MY TEACHER (初恋 先生！ ...好きになってもいいですか？) (2017)
Genre: Drama/Romance
Director: Takahiro Miki
Cast: Suzu Hirose, Toma Ikuta, Ryo Ryusei, Aoi Morikawa
Runtime: 1 hr 53 mins
Rating: PG
Released By: mm2 Entertainment
Official Website:
Opening Day: 1 March 2018
Synopsis: Hibiki Shimada (Suzu Hirose) is a 17-years-old sophomore, who has never knew love. She could not understand how her friends knew who they liked. However, she unknowingly falls for her World History teacher, Kosaku Ito (Toma Ikuta). She cannot help but notice his kindness towards her such as assisting her with her math problems, even though it is after school hours. She is honest to Kosaku with her feelings, however, he is faced with difficulties to deal with his own feelings freely due to his position as a teacher. How will they make the difficult choice between listening to your head, or following your heart?
Movie Review:
My Teacher (aka Sensei!... Suki ninattemo ii desuka?) is adapted from a young women’s manga series of the same name. It was published on popular monthly manga magazine Betsuma, and was distributed between 1996 - 2003. This manga series has 20 volumes altogether. The story follows the lead character, Hibiki, and her falling in love with her World History teacher, Ito-sensei.
Hold on, isn’t that premise of that ‘forbidden love’ rather familiar? Recent movies such as Narratage (2017) and KinkyoriRenai (2014) both talks about a high school girl falling in love with her teacher. And another similarity? All these 3 movies are headlined by a Johnny & Associates’ talent (NB: Johnny & Associates is a talent management agency for male idols). Funny as it is, this is yet another love story that is set against a high school backdrop. Either the Japanese really have quite a fetish and appetite for this genre of romance movies, or My Teacher has something different to offer.
Hibiki is in her second year at high school and started to wonder about her friends’ love interest. She has never experienced how it is liking someone, but started to develop interest towards Ito-sensei since he started showing the warm side to his otherwise distant character. Upon hearing the words from Ito-sensei on not wasting the time in youth, she decided to confess to Ito-sensei, but that didn’t lead to any fruition as presumably, a teacher-student relationship is not accepted. Yet, Hibiki finds herself developing even more feelings towards her teacher and that’s when Ito-sensei realizes his gaze land on her more often, beyond his capacity as a teacher.
While the story seems nothing more than ordinary, it was the characters in the story that truly motivated this live-action adaptation. Hibiki is charming as a character, as she is pure and faces her own feelings very honestly. Having the character helmed by Hirose Shizu is possibly the best decision as well. She has been taking up high school character roles, but never a romance story. Her previous characters like in Let’s Go, Jets (2017) is the typical youthful, energetic and passionate student. Yet in this movie, she’s takes a leap away from that, and brings out that cuteness and gives a perfect rendition of Hibiki. Even Ikuta Toma, co-star as Ito-sensei, mentioned on interviews that he had his 胸キュン(his heart skipped a beat!)by her performance. The mention was relating to the confession scene at Ito-sense’s office.
Needless to say, IkutaToma’s Ito-sensei was also complementary to the movie. His rendition of the suave and caring teacher stood out. It’s not difficult to understand why Hibiki fell in love with a character like his. The supporting characters, i.e. Hibiki’s friends, each had their own struggles in figuring out love and had distinctively different approach towards it. That too supported the storyline well, as it paints a more broad-stroke picture of how the youths go head-on to deal with their conflicting feelings and love woes, whichsome people in the audience could well relate well.
The production value of the movie is something worth raving about. Having director Miki Takahiro’s hand on it, meant the movie was stylized with his warm, gentle lighting, which injects a little magic into the scenes. Having part of the movie filmed in scenic Okayama also gave the movie a flavor of nostalgia –from the trains to the beautiful sunset at the sea and mountains, all the best parts have been captured in the film. The music score was also written by mio-sotido, the same crew behind Girl in the Sunny Place’s (2013) film score. It subtly brings out the longings from Hibiki and sets up scenes well.
The movie was overall a heartwarming and truly enjoyable watch, even though I wasn’t particularly fond of what Hibiki’s friend said to her at the supposedly climax scene (also seen on trailer), “There’s nobody in the world you CAN’T love!” (this is no more than a simplistic and irresponsible claim). Hoping that the audience is discerning enough to know that’s dramatized as part of this fictional story.
Bonus!!! The theme song of the movie is performed and specially written by Spitz, to suit the story of the movie. The music video for the song, UtaUsagi, is directed by same movie director Miki Takahiro, following the adult Hibiki, revisiting the places of memories.
Movie Rating:
(Forbidden love are timeless tales? My Teacher takes the audience to that fantasy bubble and brings back the feelings of nostalgia and infatuation)
Review by Tho Shu Ling
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