JAPANESE DRAMA DATABASE: Kou Kou Kyoushi

Kou Kou Kyoushi (High School Teacher)

The life of the title character has been a series of embarrassing events beyond his control. Yet his fate is sealed when he falls in love with one of his students, with a passion that seems to intensify in the face of social mores. This drama explores the complex emotions that lead to forbidden paths of infatuation. One of the saddest dorama of all time. This was also famous drama. Hiroyuki Sanada moved to new high school as science teacher. Sachiko Sakurai who is a student loves him and follows him always. But he has a fiance who actually doesn't like him. After some troubles, he cancelled his engagement and bacame to love Sachiko. The biggest problem is her father LOVES her also. High School teacher in a forbidden love affair with his troubled student. Conflict escalates between the teacher and her dad, who is also her lover. Ending is nothing less than depressing.

(2003 VERSION)

[Daily Yomiuri, 'Koko Kyoshi' returns to school Makoto Fukuda / Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writer , January 16, 2003]: Koko Kyoshi, a series which began in March 1993, was the story of forbidden love between a teacher and one of his students that garnered record ratings of 33 percent. A new series, set in the same school 10 years later, and with the same title, began running Jan. 10 on TBS at 10 p.m. It's also the story of a great love, but is not, nor was it ever planned to be, a sequel to the first series.

Second-year student Hina Machida (Aya Ueto) meets Ikumi Koga (Naoto Fujiki) at a game center, and spends the night with him, after telling him she is 20 years old. The next day, the new math teacher arrives at her school, and, surprise, surprise, it's Koga. As in the first series, the script was written by Shinji Nojima, while the theme song, "Bokutachi no Shippai" (Our Mistake), is sung by Doji Morita and background music is composed by Akira Senju. "This great plot came into my head," Nojima said during a recent interview, "and it really worked great with a student-teacher situation. It didn't have to be a high school teacher, but when I thought up that plot, I got the urge to try to outdo the job I did 10 years ago.

" Koga used to be an elite civil servant at the Education, Science and Technology Ministry, but is suffering from an incurable disease. In the first series, the student harbored a shocking secret--here, the secret is the teacher's. "I didn't want the two storylines to be exactly the same," Nojima explained. "By turning them upside down, the puzzle was solved." The theme of this series is dependence. "I wanted to explore the difference between dependence and love," Nojima said. "Two people completely dependent on each other can, at first glance, look like they're in love, but can it really be called love? Writing about it, I myself wasn't sure. Unlike the first series, which developed in a fairly straight line, this one approached the subject in a round-about manner, delving into psychological matters, and I think the characters are more multifaceted." "My scenes as Koga-sensei made me really nervous," Ueto said recently. "I'm not very good at love scenes." Fujiki, who looked very tense, said, "There's a lot of pressure because of the success of the first series. I just want to concentrate on each scene as it comes along."

Other characters include Hina's friend, Beniko, played by singer Sonin, in her first acting roll, and Yuji, a young host in a host bar, played by Hirotaka Narumiya, who tries to get close to her. There's also Koga's doctor, Yuriko, played by Azusa Mano, and fellow teachers, played by Kaori Manabe and Koji Okura. Producer Kazuhiro Ito said, "It's been 10 years, but we wanted to make the new series as fresh as possible."

The English teacher in the first series, Tomoki Fujimura, played by Masaki Kyomoto, raised some eyebrows at the time. Ten years later, he's one of the head teachers at the school. "The first series ended with Episode 11," Kyomoto said. "For me, it's like starting up with Episode 12. They're really digging into Fujimura's character, and this is a great chance for me. We talk about the teachers from the first series, too, so fans of that show should enjoy it."

"Ten years ago, I wrote using the left side of my brain, very logically, moving the characters around frame by frame," Nojima said. "Two years ago, I was writing with the right side of my brain, intuitively. I thought it was about time to put the two of them together. I think this is the best work I've ever done."

The director for the first episode of the new Koko Kyoshi is veteran Shinichi Kamoshita. When the first series came out, he was directing well-known TBS dramas like Kishibe no Arubamu and Fuzoroi no Ringotachi.

Comparing the first and second series, he said: "The first was all about love, but the theme in the second is love and death. When the gods gaze upon mankind, manipulating love and death--is man happy or unhappy?"

[from Daily Yomiuri, Wm. Penn, 1/23/03]: a difference a decade can make. Back in 1983, TBS aired a series called Kokosei Fufu. Rerun many times since, it has become something of a cult classic. Naive and sweet by current standards, this love story, culminating in the marriage of two high school seniors, was a real shocker in 1983.

In 1993, TBS gave us Koko Kyoshi, the tragic story of forbidden love between a high school teacher and one of his troubled students. Back then, this too was a real shocker.
Now, TBS gives us another Koko Kyoshi tale (Fridays at 10 p.m.), and they have succeeded in providing yet another shocker. It makes one quiver at what they could possibly come up with for 2013.

Despite borrowing the title of the 1993 hit, the only relation this series has to the original is that it is set in the same high school 10 years later and the English teacher from the original (Masaki Kyomoto), who was no role model back then, is still on the staff. Otherwise, we are in all new territory, a strange and alien landscape where four somewhat crazed adults make life difficult for two impressionable high school girls, Machida, the heroine, and her pal Kudo, the daughter of a wealthy mortuary owner who is attracted to a sinister host club employee.

In the opening scene, 17-year-old Machida (Aya Ueto), runs into a strange young man named Koga (Naohito Fujiki) at a game center. She spends the night with him after he says he just wants someone to be near him. The next day she goes to school and guess what? Koga is the new math teacher.

First mystery: Why would a former elite Education, Science and Technology Ministry employee turn up here teaching math? Mystery No. 2: Why has Koga broken up with his intelligent, gorgeous girlfriend from the ministry, someone he obviously still cares about? Mystery No. 3: What kind of doctor is Azusa Mano supposed to be playing, and what are those pills she is giving Koga? One begins to think the guy is mentally ill, but by the end of episode one we have an answer of sorts.

During a basketball game, Machida is hit in the head with a ball and later passes out. Koga rushes her to the hospital, which just happens to be the same hospital where doc Azusa is on the staff. Machida is OK and preparing to go home when she overhears the doc talking to Koga. She is explaining the details of his brain tumor and suggesting he has only six months more to live.

They notice Machida eavesdropping and think she is on to the secret. But what with the Japanese-language aversion for pronouns and all, Machida catches only part of the explanation and, unaware that Koga is ill, believes she is the one who has been diagnosed with a fatal malady.

When she tells Koga this, our devoted teacher decides to let her believe it. Evidently, he does this in part out of a desire to have someone to commiserate with in his misery. For her own reasons, Azusa, who seems to like Koga too, will go along with this little scam/farce/horror. Take your pick of nouns and do the math. It all adds up to an utterly repulsive waste of an hour. A negative four for this quartet of embittered adults.

[TBS Synopsis]: Hina, a student at Nikko High School, goes out one evening with Beniko, a girl from her year. They get split up and Hina ends up in a strange meeting with a man named Ikumi in a game arcade. The next day, Ikumi turns up as the new teacher at her school. Ikumi doesn't seem to recognise Hina but the wheels of fate are slowly moving to reunite them in what is a passionate story of forbidden love.

THE CAST: FIRST SERIES: Sanada Hiroyuki, Sakurai Sachiko, Minekishi Toru, Watanabe Noriko, Akai Hidekazu, Sato Koichi, Kaneda Akio, Wakabayashi Shiho, Mochida Maki, Kyomoto Masaki, Nakamura Emiko, Yamashita Yorie, Kuroda Aasaa, Kosaka Kazuya, Miura Koichi, Kato Takako and more. / SECOND SERIES: Ueto Aya, Fujiki Naoto, Kyomoto Masaki, Narimiya Hiroki
NETWORK: TBS
THEME SONG: "BOKUTACHI NO SHIPPAI" (our mistakes) by Morita Douji
DURATION: January through March 1993 / Kou Kou Kyoushi 2003 - JANUARY 2003 through MARCH 2003.
REVIEWS:

This is a hauntingly dark drama...ala "emotional screwed up" but the storyline is very good. I recommend this drama but if you are a father with a daughter in high school who talks about her teacher a lot and want to watch this drama....umm...just remember it's a drama and there are teacher and students who may go this far.