Gokusen the movie (2009)

Country: Japan
Format: movie
Genre: school, youth
Cast: Nakama Yukie, Kamenashi Kazuya, Miura Haruma, Takaki Yuya, Miura Shohei, Ishiguro Hideo, Nakama Junta, Kiriyama Akito, Namase Katsuhisa, Utsui Ken, Kaneko Ken, Anan Kenji, Waki Tomohiro, Koike Teppei, Koide Keisuke, Hayami Mokomichi, Oguri Shun, Narimiya Hiroki, Ichigaki Yuma, Sawamura Ikki, Tamamori Yuta, Kaku Kento, Irie Jingi, Morisaki Win, Ochiai Motoki
Synopsis: Yankumi has a new class, the former 2D, but guys still do not trust her. At the same time Odagiri Ryu become a teacher-in-training under Yankumi in Akadou. The last 3D has graduated some time ago and is finding his place in life and in their workplaces, but suddenly Kazama becomes involved with dangerous underground world, which makes everyone, especially Yankumi, worried.
Rating: 4/5
Read previous seasons reviews here: first, second, third
The movie is the best way to put an end to Gokusen series. It is heartwarming and final. It would be ruined if there would have been any more than it.
For the first time Yankumi has the chance to show that she meant her words when she said that she

will always be the teacher for her students, until now we have only seen her being updated with Kuma's doings. I just thought and understood that from all my teachers only my middle school teacher is updated of everyone's doings, but she was the closest to us too.

Gokusen (2005)

SEASON 2

Country: Japan
Format: 10 episodes
Genre: school, youth
Cast: Nakama Yukie, Kamenashi Kazuya, Akanishi Jin, Koike Teppei, Koide Keisuke, Hayami Mokomichi, Namase Katsuhisa, Utsui Ken, Kaneko Ken, Uchiyama Shinji, Anan Kenji, Tanihara Shosuke, Waki Tomohiro, Otoha, Inoue Jun, Azuma Mikihisa, Mizushima Hiro, Kawamura Yosuke, Nakamura Yuichi, Miura Ryosuke
Synopsis: It has been 3 years since Yankumi’s first students graduated and through accident Yankumi becomes a teacher at Kurogin High school. Her new homeroom 3D is again full of delinquents, who face fights, troubles, misunderstanding and possibility of expulsion everyday. With only 3 months left until graduating Yankumi must give her all to guide her students to the right path.  
Rating: 4/5
Read the first season review here!
Like some other viewers I had fears that second season might not be so good or I do not start to like the guys as much as I liked in the first season. Fortunately, just look at the cast, how can I not love them! Now I know that I had no reason to worry, because "Gokusen" stays "Gokusen". 

Lovely Complex (2006)

Country: Japan
Format: live-action movie
Genre: school, romance, comedy
Cast: Fujisawa Ema, Koike Teppei, Kudo Risa, Mizushima Hiro, Tamaki Namami, Tanihara Shosuke, Terajima Susumu, Yamazaki Yusuke, Nukumizu Yoichi, Yamasaki Shizuyo, Kato Mio, Wentz Eiji
Synopsis: Koizumi Risa has a problem with love - she is 170 cm tall and gets always rejected by guys for being too tall (172 in manga). At the same time, Otani Atsushi has the same problem, but vise versa - he is 159 tall (in actual manga he is 156). First annoyment grows into friendship after they discover that they have many similarities, but heart has its own way and soon Risa finds out that maybe it is not just friendship she wants - but uncertainty of confessing grows as everyone find tall girl and short boy couple a real joke.  
Rating: 3/5
Live-action movie of popular anime/manga "Lovely complex" by Aya Nakahara.The movie looks too fast-forward, because they show all three high-school years in less than 2 hours - so they almost took the most important scenes from the manga.

The lead is character is Koizumi Risa - she is rather silly, naive, childish and she does not have that big complex with her height as Otani has. She falls in love too easily and she tends to over-react with her actions - especially later when she has a crush for their new teacher. Even though it looks like she falls for Otani too fast, she actually did start to have doubts about her feelings in manga too. She and Otani are just so similar and the way Otani acts would make every girl's heart beat faster. I did not like Fujisawa Ema's acting as it was a bit overacted and unreal - even though Risa was unfeminine. It is funny that they made Fujisawa Ema wear high heels to seem taller - she is actually 167cm, which is the same with Koike Teppei's height. Also, which makes the illusion of her being tall, are the hairstyles - sorry, but does not every girl know that exactly these up-dos make you look reaaallly tall?

Otani is sweet guy, who acts like though and strong. He is the star of the basketball team, even though the coach is always displeased with him. He has much bigger complex about his height as he had some mental traumas, which stayed as a painful spot into his heart. Teppei's acting is good - he brings out the way Otani actually is and gyoza he looks cute with those hair-clips, but he did was not as thickheaded as Otani really was. I do not like that they showed too long scenes of baseball game and not much of Otani's feelings.

There has been on and on discussion about "being unable to find girlfriend/boyfriend for girl while being tall and for guy when being short". I would say that first of all, it is difficult to find good relationship whatever you look like. Secondly, if the height matters to another person, then for sure they are not worth your feelings. If you like someone, then like someone for who they are and the height is just part of them - unlike the weight of a person, the height cannot be changed when wanted.

Sadly it did not show the other characters much - it was movie only about Koizumi and Otani, with almost no side-stories, which sucked as it made the movie one-sided. But from other characters Suzuki was my favorite - sweet, shy guy who happens to have a wide imagination, especially when things come to "ero"-stuff, so he ends up having nose-bleeds time to time, even though this line was totally added to movie, because in manga he was not perv. He is together with Chiharu, who is just as shy as he is. They both are really good-looking and actually Otani and Koizumi had a crush on them in manga, but that is not reverberated in live-action. Last friends are Nobuko and Nakao, who again are a couple. Nobuko is Risa's best-friend and constantly tries to hook her up with somebody and Nakao is always helping her with her schemes.

They brought in Kuniumi Maitake or "Mighty/Maity" and left out Haruka - I do not know if it was the best idea, but I have not read that much manga yet. I know that we would have had much fun with Haruka or Seiko.
In the end, the most annoying part was the scenes with English audio - if you want to make a movie with English audio, then find someone who does not have that big accent and has a nice pronunciation. I did not understand a word of what he was saying.

It is a great movie when you want to laugh and say "Awwww" after every 5 minutes, but if you seriously want to have the best of "Lovely Complex", I recommend watching anime and reading manga - I bet for real fans the movie might had been a big letdown. At least for me it proves that it is difficult to make a great live-action of a fabulous manga. They have reorganized the time order to put it into movie time, but it makes it totally different from the original story.

KIDS (2008)

Coutry: Japan
Format: movie
Genre: friends, life&death, supernatural
Cast: Koike Teppei, Tamaki Hiroshi, Kuriyama Chiaki, Izumiya Shigeru,
Synopsis: Asato moves into a little rural city to visit his mother. He meets Takeo, who finds out Asato's supernatural power to transfer somebody else's pain and wounds to himself. There is also one friendly cafe-girl Shiho, who starts hanging out with them. But each of them have their own dark past, which continues to haunt them.
Rating: 2

I watched the trailer and I wanted to see it sooo badly, but.. a disappointment.
To start with Asato. Actually there is nothing wrong with his character. It was really promising, but something was wrong. He was too otherworldly and the most usual line from him was "Eh?!" Koike Teppei looks like junior high kid, but in movie he was attending evening high school. I did not like the kissing-scene at all! It is so going down as one of the worst kissing scenes (I have to make it someday now).  Asato was very emotional.
Takeo  did not think much, was rough, said anything he wanted no matter to who and in what situation. He thought that revenge and violence is the right answer to everything. I enjoyed Tamaki Hiroshi in this role, because he was very masculine and pulled his role off.
Last character was Shiho. She ended up to be a bit bitch (so some Takeo's words were true) Her scar was horrible. I do not understand how there can be such people as her former classmates, but at the same time her lack of friends and personality did not match at all. The lack of courage was not shown at all.

But what actually ruined the movie were next points. The sound of the movie was incredibly BORING and wrong. They used slow music even at places it did not suit at all and there were approximately 3-4 songs used. It made the whole movie lingering. In addition, they used music way too much and too loud. There was not much action or deeper meaning in the story and in the end they were totally exaggerating with the chain traffic accident. The slow motion in this scene was more than unnecessary. Real chain traffic accident can be seen in "Code Blue"
I hope that the original novel by Otsuichi is better than the movie, because it was ruined by technical issues and you cannot write a novel with that compacted action as it was in the movie. The main idea of it has so much potential to become something great - kind of wanting a new version of it =D

At the same time, most of watchers have loved it and said it was amazing - well, decide yourself!