I'm back after battles with myself and technology to write about more shows and books that no one really cares about. So to highlight me actually doing work outside actual obligations, I'll be looking at the interesting and original: Gokusen. Oh did I say interesting and original, I meant boring and uninspired. My apologies it's been a while, I may have forgot how words works. So here are words that you may enjoy or not.
Gokusen is often touted as the Josei
equivalent of Great Teacher Onizuka, I.e a tough and crazy
teacher helps those that people view as unteachable. Maybe the manga
does live up to this comparison,however the anime can not hold a
candle to it. It's part comedy that forgot to bring the jokes and
part drama that forgot to bring the engaging characters. It can't
decide what it wants to do and has a hard time committing to a plot
line. Which may be for the best as the plots that do happen are
awful and make little sense.
The story follows new teacher Kumiko
Yamaguchi,the acting head of a Yakuza family. She's teaching the
students that others have given up on while also keeping her Yakuza
side a secret for reasons never clearly explained. The lack of
explanation of really anything in the story till way too late makes
it hard to get invested. Why she doesn't want people knowing about
her life is not really explained till half way through the series and
even then it's rather poorly explained. Up to then we're just
supposed to take her word for it that it'll be bad if she is found
out. Without a sense of the consequences that an action will have it
kills all tension that could possibly be there. Though it's not like
she is doing a good job of hiding it with here hammy acting attempts
in the dub. I think the facade she is using is an attempt at a joke
on the shows part but it's less so bad its good and just bad. The
plot fares no better;trying to set events up and having anything
interesting going on.
The bigger plot outside the duel life
aspect is about a gang called Nekomata screwing with the other Yakuza
families. You'll can be forgiven for not noticing this as the
episodes seem busy just meandering around doing nothing but having
bad jokes and nonsensical character changes. One episode has the main
group of punks decide near the end that “hey lets go to the
remedial class” because the teacher waited for them. It makes sense
in a way but the lack of any clear or really any visible character
development muddles what it's trying to say. The boys just seem to
trust her despite none of them,bar the silent but cool guy, knows
what she does for them. So once that main plot comes to fruition and
the boys come to her rescue it has little impact emotionally. At this
point she also lets her crazier side that she's been trying to hide
come out in front of them. So either she forgot that that was a plot
point or they just didn't care.
The characters themselves are all
rather boring and remind me of better ones. Angel Densetsu managed
to take stereotypical punks and make them into likable characters
that rose above the usual one note archetype. This is sadly not the
case here,with every boy being defined by two traits: one unique to
them such as being fat or ugly and being decently moral. They seem to
be moral less because they have deep reasons for it and more because
the show feels characters like that sell better. They end up coming
off as less likable and more morally superior despite being massive
jerks.
Kumiko and her family of thugs fair
somewhat better in that they are crazy thugs but fall prey to the
same problems as the school kids. They fanatical devotional to Kumiko
is rather funny, providing some of the shows sparse laughs. The
family gets the lions share of the character development and if her
students had even this level of back story then their loyalty would
actually make sense. The thugs are still pretty one note overall so
and what little development Kumiko gets is all over the place.
Ranging from wanting to reel her class in to letting them run wild.
With the aforementioned lack of explanation it makes her or really
anyone hard to care about.
So much of more mediocre elements
could be forgiven if the show was actually funny but it's just not.
Most of the jokes range from tired slapstick and punchlines to the
just plain bizarre. Kumiko has a dog who seems to be a pitbull
version of Scooby-Doo that doesn't talk yet he gets lip syncs like
he's talking. It makes little sense and like most every other joke is
unfunny. Also the head of the Nekomata Group looks like a cat for some reason. Also
before you start that email,I'm aware of the pun they are going for.
However in-universe no one else has a look like this and you think
it's something at least one of the characters would comment on. Nope,
there is zero explanation and the design seems to be here for the
stupid pun.
Gokusen lacks anything memorable or
funny about it. Calling it bad would imply that it tried something
besides trying to be a poor man's Great Teacher Onizuka. It's a boring show that can't
be bothered to explain itself and just faffs around for 12 episodes.
Maybe this is just a poor representation of the source material that
was made as a cheap cash in or maybe the manga is awful as well. I
don't know,but I do know that we should probably just let this one
fade into darkness of the collective unconscious and never speak of
it again.
Till Next Time: Stay Postive
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