Chugakusei Nikki Review

Drama: Meet Me After School (English title)

Romaji: Chugakusei Nikki
Japanese: 中学聖日記
Director: Ayuko Tsukahara, Kentaro Takemura, Toshio Tsuboi
Actors: Kasumi Arimura, Kenshi Okada, Keita Machida, Yo Yoshida, Tomochika,  Yui Natsukawa, Rina Ono, Jiei Wakabayashi, Marin Nishimoto, Seina Nakata
Writer: Junko Kawakami (manga) Arisa Kaneko
Network: TBS 

 First let me start this review with a mini rant

The concern I see people having with this drama is that they said it is normalizing pedophilia. My defense on that matter is that you only consider a person a pedophile if he/she is occasionally attracted to children which she's not because she was not attracted to him because he's a child. I know most will not agree with that argument but let's say you are correct and she's a pedophile, does this drama normalize that psychiatric disorder? NO. She's attracted to him but didn't take advantage in fact she was even despised the whole time, the school, students and the society. The drama won't make you feel they are romanticizing them. As for the matter that it might affect the thinking of any child viewer, does those kids don't have parents to guide them? Then what about stories like Robin Hood, mistress protagonist, serial killer are those stories being normalize because they were made? If you are inclined to call it a trash just by reading the synopsis, then with that kind of logic I just can't help but to call you dumb.

Chugakusei Nikki portrays a forbidden love between Hijiri, a middle school teacher and Akira, one of her students. The drama follows their story for the course of several years. There will be time skip in the middle of the drama, 3 years to be exact, when Akira is 18 years of age. The characters are well written, Hijiri was portrayed really well as an inexperienced teacher, adult yet not matured, and also Akira as rebellious and confused teenager. Side characters are interesting too especially Haraguchi and Shotaro, it's also interesting to see their love story develops. Their love is somewhat similar yet different. The plot is sensitive but the drama handled it tastefully, it is nowhere near as creepy as you might think. This show is also grounded to reality in that every emotion these characters portray is very relatable. What I also like is the pacing, it's very balanced and every episode is engaging. The drama also knows how to play with our emotions; they are good on how to build tension and also how to end every episode. Roller coaster of emotions, there's also couple of scenes where I was on the edge of my seat and to think this is not even a thriller genre.

"A good rain chooses the right time to fall and so it falls"

"When it comes to spring, the rain is certainly falling"

"It follows the wind and secretly enters the night"

"While the wind is blowing, the rain continues to fall until night"

"And moistens everything softly, without any sound"

"Silently, almost making no sounds at all, it makes everything wet"

This poem in episode 1 summarizes the whole drama. It is a metaphor to the kind of love between Hijiri and Akira, a pure love similar to dramas such as Sekachu, Endless love series, Koizora, Be with you, Tada kimi Aishiteu etc. Pure love genre if you would know is what popularizes Asian drama. It basically portrays a couple that faced many obstacles. Pure love in sense that even after so many years they still long for each other. We haven't seen this genre for quite some time and I already see upcoming dramas with similar genre. This drama will trigger another pure love era.

Cinematography is just captivating. I love how they capture the green landscape on camera, the shot during sunset, falling rain drops, fireworks and that weird fish eye effect they always use. Those are not just gorgeous shots but also serve as a symbol to what these characters feel. That's the thing about Japanese drama it is full of symbolism and just like what I always think, great cinematography is also like a great painting, it is not just beautiful but should also captivates you, will make you move closer and examine the painting and not just say "oh this painting is beautiful". Music in this drama is just perfect, it underlines the mood and shows the emotions of characters. It is a really great piece of background music. With great drama comes great ending song and "Prologue" by Uru is just like that. It's not just a great melody but if you read the lyrics it will make sense why they choose it as the ending song.

The acting is just brilliant but other than the acting, the casting needs more praise. They just casted right people for the roles, Arimura Kasumi for example, she has this cute, inexperienced image and if you watch the drama having that image made her portrayal of hijiri so effective. They also cast a rookie for the role of Akira, it a nice decision by them as it requires a certain rawness to the character. It doesn't mean Okada Kenshi not a great actor though, he is indeed fantastic as he proves the intensity, angst to the role. They won't call him a super rookie is he is not. Side characters are also well casted too. If you follow Japanese drama long enough you would be familiar with Yoshida you and Natsukawa Yui, they were both underrated actresses. Their characters played an important role to the story and they played them really well. Aside from Akira, it's the portrayal of those characters made this drama so much better.