HAMMER SESSION! Review

Title: HAMMER SESSION!
Genre: School
Episodes: 11
Broadcast period: 2010-Jul to 2010-Sept
Cast: Hayami Mokomichi, Shida Mirai and Higa Manami.

A drama different from the typical “teacher-making-deliquents-to-decent-people. The usual is, a teacher getting respect from students then he/she preaches, a lot. Here, the ‘teacher’ is a genius felon called Otowa YonKo (Hayami Mokomichi), who is hiding from the police, and by accident saves a high school from getting burned down. The culprit is a teacher, Hachisuka Goro, who is afraid of the rumoured horrible class, and he’d rather burn down the school, then being a teacher there. The principle of the school, after a little while, notices how brilliant Otowa is, so he decides to use Hachisuka Goro’s name and let Otowa be the teacher, on the other hand he’ll be hiding Otowa.
The daughter of the principle, Mizuki Ryoko (Higa Manami) is a teacher who has lost all dreams and hopes as a teacher, so she is trying to find a housebound in order to get away, but is too much in a hurry, and tends to make her boyfriend’s run away with marriage propositions, soon after they start dating. One of Otowa’s students, Tachibana Kaede (Shida Mirai) a loudmouth who meddlesome, is the daughter of Police officer Tachibana, the officer after Otowa, but officer Tachibana doesn’t know about him being a teacher there, and Otowa doesn’t know about Kaede’s father.

Sorry about the lousy intro, but in order not to spoil anything I kind of tried to be ‘low-key’.
The drama is not good it’s great, like everything about it is good, the characters, the problems, the teacher, and the twist with one student being involved in all of the problems, LOVED IT!
To be honest, when I started, I was let down, but towards the ending I felt like crying, and ended up doing just that. I am a "school drama" freak, love all of them, but this one is strong, and made me remember why I want to be a teacher. All in all, if you like school dramas, like to listen to wake-up calls, and want a big laugh, totally recommend :)

☆☆☆☆ / 4½ out of 5 stars

♥♥♥♥♥ / 5 out of 5 hearts

Jenji's verdict
Sugoku tanashiinda! Best drama ive watched in a while. Definitely a must watch. Its one of those really really great japanese dramas. Absolutely loved it. A different high school drama. A swindler as a teacher. Superb!! And it was so much fun as well. It had everything it needed. Its like the classical but then again with a new story.. It was really lots of fun and the way it was all linked and the end .. omo.. what a scene. Maybe even the best student-teacher-scene ever in a school drama. Really. Its worth watching. I definitely recommend this drama to all you jdrama-lovers. It reminded me of how great japanese are. Like those touching dramas that just make you stick to the screen with fun and excitement of how to get out of those kinda situation.


☆☆☆☆ / 4½ out of 5 stars

♥♥♥♥♥ / 5 out of 5 hearts