Denpa Kyoushi

The only thing I'm kind of sad about is I've already read the manga far past where the anime could ever get to in one season. So I'm just going to be seeing stuff I've seen before animated unless they go original route. But the manga was good so it would be better if they just followed it.

 

Okay first off I don't normally say this but Kagami's voice really doesn't fit for me. That is not even close to what I pictures his voice to be but it's not objectively bad I guess so it's not a problem just kind of a "wait what?" moment.

But anyway @Supernatural-Knight I can't do anything about the animation (I think it's fine but I know how particular you can be about animation) but as far as the pacing goes the manga started out this way to. The entire first chapter introduced Kagami, put him in his teacher job, and had him fix that student's problem. I guess the author wanted to show off the main character and the basic premise of the manga all in one shot to help gather attention. For a manga this is fine since you can just make an extra long chapter to fit in the extra scenes but for anime it means either making whole extra episodes or cutting/condensing content. In this case it seems they wanted to be faithful but also not waste time so they sqeezed as much in as they could But they still glaze over things just a little to fit it all into one episode. The Next episode will likely cover chapters 2 & 3 in order to get to Kagami's next school and then each episode after that will probably cover each individual student. Unless they also try to cram the next student into the second episode as well. But they should still feel a bit less rushed as they will start adapting several chapters into one episode (meaning more minor details they can simply cut) instead of one massive chapter that could have been several. But it kind of depends on just how much they want to cram in and if this is 12 or 24 episodes.

So in summary just think of this episode as an introduction of the idea of the show and a gimps at the MC. The rest of the episodes "should" slow down a bit. But you have to admit psyching out the bullies like that with the phone thing was pretty cool even if the anime kind of sped through it. Again it seems they wanted to fit the entire first chapter which was pretty long into one episode so it seems like they just kind of rushed through everything a bit which isn't bad but they really should have taken that scene just a little more slowly to let the atmosphere sink in. Try reading the first chapter just to kind of see what I mean http://kissmanga.com/Manga/Denpa-Kyoushi/Ch-002--The-Rules-of-Society?id=99203.

So putting asside the issue of possible pacing issues for now what did you actually think of Kagami? Because this was only the start he comes up with some really interesting schemes to fix his students problems later on.


EDIT: okay just took a look back at the episode preview..... who is that? Either there is some extra material I missed or the anime decided to actually add a completely original episode to extend Kagami's time at his first school. Which might be a good thing because they really threw away the first school pretty fast in the manga like it only existed to serve as a setting for the first chapter. So yeah next episode is surpisingly going to be a new experience for me.

 

My impression on the first episode: Interesting

 

You should know I don't know a damn thing about voice actors. I'm bad with names so even if I recognize a voice I can only connect it to other characters I can't remember the name of the voice behind it. I can try to describe it though. I pictured a bit more of a youthful and higher pitch. Not to the point of being a girl just just something to make his seem younger and more energetic.


Also Suzune's voice actor is an idol? Why am I remembering that scene from SHIROBAKO with the 3 idiots and the one guy who wanted to force big names and idols into all the roles no matter how ill fitting they were just because the names would help carry the show? Not sure if that is the actual case but this situation feels rather familiar.

he seems a bit more lazy in the anime because they stretched out his "I wanna quit teaching for my blog" out a tad more than the manga did. Because again this glasses girl from this episode is anime original and seems to be there just to give him something to do at this school for one more episode before they move on to the one most of the manga so far covers. Also they completely changed a few scenes from the manga.

In the manga the shoplifter was a different character who becomes rather important later on (the white haired one watching from the laptop originally was the shop lister herself and her reason for doing so was testing kagami not because she actually needed or wanted to steal). it's rather odd that they swapped her out for an anime original character for this but besides the character changing and her side of the dialouge changing a little the scene was pretty much the same. But what I'm a bit unhappy about is that they changed the reason he was fired to a molestation scandle but in the original it was because the official replacement for the other teacher showed up early (it seems he was just a temp fill in) and his speech at the end was because Mr. Official teacher was giving a speech about how you have to obey the rules of society or you're worthless. So it has a lot more impact in the manga because Kagami was originally going to give a normal farewell speech but changed his mind because he didn't want the kids to grow up thinking they had to just shut up and obey the rules like the other guy was saying. While the anime changed the cause of the speech to just because he wanted to and just shot it in a less epic way (I guess this part is probably due to the subpar animation you were talking about). They even had to make Kagami say the "rules are absolute" part of the speech as a joke himself because they cut out the other guy but because it was just said as a joke his follow up feels less meaningful. Read the first two chapters to see what I mean.

Also if she confessed the truth why did he still have to quit? Did he just choose to leave anyway? Again that changes the impact of the scene since he's not being forced to quit (although even in the manga he wasn't exactly upset about quitting at this point) because of an uptight official teacher.

I don't mind changes if they serve a real purpose but I feel these were pointless changes that kind of ruined the scene. So far they've basically adapted 2 chapters over 2 episodes which is really odd for an anime and I'm not sure why they had to add an anime original character just to stretch out chapter 2 to a full episode length. On the bright side the changes they made won't have an impact on future chapters since the important details and end result are all the same. But it still wasted the scene. I don't normally notice things like voice actors not fitting or animation not having enough impact Other people complain but even if I also read the manga it normally looks fine to me. So either I'm becoming more sensitive to these things or this was just such a bad adaption of that scene that even I noticed it.

On the bright side the pacing was less rushed this episode so it seems the rushed first episode was due to the manga. I'm still not ready to judge this adaptation as a whole yet. I'll wait until Kagami actually gets to Ichou Academy since that is where the plot really starts.

Also why does anime Kagami now have a "time to start the lecture" catchphrase? I don't have a problem with it but why did he need a catchphrase?

 

ok so 2 episodes later and all I can think is "meh". I was really looking forward to this anime but so far it hasn't given me anything too great but that doesn't mean its a let down. We'll see how it plays out in the next couple episode.

@Supernatural-Knight I have to agree with you on the quality of the anime. At first, I thought there was some thing wrong with Funimation but that wasn't the case

@Metazoxan I know I've said this before but I might have to read the manga if the anime turns out to be not so great

 

Do you mean his dubbed or subbed actor?

She's around but she doesn't play a super important part until this one point. I think she gets a little more likeable later on she just seems so in your face now because Kagami is still basically a NEET and she's trying to force him out of that. Still even if you don't like her it shouldn't be too much of a problem. Most of the time the manga focuses on Kagami and whichever student he's helping at the time and to a lesser degree any students he uses to help him.

Well there are 150 chapters but they only just finished a Gigantic arc. So I'm guessing they want season 1 to end at some point before then. But the have taken 2 episodes just to get to the new school which feels like a bit much considering that puts the chapter to episode ratio at 1:1 at the moment.

Well to be fair the person hiring him was watching the whole thing so at least it makes sense how he even got hired. The person hiring him knows what is up. Although I have to say this makes her look like a real bitch getting him actually fired over a scandal. In the manga she did accuse him of being a pervert but just within the store and it was just to test his reaction. But here she actually forces a scandal on him which seems a lot more extreme.

Exactly because again in the manga he made his speech in response to the new teacher. After the new teacher came they had an assembly to say goodbye to kagami and welcome the new teacher. The new teacher gave a speech about how you must follow the rules of society and those that don't are trash. So he gets up, shreads the paper that had his original speech and starts typing on his computer while giving his speech about not being bound to rules. So it felt like he just couldn't bear to listen to this guy telling these kids to just be sheep and not only improves a whole speech but programs a new game weapon on the spot. That plus the artists atyle gave the scene much more impact.

In fact that is the other thing while I don't think the art style is horrible it's lost a quality the artists style had that helped project emotion. There were various panels where I could just tell what they were feeling by looking at the atmosphere and the anime seems to be lacking that so far.


It's really a shame because I love the manga and I don't want to be unfair to the anime just for not meeting my expectations but even speaking objectively while changing material is fine crutial scenes like that should be left alone since that big speech kind of represented him whole philosophy. Kagami is all about being unconventional and ignoring rules for the sake of making life more interesting and doing what he believes in no matter what anyone says. So he gave that speech and likes being a teacher because he wants the students to pursue their dreams no matter what rules or people say. Also while I don't expect the animation to perfectly reflect the manga it doesn't feel like they are even trying to project emotion the way the manga did at times. I'm not saying the manga was artistic genius or always displayed complex emotions. During normal scenes the style was pretty normal but serious scenes at least tried to make the atmosphere fit the mood.



On another note has anyone seen Punchline? It's as stupid as I thought it would be and in a good way. Just to give you an idea of what I mean in the first episode there is a heroine who fights with a giant bendy straw......Yes a giant bendy straw.

 

Hahaha, that comment made me remember those guys, but yeah, I did a little research on her and she is (or was) a member of SKE48 and Nogizaka46 and her role as Suzune in the anime is her first one, but there's no other future roles since well the spring anime just begun and there's no telling if she'll continue with voice acting or not but are guaranteed to hear her again, who knows

 

That really does sound suspiciously like she was given the role just to attach a name to the cast list. or at the very least she threw her weight to get the role instead of earning it fairly. especially considering how ill-fitting she is.

 

You know, I'm always surprised as to the many things rich girls do, they have a lot of freaking cameras and men in black around a certain area, yet they couldn't catch an otaku kid that only does what he wants but her sister did, how does that work?

 

She isn't a student. Despite her age she is the legit chairman. But yeah in the manga not only did she participate in the "molester test" herself instead of spying like a creeper she only took it far enough to test his reaction. She didn't wreck his career in order to get him fired to hire him at her school.

Yeah the manga is better drawn. Just look at the scene where kamagi does the "I leaked your info online" to the bullies or his big speach in chapter 2 and tell me those don't give more impact with the way they are drawn compared to the anime where they all just kind of stand there during the scenes. and as for the eye thing even I noticed it!

Spoiler

I mean good lord I'm not one to notice things like this normally so if even I'm catching the animation mistakes you know someone has effed up. How do you mess up THIS badly with animation? We're three episodes in and everything is falling apart!

As for episode 3 I see even more anime original content and once again the anime original content makes the characters look worse. In the manga after Kagami got home from "options" offering him a job a dark skinned woman came to offer him a research job in geneva to work with the worlds top scientists. He didn't run off forcing them to chase him down by helicopter, options didn't have agents scattered throughout town searching for him, and he never said going to Akihabara was more important than teaching! What really sucks is that in this chapter the black woman said "magical girls and transformations can't be real" and Kagami walked off angrily and came back a few minutes later with a stack of papers explaining why magical girls and transformations are physically possible and what little science words he says out loud actually sort of make sense. But they completely wrote the scientist and her offer out of the story for no reason (You can see her in the poster though so maybe they write her back in later? But if that is the case why nor introduce her when the manga does?)! It really helped show how despite how eccentric he is he knows what he is talking about. Like this guy could be the world's top scientist if he was just motivated to do so. Plus it was simply an amusing scene. Much better than watching a bunch of generic agents chasing him around Akihabara for no real reason (it's not like they had to chase him he had to go home eventually). Also how was this another test from her? How does evading police and hacking their computers make him useful for the teaching position?

You see here is the thing about kagami. He's an Otaku but he's a damn brilliant one and when he gets serious he gets pretty damn serious and while he may seem irresponsible at times in the end he makes sure everything works out. This anime is making him out to be a lazy good for nothing Otaku who has a few tricks up his sleeve. Seriously in this episode he goes so far as to passionately refuse the position saying his blog is more important than helping people or anything else! Manga Kagami did say he wasn't exactly interested in the position because being a teacher meant less time for his blog but that is as far as he went with it and it was just one line. He said nothing about the blog being more important than helping people just that working in general took time away from his hobbies. The anime has him rant about it at least three times and each time he also adds in that nothing and no one else matters so it comes across as far more selfish.

The ONLY thing they got right was the last few minutes of the episode with the exchange they had in front of the school gate.

Seriously what the hell is the point of adding an episode long chase scene (So yeah BTW regarding the "expected of shonen" comment this nonsense wasn't even in the manga) that ends up meaning nothing in the end! What was the point of this episode besides wasting time! I'll say this again I don't mind adaptation changes especially since I've already read the manga and thus changes make it a new experience. BUT ALL OF THESE CHANGES SUCK! They make events make less sense and are more boring than in the original. I'm just speechless. I've seen a LOT of anime in my time and you rarely see an adaptation mess up THIS much. Some make dumb changes and some has poor animation and some even have poor voices. But to have all three and have them all show so much within the first few episodes is just shockingly bad.

Please everyone if you aren't enjoying this anime, which I don't blame you, please don't judge the manga based on this. Especially with this recent episode where no more than 10% of the episode came from the manga.

 

Okay now for episode 4. It's better. Now that they are getting past what is basically the prologue for the series they seem to be following the manga better although they are still doing things like adding his new catchphrase. Also the animation still feels like it's failing to project the same atmosphere the manga did. Like when she says "dont underestimate me" in the manga it looked like this

Now look at that vs the anime where she just stands there looking at the audience with a somewhat serious but mostly blank face. See the difference? Also besides the way they shoot the scenes the characters faces in the anime don't seem to show a lot of emotion.

But at the very least they are at least trying to follow the manga unlike the first three episodes. Although interestingly enough of the few changes they made they actually made a good addition this episode. In the manga after twins tails did the drawing on the omelette thing it was immediately followed by Kagami saying "good job" and her saying "it's still no good because of society". But in the anime there is the addition of a scene with the manager showing the ability to change her approach for each customer as well as him actually telling her off thinking she did a good job with the omelette because everyone can do that much. They also showed them off working a lot more than the manga did which worked out well in this case.

Because unlike the previous episodes the changes they made simply extended existing manga scenes or were fit in between scenes. The first three episodes basically rewrote scenes completely and did so poorly. But if they stick with this "adding not changing" method the anime may actually turn out okay in the end. But one good episode doesn't mean much. So I'll need to wait to see if they can keep this up from this point on.

 

You know I was curious about something, so I did a little search about Denpa Kyoushi and the manga, like other manga, had either a Drama CD or a Vomic, the former in this case, and I checked the cast and it was completely different from the anime, there are 5 characters in this case that had a different voice actor, but for now I'll leave 3 that appeared in the anime

Spoiler

Junichirou Kagami Voiced by: Daisuke Ono (Drama CD), Hiroshi Kamiya (anime)
Suzune Kagami Voiced by: Kana Asumi (Drama CD), Rena Matsui (anime)
Makina Momozono Voiced by: Yōko Hikasa (Drama CD), Saori Ōnishi (anime)