This series has much greater intensity than I expected. For the longest time, the uber-dorky promo picture had turned me off from this series, even though I knew I wanted to see it. So far, I'm nervous the entire time I'm watching it. I'm rooting for Miura Haruma and don't want to see bad things happen to his character, even if he's partially at fault.
It definitely has some of the appeal of Akai Ito and Koizora, for their similar focus on teenage sexuality and the anticipation of bad things happending to the characters (and maybe they deserve it a little, but you still root for them). It has less similarity with Majo no Jouken, even though they both focus on teacher-student relationships. In Majo no Jouken the teacher-student couple was the one to root for and this is definitely not the case here.
Summary:
Show Summary
The basic premise is that Kashiwagi Shuji (played by Miura Haruma) is a young high school teacher. He's popular with students, parents and other teachers. He's currently engaged to another teacher, Uemura Natsumi (played by Toda Erika) to complete his ho-hum perfect life. The series starts with Kashiwagi waking up late on the first day of school, with no memories of the night before, and finding a strange girl in his bed. He gives her a key to lock up after herself, with instructions to leave the key in the mail box (this apparently is the choice way to handle a one night stand in Japan according to all the dramas I've seen).
At school, he starts his first day of class and soon finds that the girl he slept with is a student, Saeki Hikari (played by Takei Emi). Throughout the episode we learn she's sort of obsessed with Kashiwagi and she starts to get close to his fiance, Uemura, by joining the basketball team where Uemura is the coach. Saeki isn't at all secretive about her dislike for Uemura--she says things like "I adore you and want to destroy you" and tosses a basketball at Uemura's face. She's further developed as the villain by her blackmail material--a photo of Kashiwagi sleeping from the morning-after on her cell phone and has held onto the key that she was supposed to lock up with and leave in the mail box. Saeki also has a mysterious illness that apparently requires taking medication at school and frequent trips to the gynecology department of a hospital.
Kashiwagi goes through his days feeling horrendously guilty and hypocritical. He tries to continue as a strong role model to his homeroom and even has to give a mini-lecture on teenaged sex. He emphasizes the importance of not sleeping with someone casually and how sex will change you and your relationships, feeling like a hypocrit the entire time. Kashiwagi is paranoid that someone will find out throughout the episodes, and rightly so, as by the end of the second episode Saeki has emailed Uemura the sleeping blackmail photo.
As a side note, we learn about some of the individual students who are facing problems such as working part-time at a maid cafe due to their parents debt and a high school couple who is adjusting to their relationship becoming more serious and intimate. We also learn that Uemura's roommate, who is planning their wedding, is a childhood friend of both Uemura and Kashiwagi and was previously in love with Kashiwagi. Kashiwagi's brother also appears to hold some grudge against the couple.
Scenes of Note:
- The first few minutes of the first episode, where Kashiwagi finds an unknown girl in his bed.
- The middle of the first episode, where Kashiwagi has a nightmare that Saeki announces the affair in class.
- The end of the first episode, where Kashiwagi gives a lecture on teenage sex.
- The end of the first episode, where Saeki confronts him, asking "did you change after you had sex with me?"
- The beginning of the second epsiode, which sums up the first episode.
- The scene toward the beginning of the second episode, where Kashiwagi freaks out, "Why are the woman I'm marrying and the woman I slept with playing catch!" and then Saeki confronts him in his lab.
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