Gokusen
Gokusen is a manga series by Kozueko Morimoto. The story follows Kumiko Yamaguchi, the granddaughter of a yakuza boss and teacher at an all-male private high school. In 2008, an SP manga was out, featuring some of Yankumi's old students who are by now working adults.
In 2002, the manga was adapted into a television drama with Yukie Nakama in the title role. A second series was produced in 2005. The third season of the series was aired as Nippon Television's 55th Anniversary Program in 2008.
An animated adaptation by Madhouse covering 7 volumes of the manga ran on Nippon Television from January 6, 2004 to March 30, 2004.
A movie as part of the drama series was released in Japanese theaters on July 11, 2009.
Plot
The plot revolves Kumiko Yamaguchi, the granddaughter of a Yakuza boss, Kuroda of the Kuroda Ikka. Her parents died when she was at the age of seven, and her grandfather had no other descendants, so Kumiko is next in line to head the family business with the title of Ojou. However, her lifelong dream has been to become a teacher. While her grandfather approves of her choice, others in the family want her to become the next boss.Kumiko becomes home teacher of class 4-2 in mathematics at an all-boys private high school where she is known as Yankumi. Her class is full of delinquents, but she tries her hardest to teach them not just academicly, but about lessons of life. Though she's forced to keep her family a secret from the public, her Yakuza upbringing gives her the strength and the experience to reach out to her students, while also providing comedic situations.
Characters
;Shirokin High School
; Shin Sawada; Youichi Minami
; Haruhiko "Uchi" Uchiyama
; Teruo "Kuma" Kumai
; Takeshi Noda
; Shizuka Fujiyama
; Goro Sawatari
; Gonzou Shirakawa
Kuroda Family/Ooedo Clan
; Ryuichiro Kuroda; Kyotaro "Kyo-san" Oshima
; Kouzou Wakamatsu
; Minoru Tatsukawa
; Tetsu Asakura
; Fuji
Others
; Tomoya Shinohara; Hiroki Kudoh
; Ichiro Tsuruta
; Ichikawa
Drama
The drama aired on Nippon TV from April 1, 2002 to July 3, 2002. The series consisted of 12 episodes. Nippon TV began airing a second season on January 15, 2005, with several returning cast members. It lasted 10 episodes. There is also a special episode titled "Gokusen Special: Sayonara 3-nen D-gumi", it's a sequel to the first season and the prequel to the second season. The drama also was the highest-rated in its time slot when it was shown in the Philippines by the GMA Network, and was popular enough that the network decided to re-run it, and continued to be the highest-rated show in its time slot. In the Philippines, the series ended with the Gokusen special.The third season of Gokusen began airing on April 19, 2008 in Japan and March 23, 2009 in the Philippines on GMA Network. Yukie Nakama reprises her role as Yankumi, Katsuhisa Namase as Sawatari, and the rest of the cast that makes up Yankumi's Yakuza family returns as well.
Cast
Oedo Family
- Yukie Nakama as Kumiko Yamaguchi
- *Suzuka Ohgo as Young Kumiko Yamaguchi
- Ken Utsui as Ryuichiro Kuroda
- Kenji Anan as Hiro Wakamatsu
- Ken Kaneko as Tetsu Asakura
- Shinji Uchiyama as Minoru Tatsukawa
- Hiroshi Ryogoku as Makoto Sugawara
Other cast
- Katsuhisa Namase as Goro Sawatari
- Tomohiro Waki as Teruo "Kuma" Kumai → the owner of the ramen restaurant named "Kumai Ramen" )
- Mikihisa Azuma as Masayoshi Baba
Season 1 Cast
Shirokin High School
- Misaki Ito as Shizuka Fujiyama
- Yuko Nakazawa as Kikuno Kawashima
- Osami Nabe as Osamu Ando
- Masahiro Kohmoto as Kouhei Iwamoto
- Ichirou Ookuma as Hajime Oyama
- Ryosei Tayama as Gonzou Shirakawa
- Satoru Saito as Kanji Washio
- Ikki Sawamura as Tomoya Shinohara
- Tadashi Sakata as Yutaka Kashiwagi
- Katsuhisa Namase as Goro Sawatari
Class 3D
- Jun Matsumoto as Shin Sawada
- Shun Oguri as "Uchi" / Haruhiko Uchiyama
- Hiroki Narimiya as Takeshi Noda
- Yuma Ishigaki as Youichi Minami
- Tomohiro Waki as Teruo Kumai
- Jun Kawai as Jun Kechi
- Kouhei Kou as Kouhei Imagawa
- Hiroshi Okabe as Hiroshi Uesugi
- Yusuke Kamiji as Yuusuke Ooishi
- Masayuki Izumi as Masayuki Oouchi
- Kouji Kanazawa as Kouji Oda
- Ren Matsuzawa as Ren Gamou
- Eiki Kitamura as Eiki Shimazu
- Ryuji Sainei as Ryuuji Senzoku
- Sho Tomita as Sho Takeda
- Shigeo Tomita as Shigeo Chikamatsu
- Hitoshi Sasaki as Hitoshi Hazama
- Masafumi Hatakenaka as Masafumi Hattori
- Katsutaka Furuhata as Katsutaka Fujiwara
- Yuuya Nishikawa as Yuuya Houjou
- Hiromi Nagayama as Hiromi Hosokawa
- Ryoji Morimoto as Ryouji Horibe
- Shingo Yashiro as Shingo Maeda
- Makoto Onodera as Makoto Matsudaira
- Kenichi Matsuyama as Kenichi Mouri
- Mitsuru Nishitani as Mitsuru Yagyu
Season 2 Cast
Kurogin High School
- Otoha as Hitomi Shiratori
- Toshiya Sakai as Taichi Inazuka
- Moto Fuyuki as Takashi Kameyama
- Magii as Shinji Inomata
- Yukiko Ikeda as Sayuri Wanibuchi
- Jun Inoue as Ginji Kurokawa
- Shosuke Tanihara as Takuma Kujo
- Namase Katsuhisa as Goro Sawatari
Class 3D
- Kazuya Kamenashi as Ryu Odagiri
- Jin Akanishi as Hayato Yabuki
- Teppei Koike as Keita Takeda
- Mokomichi Hayami as "Tsucchi" / Hikaru Tsuchiya
- Keisuke Koide as Kosuke Hyuga
- Yosuke Kawamura as Yosuke Akiyama
- Momosuke Mizutani as Momosuke Oomori
- Yuki Sato as Yuuki Kojima
- Yusuke Sato as Yusuke Sakaguchi
- Takeshi Sato as Takeshi Sasaki
- Suzunosuke Tanaka as Rinnosuke Takayama
- Hiroyuki Nakauchi as Hiroyuki Nagata
- Ryuhei Watanabe as Ryuhei Hashimoto
- Toshio Takahashi as Toshio Fujinami
- Shinnosuke Ishizaka as Shinnosuke Hoshino
- Hiro Mizushima as Hiro Misawa
- Masashi Shibata as Masashi Ookuma
- Yuichi Nakamura as Yuuichi Kawada
- Naoya Ojima as Naoya Kohashi
- Kazuhito Tomikawa as Kazuto Sakuraba
- Gensui Okubayashi as Akita Takeda
- Masahiro Kuranuki as Masahiro Tamura
- Masaru Okamoto as Masaru Nakamura
- Takumi Sugiura as Takumi Hamaguchi
- Kengo Kora as Kengo Funaki
- Kei as Yoshiaki Maeda
- Ryosuke Miura as Ryosuke Muto
Guests
- Yuki Imai as Daisuke
- Katsuya Kobayashi as Kudo
- Kou Takasugi as Onijima
- Hajime Yamazaki as Ishikawa
- Miri Akimoto as Nao Miyazaki
- Chinatsu Wakatsuki as Maki Mizushima
- Mizuho Takasugi as Okudera
- Satomi Tezuka as Haruyo Hyuga
- Shigemitsu Ogi as Tatsumi
- Kazuki Namioka as Tanabe
- Takashi Naitou as Hirofumi Yabuki
- Hideo Ishiguro as Taku Yabuki
- Chie Sunaga as Masako Kumai
- Miki Uemura as Aya Kumai
- Tomonaga Ogawa as Haruo Kumai
- Shin Takuma as Shinya Odagiri
- Satomi Nagano as Yuriko Odagiri
- Tadashi Sakata as Yutaka Kashiwagi
Season 3 Cast
Akadou High School
- Kyoko Enami as Ryoko Akagi
- Kotaro Koizumi as Seichi Natsume
- Aya Hirayama as Aoi Takano
- Aki Hoshino as Sakura Ayukawa
- Jiro Sato as Hosaku Yajima
- Santaro Sakigake as Yasuhiko Hatoyama
- Kota Ishii as Keisuke Tsuruoka
- Namase Katsuhisa as Sawatari Goro
Class 3D
- Yuya Takaki as Yamato Ogata
- Haruma Miura as Ren Kazama
- Hideo Ishiguro as Kengo Honjo
- Akito Kiriyama as Satoru Kuraki
- Junta Nakama as "Ichi" / Rikiya Ichimura
- Shohei Miura as Shunsuke Kamiya
- Yuya Kido
- Akihiro Mayama
- Ryuya Wakaba
- Tomoya Warabino
- Atsumi Kanno
- Kosuke Kujirai as Kosuke Oohira
- Ryotaro Shimizu
- Kimito Totani
- Masei Nakayama
- Kyousuke Hamao as Kyousuke Terauchi
- Goki Maeda as Goki Hamaguchi
- Maruo
- Hiroshi Yazaki
- Jutta Yuki as Murayama
- Yuji as Yamamoto
Guests
- Riko Kurita as Ami Kumai
- Taro Omiya
- Gakudai Yamazaki
- Ryuto Yamaguchi
- Yoshiko Inoue
- Takahiro Hojo
- Kazuma Yamane
- Yu Yamada as Kaoruko Kazama
- Akio Kaneda
- Gaku Shindo
- Kaoru Kusumi
- Keiko Hirayama
- Yuki Mashita
- Haruna Kojima
- Takeshi Masu
- Hiromi Suzuki
- Satoshi Matsuda
- Moe Fukuda Moe
- Aya Kudo
- Yoshiko Miyazaki
- Yukihiro Takiguchi
- Momoko Shibuya
- Ren Yagami
- Nadaka Tatsuo
- Yoshiko Tokoshima
- Tomohisa Yuge
- Yutaka Take
- Aoki Sayaka
- Tōru Nakane
- Naoko Miya
Theme songs
- "Hontou no Kotoba" – "My Real Word" by Foot Stamp
- "Onore Michi" – "On My Road" by Aki Yashiro
- "Feel Your Breeze" by V6
- "No More Cry" by D-51
- "Kizuna " by Kazuya Kamenashi
- "Niji " by Aqua Timez
- "Oretachi no Seishun " by Yuya Takaki
Remake