Title: ハンマーセッション! Hanmā Sesshon! (Hammer Session!)
English Title: Hammer Session!
Country: Japan
Language: Japanese
Year: 2010
Episode: 11
Cast:
- 速水もこみち Hayami Mokomichi
- 志田未来 Shida Mirai
- 比嘉愛未 Higa Manami
- 石黒英雄 Ishiguro Hideo
- 六平直政 Musaka Naomasa
- 小日向文世Kohinata Fumiyo
SYNOPSIS
A con artist, known only by his alias Otowa Yonko, cheats criminals and terrorists of their money, which he then gives out to the poor and the needy. He gets caught by the police but he manages to escape with a gangster named Imamura Shohei, when they were being transferred to another prison.
They manage to hide out in a school campus that has a lot of problem students. The principal Mizuki Kenichi finds out their real identities and strike out a deal with Otowa Yonko -- if he helps the principal by teaching the problem students, the principal will not tell the police of their whereabouts.
Otowa Yonko then takes the identity of Hachisuka Goro, a new teacher who graduated from Tokyo University. As a teacher, he conducts hammer sessions with his students wherein the lessons he want to impart to the students are drilled into them until they have learned these lessons.
REVIEW
Although towa Yonko is a con artist, I never actually considered him as a bad guy because he cheated evil people and companies of their ill-gotten wealth and although not explicitly stated initially, I assumed he used the money for noble purposes. He's like the modern-day version of Robin Hood, if you will.
What I especially like about Otowa Yonko, who assumed the name Hachisuka Goro to teach high school students, is that his 'power' consists of his uncanny ability to 'read' people and to act in a way that people around him would feel comfortable to share their thoughts and to show their real selves.
I'm amazed to see how mean the students are (one beats people up for no reason, one is having an affair with a married man, one steals from department stores) and how stupid the students are based on their choices (one works at a cabaret to rebel against her busy mother, one works hard to finance his older girlfriend's whims and financial problems). I mean, if you're a teenager going out with a working woman in her thirties, and she's asking you to pay for your dates at expensive restaurants and to buy her expensive jewelry; well, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that there's something wrong.
I like that Teacher Hachisuka doesn't judge his students and their bad behavior. He's very cool and accepting of whatever situation, but he does all that he can to show the students the "right" way. He conducts "hammer sessions", where he uses professional swindling techniques to teach his students some life lessons.
Teacher Hachisuka is such a pervert though, that it's sometimes hard to take him seriously as a good guy that a girl in her right mind would fall in love with. In that way, I suppose it's a good thing that although Teacher Mizuki Ryoko has grown to like him, there aren't a lot of developments in their relationship, romantically speaking.
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ハンマーセッション! Hammer Session!
