Of Swords and Parasols

Yamaguchi Kumiko is a first year math teacher who just got hired at Shirokin High, a school known for having the delinquent students at the low end of the academic food chain. On her first day, Kumiko and a fellow female teacher, Fujiyama, are told by the construction helmet wearing vice principal that they are forbidden to wear business clothes to school, and much instead wear sneakers and track suits. This is because it's the wardrobe best suited for fleeing for one's life should one's students decide to attack one. Kumiko herself is given the rougherst, rowdiest, most undisciplined class of them all. Her class ignores her, throws chalk at her, and doesn't bother to show up half the time. On her second day at the school, they attach a photograph of her face atop a nude pinup and rename her "Yankumi." They consider themselves the baddest badasses around and as far as they're concerned, she's just another stupid teacher who doesn't care about them, and completely useless.

What they don't know is that Yankumi is the heir of the Ooedo group, one of the most powerful Yakuza organizations in Japan, and the lot of them don't have enough badass combined to fill one of her pinkies. Despite her heritage, she's wanted to be a teacher and steer kids down the right path since she was a teenager, and is determined to be the best teacher Japan has ever seen. She may not care if her students fight, but she'll be damned if they'll be delinquents, and they'll become useful, productive members of society if she has to beat the productiveness into the little bastards herself. Her students, of course, think she's completely insane, especially as she switches from complete spaz to yakuza tough guy in the blink of the eye, and one student, Sawada Shin, the smartest student in school who was sent there after hitting a teacher, is determined to solve the mystery of exactly what's up with this insane teacher.

Along the road to graduation, Yankumi and her students battle gangs, bullies, muggers, rival yakuza clans, the police, school cultural festivals, and evil plots to bulldoze the school and replace it with a parking lot.

( some babble about anime and drama differences )

For fun, the bizarrely entrancing end credits:



Incidentally, I swear I remember someone binging through the anime, manga and drama in a short period of time and posting a comparison of them, but I couldn't find it when I went looking earlier in the LJs I thought might be responsible. Anyone remember who/when/have a link?

Also, because I'm me, I watched the Otogi Zoshi trailer on the third disc...uhm...a few times(one can never have too much Otogi Zoshi in one's life...I did the same with the Twelve Kingdoms trailer) and I noticed that They completely spoil Abe no Seimei's identity in the trailer...but you'd probably never notice it unless you knew. I wonder,though, if it subconsciously influenced me in figuring it out before it was revealed, since I first heard of the series in a trailer on some anime DVD or another.

I'm watching the Gokusen anime right now(likely finish and post on it before bed) but was wondering if anyone had/had seen an animated gif icon of ( spoiler )