Gokusen Drama Season 2, Episode 1

We're back! Hurrah! A few years have passed since we last saw YAMAGUCHI Kumiko, High School teacher extraordinaire. Times have been rough, and we discover that even though Yankumi is still a teacher, her class is a bit different than what she is used to. Shirokin Gakuen has had to close down, so Yankumi makes do with a class of children who don't quite appreciate her unusual brand of teaching. Change is on the horizon though, because her favorite colleague from Shirokin, Mr. Vice Principal himself, is in need of a new teacher at the high school he now works at. Through possibly fated coincidence, Yankumi gets the job.

The school is Kurogin Gakuin (Shirokin means white gold, and Kurogin mean black silver ^_^). 'Goro-chan' is the vice-principal there, but he doesn't rule over it with an iron fist like he did at Shirokin. This time he has to take orders from a slightly sinister Chairman who seems to have his own agenda for the school. Goro has his hands full with yet another class of unruly 3-D students. This class makes the season 1 class 3-D look like well-behaved honor students. Their most recent teacher gave his resignation while being rolled out on a stretcher. Yes, this looks like a job for Yankumi!

With only 3 months left of the school year, Yankumi takes over a new class 3-D. They are a lot rougher, meaner, and more violent than her first season class. Again, Yankumi must try to hide her background, lest she lose her job and Goro get fired. She does her best to be nice, and in fact, I think it takes her a bit too long to really yell at them ^_^ This class is much more of a challenge for Yankumi, and at one point they even reduce her to tears! (shocking!)

Like before, we have a few members of the class that the show is going to focus on. This time it's Hayato (who seems to be a sort of Sawada Shin clone, except he's not as quiet, and seems to be meaner) and Odagiri Ryu. Hayato and Ryu are childhood friends, but are currently Not Getting Along (meaning they want to beat the crap out of each other), and Ryu has quit school. In series 1, Sawada Shin was played by Jun from Arashi. Now we have Ryu and Hayato played by members of KAT-TUN. I like Shin a lot better, personally :D The other members of the main core of students include TSUCHIYA Hikaru (who is tall, and really hot, in my opinion ^_^;;;), TAKEDA Keita (who is also very cute and is a much more sympathetic character- he is also childhood friends with Hayato and Ryu), and HYUUGA Kosuke (he looks the most normal, don't really have an opinion on him yet).

Yankumi's mission this episode is to convince Ryu to come back to school. The task is not easy, as Ryu is a real jerk. But Yankumi has the help of some familiar faces from series 1: her yakuza family and her former student Kuma, who has taken over the ramen shop after his father passed away. I love Kuma! (I just wish Shin would show up!) Yankumi faces some tough times ahead as she tries to shape up this class of delinquents. With only 3 months to do it, I wonder if she will succeed?

Here are wayyy too many screencaps. I couln't resist! This will probably kill my bandwidth....