(that was yankumi turning up in your smokey warehouse to beat you down!)
where on earth do i start... how do i review the almighty gok? there is no way to not love gokusen. even if you dont like it you actually do you just dont realise it. this has the potential to be the longest review with the most pictures im not even gonna bother putting all the main characters names in it would take me forever. look it up on dramawiki.
ok, we first meet yankumi on her very very first teaching job. she is heir to a yakuza gang but wanted to be a teacher so off she went. hiding her yakuzaryness from eveyone was a little bit hard as she was put in charge of the rowdiest bunch of delinquent yankiis ever seen this side of the second series. kekeke
sawada (matsumoto jun) leads the group he's all moody ass and pouty (though its hard not to pout with that mouth youre never sure what's acting and what's just his face) also featuring in the main group are fantastic actors oguri shun and narimiya hiroki.
one by one the class comes to love yankumi as she sticks her nose (and fists) into their fights and disasterious attempts to stay in school her job becomes to just get them all to graduate without dying or getting expelled first.
yankumi storms into the abandoned warehouses (that apparantly japan has millions of) to save the beaten sh*tless boys when theyre in trouble she beats up any thugs that even sneeze near the tv program and all the guys come to kinda know she's a bit special.
the second series is exactly the same format just a new class. this time with kamenashi kazuya from kat-tun and his bandmate bakanishi jingrish sama akanishi jin. its got a great cast this time round too. the stories are exactly the same - but you just dont care!
they always get mixed up in stuff they shouldnt, nearly get expelled, all hell breaks loose every five minutes and yankumi must lose her job like three times every season.
the third series i have to admit i have a soft spot for. although really its too hard to have a favourite series for me as its all like one big epic movie (i lost a good few weeks just watching series 1 and 2 back to back while waiting for the 3rd one to come out)
this (supposed) final series has miura haruma (samurai high school, bloody monday) and lots of other lovely faces that once again get into the same old sh*t as the other previous classes. but hey - thats what teacher see right? kids go through a lot of the same stuff as their peers. just maybe not some of this sh*t. in reality.
if i say its far fetched, stupid, relentless, repetative, righteous, violent, farsical, unbelievable, corny, predictable, etc etc i may get slapped by the god of brilliant manga adaptation drama but i say it with love! i swear!
its jammed full of moral messages about not being a d*ck and standing up for your friends and all that sorta stuff - but in the nice way japanese tv does it not in the vomit inducing disney type way. yankumi talks the guys down while smacking them in the face. yay!
ok so i should mention yankumi and the other teachers for a minute. she is played by nakama yukie (she really has been in so many things i thought id just put in her dramawiki link http://wiki.d-addicts.com/Nakama_Yukie instead of bother to explain who she is if you dont already know her greatness)
the head teacher she butts heads with constantly in each series sawatari is played by namase katsuhisa. his character gets better and better with each series. the other reoccuring teacher is baba played by azuma mikihisa (he has the hots for yankumi from the moment they met but she only has eyes for unattainable prince on a horse type out of her bumbling clumsy league guys) also yankumi's yakuza family feature in all three series' playing a big part in the story lines. all those guys are great. and also bumbling clumsy idiots.
ok, so on to the movie.
this was supposed to finish off the lot. but im still hoping they do a final series and bring back sawada from the very first series to marry yankumi - lots of gok fans really wish for this.
the movie features a new class and also many of the guys from the third series as main characters in the film. it also has countless short appearances from past characters from all of the series'. (even nakamura yuichi is in there - yes i noticed that one you little scamp! - he was in series 2 if you didnt notice him)
there he is ^
and like the three previous series kuma (waki tomohiro) is also around to be generally great and smiley. i really like that he comes back each time we get a new gok.
the best thing about this film? well along side yankumi who should come to work in this school but kamenashi kazuya! i mean his character from series two. aish he couldnt have been more cool. that jacket and the trousers tucked into his boots (^_^) the ever moody pout and quiet mumbling sarcastic remarks and getting beaten up all over again! just like old times right?
for me it works so well as i feel that out of all the students he got to know yankumi the most somehow. having him there to remind her of what an idiot she is is just genius.
and for the hardcore fans of the drama (and there are almost as many as fans of the manga) we have gokathons where we just watch it all over again over a short period of time and walk around for the few weeks afterwards picking fights with randomers in the street who looked like they might shake us down for small change or pick on our comrade
but we dont back down from any fights do we?!
for this is the blood, sweat and tears of youth!
its also called psychosis caused by the over exposure to gokusen righteous violence.
it doesnt help when you have yankumi's big entrance theme as your ringtone.
if it goes off when you walk into a room... minutes later you realise youve just trashed the place by throwing everyone around and beaten the living sh*t out of them with steel poles that just happened to be laying there all around you.
and god forbid you go anywhere near the beach or a park or a long street you'll end up running or fighting or running and fighting. aish it never ends.
yeah thats right. gokusen psychosis.
there was a helpline.
but the 'on hold' music was yankumi's theme.
there were riots.
those dockyard warehouses never fully recovered.
kattun gok skit:
becky doing yankumi impressions on cartoon kattun:
i really want a clip of the bit right after when nakamaru does the impression too
its the funniest thing in the universe. aish nakamaru rocks.
