My Teacher as the English title of this film is very easy to digest. That is until you look at the long Japanese title which would translate as "Teacher! Is It Alright For Me To Love You?". Foreign viewers can do without that long as hell title, so thanks distribution company for making things simple for us. Anyway, Miki Takahiro directed the film while, Okada Mari rewrote the story based on the original manga created by Kalahari Kazune. Hirose Suzu, Ikuta Toma, Ryusei Ryo, Morikawa Aoi, and, Higa Manami are the cast in the film. The original manga has sold over five million copies in Japan.
A female student suddenly finds herself having feeling for her school's history teacher after she wrongly sends her friend's lover letter to him. She knows her feelings are wrong but she can't stop herself from wanting to have a closer relationship with the older man. How will she fair with these feelings and what if the teacher starts to like her back!?
I felt very awkward when I was watching My Teacher. No, it's not what you're thinking. I didn't feel weird because of the situation between student and teacher having a romantic relationship. I was more affected by the idea of two people having a relationship knowing damn well that such a relationship could never survive normally like others. This film almost seemed like I was setting myself up for wasting my time. Still, something in the trailer drew me to watch this film. Curiosity was probably that something. Most of the film is the school life of a girl as she tries to figure herself out on top of traversing this new feeling called love. There's also a bit of chase given by the female student in her pursuit of the teacher. The story doesn't make you think that what's happening on screen is dirty or morally wrong. Instead the film does it's best to make you sympathize with all of the characters during their times of broke heartedness. Lets face it, No relationship between people in a place of education ever ends well. People's feelings of love don't matter. A student is still classified as a child in the public eye. No matter how "mature" they might seem for their age. All these negative facts that could happen don't overturn the film's plot flow though. My Teacher actually keeps a consistent pace through out the whole film. One of the main reasons being that the script doesn't only rely on their juvenile relationship to carry the film. Under the subject of forbidden love, High school life in general has a part in the reason why the film was so impactful. You realize toward the end that viewers really go through this character's high school life with her. She grew a lot from all the problems she had to push herself through. The end result of her hard work is a good one as well. My Teacher creates an otherwise appalling romance, then teaches viewers the reasons why this type of relationship isn't that bad. Whether you choose to believe it is good or bad is up to you. I still believe this type of situation isn't good however, I did enjoy the way the film handles the relationship in the end.
The scenery was very in your face for a high school romance film. A lot of Japanese High School romance films don't have such beautiful scene transitions. My Teacher shows the inter area leading to the outskirts of the town from a shot film up above the scenery. This scene is shown at different intervals in the day. I love the way it looked during the time of sunset. Some scenes appear that also have to do with the beach which looked more artistic than normally shown in film productions like these. I guess the director wanted a bit more of a mature tone given the subject matter of the script.
Every single character in this film had some kind of growth that took place during the film. I'm not going to give too much away. It's just that the actors had to play characters that were put in very uncomfortable situations. Running around with a student will give you a heart attack. It wasn't enough that the other characters also had their own love struggles going on. Comedy that goes on when the character's interact with one another had some priceless moments. The acting for the romantic scenes was attention grabbing too. Many of the actors and actresses playing the students come across as pure enough until it came to getting their person on interest. I had to wonder who was the adult and who was the student at times. Some of those students started to become mature as hell in the cast performances. Toma was the perfect actor to play the teacher. He had a deep voice, big hands, and had a nurturing vibe about him.
My Teacher exceeded my expectations. This could have very well been a cheesy film with a flimsy story that reminds why this kind of relationship is morally wrong. I got a feel good film based on a slice of high school life instead.(Dating your teacher is NOT needed to have a good school life… just saying….)
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