I was thinking about ranking my Keiko Kitagawa dramas and making a top 10 when I realized there was one early 2008 drama “Taiyo to Umi no Kyoshitsu” that I had still not seen!!
Clicking the link, I saw why I had initially passed on it- it was a “high-school students drama” kind of show and I usually avoided those. But for the sake of completion I knew I had to see it, and luckily was able to grab it with hardsubs on it!
Starring Oda Yuji as a rebellious Teacher, it was soon apparent how old this drama was when I saw the students: Yuriko Yoshitaka, Masaki Okada, Kie Kitano, Yusuke Yamamoto, Mitsuki Tanimura and Gaku Hamada, all SO YOUNG!
It still didn’t hit me how long ago this drama aired, however, til I saw the kid who was playing the leader of the school bullies…a young Tomoya Nakamura!!! Man, I had no idea he was even ACTING at this time!
Taiyo to Umi no Kyoshitsu tells the story of an avante-garde teacher named Sakurai who comes to a high-score obsessed school to help the kids with what they really need schooling on: their own lives and personal problems.
Sound cliched? Yep!! MAN, this drama reminded me so much of Hammer Session- Not only did all the promos feature the same “class on a beach” motif, they even got Fumiyo Kohinata to be the principal in both! Keiko Kitagawa stars as his Teacher Assistant, but more like a reactive character than a real character, if you know what I mean. Like, she’s only there to react to the things Sakurai does more than play a real role in the show.
Like I mentioned before, I'm not much into the troubled school kids genre, but it's been fun watching all of these now totally established grown-up stars making their first steps into J-Dramadom! Besides the aforementioned actors and actresses are also early drama roles for Aya Oomasa, Shiori Kutsuna and AKB48’s Atsuko Maeda as well as Michiko Kichise as one of the Principal’s arm-crossing cohorts…
Saburo had said that until he saw Rikokatsu, he’d NEVER seen her smiling in anything, and that got me thinking about how Keiko had slowly gravitated towards the more “stern’ and ‘cold” kind of characters. But early on in her career, all of her roles were of the sweet, cheerful and bubble-gummy kind, JUST like this one! Look how freaking ADORBS she is here!!!!
Taiyo to Umi no Kyoshitsu is sandwiched right between two of my favorite Keiko dramas, Mop Girl and Buzzer Beat, and seeing "classic" Keiko reminded me once again of the initial spark that had me SO infatuated with her…and which has continued for over a decade and is still going strong!
PS:Full disclosure, I have not seen the NHK Taiga Drama "Segodon" but as Keiko is only one of hundreds of actors in it, I don't really count this one as a "Keiko" drama anyway. Not like she's the star of the show or anything...
