No Dropping Out: Back to School at 35
Directed by Noriyoshi Sakuma, Seiichi Nagumo, and Maki
Nishino
Originally Broadcast between April 13 – June 22, 2013 on NTV
in Japan
The term “High School is Hell” has been tossed around since
time immemorial, but apparently this has never been truer these days than it is
in Japan. This 11-episode television
drama centres around 35 year-old drop out Baba Ayako (Yonekura Ryoko) who
mysteriously returns to high school and ends up changing the culture of the
school administration and influencing the lives of the students. The drama deals with the darker realities of
Japanese high school, like bullying, the pressure to succeed, abuse, and teen
suicide in ways that no North American drama could ever hope to.
I stumbled upon this programme recently on Crunchyroll and
decided to give it a shot, and am glad I did, as it gave me insight into the
darker side of Japanese culture that a lot of their films and television shows
rarely touch on. Only once in a blue
moon does one come across a TV show that is unafraid to peel back the layers
and expose real societal problems in any more than just a superficial way. The only other one that comes to my mind is
Kyoto Broadcasting’s superb 26-episode anime adaptation of Tatsuhiko Takimoto’s
darkly humorous novel, Welcome to the NHK. The material can be strong meat at times, and the actors are asked to
dig deep to dark emotional places, and do they succeed? I say admirably. That’s not so say it’s all dour, and gloomy, the show has its
share of humour as well from slap-sticky moments with the teachers, to the
funny repartee between Baba-san and her friends eating lunch on the school
roof.
So, if you dig a well written, well preformed
sometimes humorous drama, and you love all things Nihon, check out No
Dropping Out: Back to School at 35.
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