Title: Queen's Classroom or Jyoou no Kyoushitsu (2005)
Genre: Drama
Duration: 11 episodes with 2 specials
Theme Song: Exile by Exit
Cast:
Shida Mirai as Kanda Kazumi
Amami Yuki as Akutsu Maya
Fukuda Mayuko as Shindo Hikaru
Kaho as Kanda Yu
Matsukawa Naruki as Manabe Yusuke
Synopsis:
It's the start of the new semester for the 12-year old Kanda Kazumi(Shida Mirai). She was looking forward to making new friends and making a lot of memories of her last year in grade school. Although she's not so bright, she balances it by being cheerful and striving to make everyone like each other including her parents who seem to not really get along with each other very well, made obvious by their constant bickering whenever they are in the room together. This year, Kazumi's class was assigned a teacher who has very rigid principles in her teachings and of life. Akutsu Maya(Amami Yuki) values studying and intelligence above all else and believes that friendship and memories are trivial and non-essential.
This comes a shock to Kazumi who wants nothing more than befriending everyone and enjoying her last year in grade school. Adding to the pressure, her mom has been constantly nagging her to strive to get into a private high school which ultimately matches Maya's goal for her class.
Maya comes to the class dressed in all black, hair pulled back, never smiles and shocks her class by showing just about how much she knows about them including their darkest secrets. She gives much emphasis on studying that she does not even allow students to leave the room as soon as the class starts which causes Kazumi to get her second 0 in the exam and even worst, this ultimately leads her to pee on her pants. The only reason she was allowed to leave class during exam is because her classmate, Shindo Hikaru(Fukuda Mayuko), one of the gifted ones, took pity on her and stood for Kazumi.
Because of this outright defiance, Maya changes the rules to state that disobedient students will be the ones to do all the chores which are not limited to cleaning the classroom but other areas as well. The students tried to get their parents to air their grievances however, this backfires as Maya wins them over to her side as most parents just want their kids to get high grades and get into private schools. The principal and the vice principal also turns a blind eye to Maya's methodologies since they can only appreciate the so-called progress by Maya's class in terms of their lessons, their behavior towards teachers and their unceasing efforts to get into private schools. To make matters worse, Maya also gets some students to spy for her since she anticipates that there would be students who would devise actions to defy her. This creates more conflict in class and made it harder for students to trust their peers.
Kazumi, undaunted by the seeming helplessness of their case, strives to win her classmates over and struggles to prove Maya wrong with the help of 2 of her classmates. However, Maya seems to always be two steps ahead of them, knowing everything they do and doing countermeasures to prevent them from achieving their goal. In the end, will the class unite and defeat Maya? Will the class be able to make good memories before they graduate or will they just continue to live in hell?
Review:
I don't understand how some people could be unsatisfied with the ending to this drama. I have seen shows with seemingly same plots with some varying twists (i.e. GTO, Gokusen, etc) but this is the first show where I see the teacher who is excels in everything she does (including ballet and self-defense) but terrorizes and bullies her students to submission. It is very evident though that the writer wanted, more than having a good show, to actually communicate a message in this show through the discussions during class.
The reasons given behind Maya's outrageous methodologies makes one think twice whether she's wrong or not which I actually love most about this show. I never grew to hate her character because however bad she was made to appear, it was obvious to me that she treats her job with much passion and dedication which can be easily misunderstood specially if she wants to be misunderstood.
Maya talks about the 6% in society that is given special privileges that is beyond the imagination of the normal folks and applies the same principle in the class giving them their first taste of discrimination. She continues that the reason why some people treat studying with nonchalance is because these people are sisies and cowards, refusing to aim for more because they fear failure thereby convincing themselves to aim for less and have more. She bravely tackles about bullying and betrayal, which leads even the most indifferent student to participate in resolving the seemingly impossible class situation. Her punishments include cleaning the gym, comfort rooms in school, shaming a person in front of the class, and the likes. However, because of her unusual manner, it forces her students to re-evaluate themselves, to think on their own, meditate on their dreams and discover their strengths.
At times, she is made to appear as the devil reincarnate but to me, she is just playing the devil's advocate. However harsh the punishments are, if one is to evaluate objectively, you would understand that there may be a bigger picture than the one she presents.
For some reason, Kazumi seemed to always bear the brunt of Maya's ire but to her credit, she never once surrendered to Maya choosing to exert every effort to continue to trust and to win her classmates over.
In the process, when everything was said and done, the parents finally clamouring to change the grade 6 teacher and board of education demanding her to resign, the students then realize the values that Maya has been inadvertently trying to teach them. They realize that because they didn't want to lose to Maya, they have been improving themselves without even realizing it.
In the end, it was revealed that Maya does not go to sleep in order to keep an eye on her students, to review their progress and to make sure that she is always prepared for her next class. Her body ultimately gives up and she ends up in the hospital which is the first time she was portrayed as being human.
I could never be as passionate as she was about her job that she stays focused on her goal of improving her students no matter what the cost is to her which she achieves in the end at the cost of her job.
This is definitely an "intelligent" drama and belongs to my top 10 list. I liked the characters in this drama and how it did not try to sugar-coat the harsh realities of life. The show forced me to think objectively and to "open my eyes" (which is a fave phrase of Maya).
Queen's classroom gets 10 out of 10 for being an excellent show that is more than entertainment.
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