Seems Silly But Take It Serious!

I felt those TV dramas and movies silly and did not watch them. The main female characters were not my type of girls, anyway. But I still somehow remember those...

It was when I was in a high school and chasing after a cute boyish girl who was not interested in me at all. But I was just happy to have someone to drive me crazy. So it has been more than 20 years since then.

There were quite a lot Japanese teen movies in 1980s that high schools were taken over by some evil organisations. Rebellious students were captured by the teachers controlled by bad guys with supernatural powers and tortured in dungeons. But some beautiful girls (usually in navy blue sailor suits and dragging extremely long pleated skirts) heroically fought to set the schools free!

Those movies successfully captured the hearts of Japanese teen. My classmates were crazy about those shows and often imitated their favourite scenes. But I simply could not understand what the evil organisation wanted to do by taking over one high school? It seemed ridiculous.

But when some of those movies were remade in the past few years, I could understand why the Japanese teens welcomed those shows so enthusiastically. By then, I had struggled for more than a decade with the traumatic memories of my abusive primary school teachers. Looking back, I could feel as if my primary and junior high schools had been indeed taken over by some evil organisations!

Now I understand why my classmates loved those shows. They also felt as if their primary and junior high schools had been controlled by evil guys. Between 1970s and the early 1990s, Japanese teachers were obsessed with how to manage or control students. Students were treated as if they had been factory products. They imposed grossly outdated and harsh school rules and punished the offenders relentlessly with fists and wooden swords. I also used to see a delinquent kid with black eyes and bruises on his face and/or in a blood-stained shirt time to time at my junior high school. Anyway, many schools were frightening places in 1970s and 80s in Japan...

Perhaps I am rather a lucky one even though I am still struggling with school trauma. I can work and support myself now. But there are so many former Japanese students, now in their 30s and 40s, who have withdrawn into their rooms and refused to contact anyone. Many of them have refused any contact even with their family members for many years, even more than a decade...
Remembering those shows, I now feel how pop culture is a mirror that reflects the shadow of the society. We cannot take that lightly...