Gokusen (Gokudo no Sensei)

So, I recently started watching Gokusen (the live action j-drama based on the manga series). And honestly? It's soooo fucking excellent. You might have heard the basic premise even if you haven't seen the show, but I'll just sum it up quick. A first year teacher is assigned to class 3-D for her first teaching experience, a class which happens to be notorious for the deliquent behavior of it's students, and not one of them trusts or listens to anything a teacher has to say. Luckily, Yamaguchi "Yankumi" Kumiko is no ordinary teacher, but the 4th generation in a yakuza (basically the Japanese mafia, if you didn't know) family. Eventually she gains the trust of her students through her.. um.. unconventional teaching, although they still think she's nuts, and every episode she usually ends up kicking ass (most often literally) to protect them from the latest accusation or confrontation, etc.. It sounds corny but it's actually really good. Nakama Yukie as Yankumi is so so so much win. She's adorable. And BADASS AS HELL. And as I'm one of those people who not only finds a ship in like, every show I watch ever, I find it in the first 5 minutes, I am of course now a huge ShinKumi shipper. I mean... "Shinohara-san"? Don't make me laugh.

Matsumoto Jun walked into the gym with multicolored hair and I was like, "Oh. Of course." This is obviously the person I'm supposed to root for. It's clearly the aim from the start. They try to act like they don't influence you, but they soooo do. And it's MatsuJun, so of course I'm GOING to immediately ship him with Yankumi. Sure, it's a student/teacher relationship and I'm technically not supposed to condone that sort of thing, because normally it's really icky (also it apparently does nothing for your grades, judging by that one kid who impregnated his teacher and still got a 65). But given the fact that there's only a 5 year age difference, Sawada Shin is the greatest, and they don't actually do anything except be adorable without even really knowing it, I'll ship to my heart's content, thanks. ^_^ Besides, who else could act so comfortable and familiar with a damn yakuza family?

However, there is a huge problem. I am currently on episode 10 of Gokusen. And I am seriously thinking of not even bothering with Gokusen 2 and 3. NO... SAWADA... SHIN? What is this?! I mean, I knew before I started watching this that MatsuJun wasn't in Gokusen 2 or 3, but now that I've actually watched it I'm completely appalled. He's the second main character. The camera moves to his reaction as much as it does for Yankumi.

HE IS ONE HALF OF SHINKUMI. Why would you ever ever ever even CONSIDER making anything Gokusen without Shin?! From what I've heard, Gokusen 2 and 3 not only do NOT follow the original manga, they are basically used to promote pop stars. And apparently Gokusen The Movie is one big Kame-fest.  That is just WRONG. You can't have Gokusen without two things. 1) Yankumi being the kickass awesome strong as hell mobster tinged homeroom teacher she was born to be, and 2) Sawada Shin. You just can't. It's not right. I mean, I know he has to graduate, but from what I've heard he sticks around even after that in the manga. It doesn't feel like Gokusen if it's not the right Gokusen. That makes me sad. :[

And after Kurosagi The Movie (A.K.A. That 2 Hour Travesty That Discouraged Kurosaki/Tsurara Shippers Worldwide By Using Maki For About 5 Seconds of Nothing, Did Not Really Advance The Kurosaki Revenge Storyline At All, And Then Tried To Cover All Of This Up With Yamapi's Hotness And Meaningless Shakespeare References) ... I just don't think I can go through that again.

Therefore... I boycott. The original, however, is amazing, therefore I love it and highly recommend it. ^_^

(Also, this fanfic is excellent and I'm going to go ahead and consider it semi-canon.)