From: me@me.com   
      
   Gokusen is a highly popular josei (adult women) title by Morimoto   
   Kozueko currently running in You Comics Magazine. It has been made into   
   a very successful drama (3 seasons!) and anime. Despite that popularity   
   in Japan, only the anime has been licensed in North America.   
      
   The story follows Yamaguchi Kumiko (nicknamed 'Yankumi'), the   
   granddaughter of a yakuza boss and teacher of the delinquent filled   
   class 3-D at Shirokin Gakuen, an all boys private high school.  The   
   story is both amusing and fun as it follows Yankumi's attempts to keep   
   her yakuza heritage hidden while still using all her skills to protect   
   and encourage her class. Interesting characters are peppered throughout   
   including a sister-teacher with a teenage-boy complex, a host of   
   interesting yakuza who work for her and her grandfather, a principal who   
   doesn't quite have all his marbles, and the rebel-leader of her class   
   who is far smarter than his naive and idealistic teacher. Thrown into   
   the mix is an unrequited love interest in the form of the family's young   
   lawyer.   
      
   There is quite a but of fun humor as Yankumi often slips and talks/acts   
   like a Yakuza in front of her students and then has to cover herself by   
   acting dumb or excessively girlie. Her attempts to conceal her family's   
   affiliation are well done and arguably the best parts of the early   
   volumes. Later, much of the humor comes from the antics of her clueless   
   students - who typically act first and then regret later.   
      
   The artwork is very clean and easy to follow, making it a quick and   
   enjoyable read. Superficial parallels are going to be drawn to GTO since   
   this is a story set in a highschool full of misfits. But that is the   
   only similarity between the two. GTO's Onizuka is jaded, street-smart   
   and oversexed - and so are his students. He soon loses his idealism and   
   concentrates on fixing his student's personal lives. In contrast,   
   Yankumi is naive and never loses her idealism  (much to the dismay of   
   the class leader, Sawada Shin).  Her students are very typical clueless   
   and dumb high schoolers - which makes their hormone-induced mistakes   
   understandable and even appealing. So while Onizuka wants to be the best   
   teacher possible for pure bragging rights, Yankumi wants to be the best   
   teacher so her students learn. As a result, Gokusen's kids are still   
   faced with tests and schoolwork by Volume 9 in contrast to GTO's kids'   
   plethora of personal dramas that show up later in that series. That the   
   kids are dumb and naive (except for the quiet spoken leader Sawada Shin)   
   really is Gokusen's strongpoint.   
      
   Interestingly, the drama, manga, and anime differ in one key point:   
   Yankumi's love interest.   
      
   In the manga, it is clear that Sawada Shin (the class leader) is   
   fascinated by his unusual teacher. The author, Morimoto, has fun dumping   
   the two into unusual situations together providing examples of how   
   Yankumi's brash naivete is balanced by Sawada's grounded pessimism.   
   Often, Sawada has to extricate Yankumi some scrape she has managed to   
   get herself into while protecting her errant students - and if she has   
   to save him, it is always because he was trying to protect her himself.   
   The most telling scene in the story is a 'romeo and juliet' nod when   
   Yankumi climbs up to the balcony of a room in which Sawada is being kept   
   in as punishment by his father. As he comes out to find her perched on   
   the edge of the balcony, she jokingly says to him, "Shouldn't this be   
   the other way around with the boy climbing the trellis?" and earns a   
   blush by the usually unflappable Sawada. Yankumi may be completely   
   unaware of her student's crush on her (she has always had her own crush   
   on the family's young and handsome lawyer)  but it will be interesting   
   to see how that relationship develops as the story progresses.  Yankumi   
   is, after all, the daughter of the yakuza and Sawada is the son of a   
   strict police commissioner. But this isn't a story about a   
   teacher-student relationship and several humorous scenes arise from   
   Yankumi's shock at her fellow female teacher's obsession with any young,   
   cute boys she finds at the school.   
      
   In contrast, the 2002-2004 drama tones down Yankumi's Yakuza family   
   members to the point where even her stern and wise grandfather seems   
   more like the nice old man next door than the head of gangster family.   
   The love interest switches from Sawada/the lawyer to a police detective.   
   And, tellingly, by season two the original class is gone and she gets   
   new students. It works for the drama to take the focus away from the   
   class (and specifically Sawada) since it gives the series and Yankumi's   
   character longevity by giving her new challanges each season. But quite   
   a bit of the tone, humor, and pathos of the manga is lost and those are   
   what keep me following the story. Without the Sawada-Yankumi   
   relationship, the story is just about fixing her student's problems and   
   chasing them around. Season two is just a retread of season one but with   
   different students - yet it was still the highest rated drama in Japan.   
   Incidentally, Japanese Drama fans will recognize the actor playing   
   Sawada Shin - he played Momo in another drama adapted from a josei   
   manga: Kimi wa Petto.   
      
   The 13 episode anime originally aired in January, 2004. It also   
   minimizes the Sawada crush and instead focuses on Yankumi winning him   
   over so he will help her with her students. Key scenes in the manga that   
   establish the Sawada-Yankumi dynamics are dropped and although there is   
   still evidence of his crush on her, it is understood by him at the end   
   that it is a result and measure of his respect for her and not romantic   
   in nature. There is a nod-off between Sawada and the lawyer in the very   
   last scene where Sawada says he better take care of Yankumi.   
      
   Readers afraid that the Gokusen manga has at its heart another   
   unrealistic shoujo cliched teacher-student relationship story need not   
   worry. In many ways, Sawada is far more mature than his young teacher   
   but at no time has he been shown to seriously consider her as a romantic   
   interest. Similarly, Yankumi is completely oblivious to her student's   
   crush.  If there was an impediment to a romantic liaison between Sawada   
   and Shin, it would be due to their family's affiliations (police   
   commissioner father vs. gangster grandfather) rather than   
   student-teacher.  As a result, Morimoto seems to be setting up the   
   groundwork for a far future relationship between the two rather than   
   establishing one in the high school. But that's what makes the story so   
   endearing.   
      
   As long as there is the Sawada/Yankumi dynamics, I'll continue to read   
   this great series. It is fun, humorous, silly, and interesting without   
   needing fanservice, gratuitous sex, melodrama, or machismo to keep   
   reader interest. Hopefully, it will some day be licensed for a North   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)