Conversations with a Translator: High School 3

The student council is more self-possessed

than any group of teenagers ever has been.

Kate: Hana-Kimi by Hisaya Nakajo contains just about every single popular high school motif/plot on record, including the classic tale of the too-strict teacher who starts picking on a particular student until the other students stand up to the teacher and make him stop. Specifically, the picked-on student is accused of cheating and is badgered into signing a false confession. But then the R.A.s (student council) show up and confront the too-strict/mean teacher, who confesses he was in the wrong. End of story.

In sum, when the strict teacher shows up and tries to get the students to do something they don’t want to do, the students say, “But the school rules let us do this.”

How powerful are Japanese school rules? Do they allow students to take on mean teachers?

Eugene: School rules (kosoku) dictate everything from the style of school uniforms to the length of girl’s skirts, the length of boy’s hair, and may prohibit the wearing of jewelry and the dying of hair and even the color of underwear. School rules may also stipulate how a student may travel to school, what a student can do outside of school in terms of where they live and part-time work. In Good Morning Call, Nao and Hisashi have to keep the school from finding out about their living arrangement, and are always at risk of getting blackmailed by the latest mean girl.

I have no idea about mean teachers. There are plenty of mean vice-principals. In Gokusen, the mean vice-principal conspires to rid the school of Kumiko and her delinquent students, but they win him over in the heartwarming conclusion. In Interviews with Monster Girls (Crunchyroll), the mean vice-principal turns out to be more right than wrong.

The opening arc of Hyouka (Funimation) delves into the mystery of why Eru’s uncle was expelled from high school. As it turns out, the school pushed through a policy change that got the students up in arms. Escalating protests resulted in them splitting their differences. But the faculty demanded a scapegoat and settled on Eru’s uncle, who was the class president (though in name only).

One thing this arc makes clear is that was then (the 1960s) and this is now, and the students today have a hard time imagining getting that riled up over what was essentially a Pyrrhic victory over what was in the long run a largely inconsequential change of school policy.

Kate: American students in fiction get picked-on, but I had a hard time thinking of an American story where (1) the students didn’t resort to external political pressure; (2) the parents didn’t get involved.

American students would not only resort to political, ah, blackmail, they would—at least thirty years ago—have fallen back on “individuality.” In Hana-Kimi, the strict teacher complains about the students’ haircuts. In a popular American John Hughes-type story, the students would protest, “But we’re expressing our individuality! We have the right to free speech! You can’t stop us from being who we are!!” In Hana-Kimi, the students again resort to “rules.”

How well would the “individuality” argument go down in a Japanese high school?

Eugene: Short answer: it wouldn’t. You do see some push-back in regards to school rules, but as a collective action involving the parents and lawyers. A recent (real-world) case involved a girl with naturally brown hair who was forced to dye her hair black. That rule was eventually rescinded for Tokyo’s public schools after they got sued.

In series like Clannad (Netflix HIDIVE), My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU (Crunchyroll), Love, Chunibyo & Other Delusions (Netflix HIDIVE), and even Super Cub (Funimation), “individuality” sets the characters apart, to the extent that they have ended up outside the mainstream of student life. Over the course of the story, a new group coalesces around them, which has the effect of bringing them back into a somewhat normal social orbit, though with a few quirks remaining.

Four hundred years ago, John Donne perfectly described Japanese society: “No man is an island entire of itself; every man / is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.”

Kate: "'[I]ndividuality' sets the characters apart...outside the mainstream" sounds like Buffy! It may be inevitable, but she really wants to be a "normal" girl. Of course, the group that coalesces around her becomes a little odder as a result. Still, it seems like Joss Whedon might agree with a character in Hana-Kimi who states, “‘Self-sufficient freedom’ in which you carry your own responsibilities, and ‘self-destructive freedom’ in which you think you can do whatever you want are two entirely different things.”

Later in the story in Hana-Kimi, after the teacher confesses, the narrator tells us, “Both sides [the student council and the teachers] decided to hold assemblies to encourage better teacher-student relations every term.”

I had to read that twice. Really? Wow! An American version of this plot would get the teacher fired and all the students would stand around congratulating themselves for working together in an activist sort of way to take people down. I mean, talk about placing unity at the forefront of everything else! Collectivist cultures truly are harmony-oriented!

In fact, in a later story, the student accused of cheating goes to the strict teacher for advice. Granted, even within the story, this is considered odd (though entirely in keeping with the personality of the student, who is a what-you-say-is-what-I-believe type of kid; if the teacher said he was sorry, he must have meant it!).

Although the other characters think the student’s behavior is odd, they praise him for going to see the teacher who accused him. They don’t say stuff like, “Oh, man, why would you trust that guy?! Teacher’s pet!” Instead, they commend him for his bravery and accept the teacher’s advice as good advice.

“Japanese high school trips” coming next!