mood to handle more darkness, we don't need (or want) a drama like this one. For me, I either want to learn or I want to be entertained. This one ain't entertaining...
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11/8/2009, 10:42 am
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Hiroshi66
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Re: J-Drama Video Club: Now Watching - High School Teacher - Ep. 02
class blockquote nchristi wrote:
I wonder if the social status of that era is why this drama has mostly male teachers? I haven't read up on it but I wonder if back then women teachers were still relegated mostly to very young children (women's work), while high school and college was seen as the realm of male teachers.
Nchristi, I think so, too. Maybe the reason why we're seeing so many male teachers in this drama is because it was still quite rare to find women in Japan teaching above the elementary school level in the early 1990s. In most Japanese movies or dramas I've seen that take place before 2000, women who work in schools usually teach at the preschool or kindergarten level. Things in Japan have changed since then, with more women teachers and professors working with students of all grade levels, including high school and university students.
It's really fascinating to see how much Japanese society has changed over the last 10-20 years. I remember there was a drama aired a couple of years ago on UTB about a CEO of a successful company marrying into a traditional Japanese family. She would always clash with her MIL (mother-in-law) because she was expected to immediately phase out of her job at the company and stay at home full-time to care for her in-laws and do housework, even though she wanted to continue working. The drama did have quite a few comedic themes, but it was also a really informative social commentary. I think there have been a few dramas with similar themes, too. I guess it has been a popular theme in Japan recently, especially with all the changes that Japanese society and culture have been undergoing in the last few decades.
I agree, one of the main reasons I've been watching this drama is because Shinji Nojima has worked on it. I've enjoyed his recent works (Love Shuffle and Flower Shop Without Roses) and I wanted to see one of his very first pieces. But he's a great writer, especially since he's examined issues that are really going on in Japanese society. It really makes us think about the characters and what is going on in the story. I, too, am waiting to see what Shinji Nojima's message will be in High School Teacher. Hopefully the production won't become more offensive as it pans out.
Yep, maybe those "Help" cards Hamura received are from Mayu! It reminds me of the Sunday night drama Devil -- who keeps sending those mysterious tarot cards!?
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11/8/2009, 12:29 pm
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