Shiritsu Bakaleya Koukou

Synopsis:

Bakada High School is an all-boys school whose students are mostly delinquents and are only interested in fighting. Cattleya High School is an elite all-girls school whose students are rich and well-mannered. One day, it is announced that the two schools will merge to form Cattleya High School Second Branch. Conflicts and friction are unavoidable due to the vast difference in background. However, students from both school gradually learn to accept one another and grow to love their new school.

My opinion:

This is the very first collaboration between Johnny's Entertainment and AKB48, perhaps the biggest male and female entertainment agency in Japan respectively. That fact alone caught my interest to see how the series will go. Unfortunately, this turns out to be a pure crap.

The story is crap. There isn't really story here. It seems that the scriptwriter is only thinking "themes" for each episode and proceed to write whatever he can think of to fulfill these "themes". As other school-themed dramas, the themes will not run far from friendship, loyalty, romance, betrayal, rivalries, family problems, etc. However, the story fails to convey the messages from these themes.

Character development is non-existent and is worsened by poor acting. I have to admit that the guys act better than the girls. After all, there is not much acting needed to portray "cool delinquent" image as I think all guys can naturally behave this way. The boys also have differing personalities. The girls, unfortunately, look robotic. All the girls seem to behave, talk, act similarly. No differentiation whatsoever. -_- Basically it is an agony to watch this atrocious series. Thank goodness each episode is only about 20 minutes long. I don't know whether that is a good thing or that is the reason why the story is so underdeveloped.

Anyway, I think the guy actors are the more famous ones. Or perhaps it is because I watch more Shounen Club which is a Johnny's Entertainment TV show for the pre-debuted groups a.k.a Johnny's Juniors. The main guy (Shintaro Momotaro) previously acted in Snow Prince movie. Yup he was still very young then. Haha.. Kinda interesting to see him grow older and play a completely different character now. Another 2 guys (Koiichi Yugo and Hokuto Matsumura) were members of the now-defunct B.I. Shadow. And perhaps the most famous one is Takaki Yuya who is a member of Hey!Say!JUMP.

I have no idea about all the AKB girls. Except for the main 3 girls, I think the rest is rather ugly. Haha.. Perhaps that is why they are not in the main team, eh? Haha.. ok that is quite bad. Anyway, the main girl (Haruka Shimazaki) will be the center for AKB48's next single to be released on 5th December. Of course she got it not via fans voting but via jankenpo tournament, which is AKB's way to provide opportunities for the less prominent members to get a spot for AKB single. I will be looking forward to the single and to her performance in the single. Although I find her acting robotic initially, I grow to love her expressionless smile. Contradicting but oh well.. Haha..

My afterthoughts:

I think I wasted my time watching this. Haha.. I am amazed that a movie sequel was made for this drama. I will try to look for it to see whether it is better. Lol..