35-sai no Koukousei review

35-sai no Koukousei, a high school student at 35 year old, is a drama that aired back in 2013 when I was doing my thoughts about the first episode. Even though I am still very interested at doing the first episode preview thing, I realize I had over 40 unfinished drama series in my list. This is why I am doing bunch of reviews lately as I am going through the list.

35-sai no Koukousei was one of the most popular dramas in 2013, here is my review.

Synopsis: (From mydramalist.com)

The drama will center around how a 35 year old changes the school and influences her fellow classmates’ lives while dealing with the dark reality of today’s high schools, including bullying and skipping school.

Cast:

• Yonekura Ryoko as Baba Ayako
• Mizobata Junpei as Koizumi Junichi
• Katase Nana as Nagamine Akari
• Masu Takeshi as Ninagawa Makio
• Tonesaku Toshihide as Saruwatari Takashi
• Aiba Hiroki as Kitajima Ryuichiro
• Enoki Takaaki as Noda Yoshio
• Watari Tetsuya as Asada Yukinobu

  Class 3-A

• Katoono Taikou as Otake Ryota
• Kitayama Saori as Izumi Yuna
• Kojima Fujiko as Kokubun Moe
• Shinkawa Yua as Kudo Mizuki
• Suda Masaki as Tsuchiya Masamitsu
• Takasugi Mahiro as Higashi Ren
• Nishii Yukito as Saegusa Teppei
• Nomura Shuhei as Yukawa Osamu
• Hirose Alice as Hasegawa Rina
• Fujiwara Reiko as Yuki Mai
• Mizuno Erina as Yamashita Ai
• Miyazaki Karen as Hatori Rikako
• Morikawa Aoi as Eto Hitomi
• Yamazaki Kento as Akutsu Ryo

Review

Story

The story is fairly simple for a drama setting. It is totally like you can imagine, a 35 year old woman goes back to school for the last year of high school. How will she fair with the class with people 2 times younger? However, this class isn't really normal.


This review is a bit controversial for me. This drama was really popular when it aired and all I hear about it are great things. It made me reaaly exited to watch, but I was mostly disappointed. Most of my reviews of this blog are quite positive, it makes sense, if I completed all the episodes usually it's because I feel it has merit. I am also really crazy about all dramas really so it is hard for me to find something negative. This is maybe one drama that made me think "maybe I am too old for this". It seems to be a really great drama but somehow it is not moving me as much as when I watch similar dramas when I was in high school (I was crazy about Nobuta wo Produce).

Anyways, let's start going through the good and interesting aspect of the story. The story is very reminiscent of older school dramas like Gokusen and GTO. However, the twist here instead of seeing an adult teacher bond with high school students, we see an adult student trying to fit in with them. I could feel that they tried to express the good feeling you get when you watched those classics. You see our adult student in episodic story episodes going through challenge after challenge. It does not stop there, in comparison to the classics I mentioned, it actually also brings forward more. It has a back story (why does a 35 year old goes back to school), it tackles important issues like bullying and it includes some mysteries. So in way, in terms of content, it has value. By the end of the story, it is easy to be moved and have some kind of attachment to the whole class.    

While I found it offered a good story overall, I had some problems with the episodic stories. I found myself not really agreeing with what was happening, like I felt that it did not fit what I felt. I do not know if it is because I found some elements of the stories immature (by example the school caste system if you have watched this) or that the characters were over-exaggerating on some things that could have been much simpler (by example the teachers behaviors and over-exaggerating every time something happens).  In short, maybe I wasn't just not in the mood for that drama, but I was able to watch it all.

It does not help that I thought the whole scenario of a 35 year going to high school impossible. I have many friends who did not complete their high school,  completed it 10 years later with adult school. It isn't really something special. The same thing goes for university, we are free to start and end our university program that we chose anytime.

I think it might have more meaning in the Japanese society, were you usually have to graduate from school , then you have the choice of university or work. Going back to school is not really well seen, especially at 35, where you are supposed to have a job that you keep for your life. In that case, the setting of the show is more special I assume for the japanese people. By the end of the drama, the setting didn't bother me as much as it did at first.

Acting

As you can see in the Cast section, the wide amount of actors and actresses are divided in the school faculty and in the school class group 3-a students.

First of all, let's talk about the amazing performance of Yonekura Ryoko. It is not the first time that I praised her acting skills, I remember doing so in my Atsui Kuuki review, one of my first reviews here. Her character is mysterious and her acting skills and experience are one of the highlight of this drama. However sometimes her character appears too strong, too good without really any flaws, so it is a bit one-sided.

The younger actors playing as the students brings a refreshing new generation to the world of dramas. I expect to see some of them more and more from now on, a bit like what happened with the students in GTO. Some of them showed a lot of promise. I have found Suda Masaki (the main bully of the class) playing really well his role, wow I really wanted to punch his face! I have seen him in Nakuna, Hara-chan and he has a gift for those annoying roles, hahaha. Also, I am quite shy to say this but I am a big fan of Takasuhi Mahiro (playing the long haired Ren), he is really young and played almost invisible secondary roles so far but something about him I really like. I think he will be very great in the future. Of course, I had to watch this drama, but again he almost doesn't say anything :(. Again, most of the students were actually doing pretty good considering they are pretty new actors, however I had mixed feelings about 1 character in particular (Akutsu) but it might not be the fault of the actor himself.

Lastly, I was quite annoyed by the performance of most teachers, well maybe with the exception of Katase Nana. Most of them were quite immature and I felt it was missing a mature character among them, I am guessing which the main character is supposed to fill.

Music

This drama contains really serious music giving it a dark and mysterious feeling. The music itself is really great but I wonder if it was a bit overdone on the seriousness.

The ending song was by Exile "Flower Song", I am not a fan of them, it's quite catchy for them,  you can listen to it here.

Recommendation

35-sai no Koukousei, one the most popular dramas in 2013 and which received pretty good reception. It is successful in giving a good, warm fuzzy feeling. Here is similar kinds of drama:

Gokusen series, it has 3 seasons, a female teacher from a Yakuza family
GTO series, it has 2 seasons, a male teacher who has young, pure, energetic values
Medaka,   a  new female adult school teacher who is pure and kind
Asuko March, a female transfer student in an technical type mostly boys high school