Hammer Session!

Synopsis:

A con artist, Otowa no 4, escapes from the police after the car transporting them has an accident and falls into a lake. While escaping, he comes across Hikari Gakuen School and sees a teacher who is going to burn the school down. Not long after, police comes to the school to search for missing fugitive. The headmaster strikes a deal with this swindler: he will not surrender him to the police if he is going to be a teacher in this school. He takes over the identity of the teacher who was going to burn the down the school as Hachisuka-sensei and begins to change the lives of his students.

My opinion:

High school comedy drama is my favourite genre and I always have high expectations in terms of both educational value and entertainment/comedy value. The idea of Hammer Session! is to put these naughty students in harsh situations that makes them realise the gravity of their delinquencies and learn their lessons. The first episode hits a high note as the example of given is powerful.

Sadly, things start going downhill from then onwards and I will blame it to the weak character development. When we talk about juvenile delinquencies, we will not run far away from being rude with parents, shoplifting, underage smoking/drinking/clubbing, etc. Thus, there is nothing special with the theme. However, the students are like strangers towards one another at the beginning and the progression to become a united class towards the end totally does not make sense. Not to mention that Kaede -the main female student protagonist- is a kaypoh social butterfly who seems to be close enough to be with anybody who is the focus on each episode. It also does not make a good story telling when we are watching this class together from the beginning but only at the last few episodes we come to know that this student and that student are friends etc.

I was honestly expecting the ending to be something similar to Gokusen, especially since Hachisuka is a criminal. Spoiler alert: he does not get recaptured in the end as the policeman (who happens to be Kaede's father) sees him as a teacher after witnessing how his students look up to him as a teacher. Prior to the ending, it is revealed that Otowa no 4 stole money involved in bribery from a member of the police force. Thus after the accident in the first episode, the police simply considers him dead and close all investigation to prevent further opening cans of worms of the bribery. So is it right for Kaede's father to do what he did? I think the answer is morally debatable.

Otowa no 4 was hired as a teacher to change the school but until the end, I think he only manages to change a class. I guess that means mission failed? Lol..

Anyway the picture above is like totally giving wrong expectations. The movie is not as badass as how they cast appears in the picture. The only thing related to beach is just a few minutes in one episode. With so many school-themed series, I don't think this is something that I will recommend, not even for the comedy alone. Looks like I am running out of good shows as the recent ones I watched have been rather disappointing.

My afterthoughts:

I am passionate about teaching and watching this reignites my wish to seriously start thinking if I have to leave my current job and to do a career switch as a lecturer. I still have 10 more months until I am legitimately free and in the mean time, I really have to think if money and annual leave are more important than purpose of life.