(L) Aku No Hana (Flowers of Evil)

[Dop]

Originally Posted by orion

I thought he was in her chest a little too long also.

Having just watched it again I agree. Had he leapt back immediately he could have passed it off as an accident because Nakamura pushed him.

But he lingered too long.

[Dawnstorm]

Originally Posted by Dormeur

As for his announcement of students' scores, I have not ever experienced such an action when I was a teenager in 90s.
However I heard that some schools allowed it about honor students.
The notion of personal information protection have rapidly spread in this decade, so I guess that the numbers of such schools have decreased.
Probably a normal teacher who encounter a student like Nakamura will merely summon her to teachers' office or a separated room without announcing her score to the class.
At least for me, the teacher in the anime is inappropriate in his profession.

So what about public test results? I see this in anime a lot: They do some major test, and then they go to a public notice board to see the results. Apparantly, the order of the students is ranked according to results, so that you always know where you are relative to the others. Anime often uses this for rivalry.

I realise that calling students out on performance is different, in that it creates an embarassing situation. But what does "personal information protection" have to say about public test results? How common is this, in the first place?

[DmonHiro]

I don't know about the US, but here in Romania, the test results are ALWAYS announced in the classroom, for everyone. And most of the times, you get a little comment as well. Always fun.

[Dormeur]

Originally Posted by Dawnstorm

So what about public test results? I see this in anime a lot: They do some major test, and then they go to a public notice board to see the results. Apparantly, the order of the students is ranked according to results, so that you always know where you are relative to the others. Anime often uses this for rivalry.

I realise that calling students out on performance is different, in that it creates an embarassing situation. But what does "personal information protection" have to say about public test results? How common is this, in the first place?

In this Q and A website, Japanese people were talking about whether the publication of test results seen on school manga/novels genre really exists/existed or not:
http://okwave.jp/qa/q1937261.html
According to this, some schools went public with test results of top 20-50 students, but such a practice faded away.

In 2003, "Act on the Protection of Personal Information" was promulgated in Japan.
From that time, national/city government agencies, enterprises, schools, and civils came to excessively avoid making every personal information to the public.
This excessive reaction affects various scenes of our life.

For example, the government abandoned the publication of high rate taxpayers' names.
Social workers (particularly outreach workers) got hard to obtain information about their clients from the neighbors.
In my teenage, we were provided a phone numbers list of the classmates by the school for the purpose of urgent contact (e.g. shutting schools when a typhoon was approaching).
So cowardly boys/girls could call unfamiliar female/male classmates to confess their love suddenly without efforts to obtain phone numbers.
But now, it's hard to make such network.

However in retrospect, even if a school didn't make public test results ranking, students used to know who was a high/low scorer via verbal network somehow.

[Dawnstorm]

@Dormeur: That's very helpful. If you're not living in Japan, you never know how to take certain common anime tropes, so this helps. For the scene in Aku no Hana, I wasn't sure how to take it. The gist is clear enough; the teacher's got issues, and so has Nakamura. But I couldn't quite figure out just how common a scene like this might be. Your comments help me understand the situation a little better. So, thank you for the information.

[creb]

Interesting. I never thought twice about the posting of test scores.

When I went to school (in the USA, no less), many of my classes in high school and college posted test scores publically. Most used your SSN/Student ID number/etc, rather than your name, however.

That said, I wouldn't be surprised if there were privacy laws today that made doing that illegal. And, even if there aren't, the namby-pamby attitude towards education today certainly doesn't seem like it would do anything that might possibly make a student feel bad about themselves, like publically posting their test scores.

In fact, when I was a grad student, during my stint as a TA at a top ten department in my field, grade inflation was rampant and pretty much the norm. Something that wouldn't be possible if scores were publicly posted after each test/assignment.

[ThereminVox]

As much as I'm enjoying the atmosphere, I have to say that if ANH keeps stretching things out the way it has, it's going to be more limber than an Olympic gymnast by the midway point.

[Marcus H.]

2ch looks like their campaign to troll the preorders for Aku no Hana is pointless, so they quit doing it.
Not that it would change things, though.

[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by creb

Interesting. I never thought twice about the posting of test scores.

I never saw the problem with announcing the high score. That was pretty normal in my own school. As someone who fairly frequently achieved the high score, I don't recall being on the receiving end of much resentment for it. But then, I also live in a rural area, and went to the same school from K-to-12, so basically all of us students knew each other, and camaraderie had grown over the years.

Announcing the lowest score in the class was harsh, and something of a dick move. But the teacher paid for it by Nakamura harshly insulting him, which I doubt she'd have done otherwise. So in a weird way, I feel like "justice has been done" there. He made her look bad, and so she made him look bad.

I definitely know what you mean by the namby-pampy attitude towards education today, which is why I somewhat disagree with some of the other comments made on this thread, but to avoid too much of a tangental discussion I'll leave it mostly at that. I will say, though, that my father was a teacher for 30 years, and there can be more difficulty and challenge to the vocation than people might think. Given my own personal background, I tend to be naturally sympathetic to teacher characters in anime.

[Dormeur]

Here's my impression about the characters so far.
(Of course, this doesn't mean all the Japanese think like so.)

Kasuga: He resembles what I was in his age. I can understand his twisted thought and adoration. He is too young, that's all.
Fat boy: Yes, there were annoying guys like him in my life. But he is a nice rest for this show.
Indecent boy: Indeed, there were guys like him. He will not get any girls like Saeki.
Saeki: Such a girl must be a hypocrite. Hey Kasuga, don't be deceived. She is not a saint as you imagine.
Nakamura: If she really existed in a junior high school, she would be bullied by girls rather than kept at distance unless she is a daughter of yakuza or a powerful leader in the local society. Most unrealistic character in this anime.
Teacher: An incompetent man. His atmosphere is close to one in the real world. I'm not surprised if a teacher like him really exists somewhere in Japan. It's good that he refrained from slapping Nakamura's face. But in the first place, he did not have to announce her test result to the whole class. And, he is her homeroom teacher judging from some scenes. He should have suspected that something wrong happened to her when she boycotted a test. He should share and gather information about her with his colleagues and her parents. Well, it's useless to criticize him because he is probably a mere plot device.
Kasuga's father: I've grown up without father, so I don't know whether he is realistic or not. But he must be an intellectual and courteous person. I guess he works at the public sector.
Kasuga's mother: She is a standard or normal Japanese mother.

[sa547]

Nakamura: If she really existed in a junior high school, she would be bullied by girls rather than kept at distance unless she is a daughter of yakuza or a powerful leader in the local society. Most unrealistic character in this anime.

But it's possible that there can be such a twisted girl, as I believe there are such cases outside Japan, not just in the realm of fiction, as these are very individualistic.

[Triple_R]

The other girls might simply be scared of Nakamura. Also, maybe the girls in this class simply don't have many people of the bullying type.

One thing I found interesting - Everybody in this class seems to just assume that the person who stole Saeki's gym clothes is a pervert getting off on them. I don't get the impression that anybody even considered it might be purely non-sexual straight-up bullying, likely by another girl.

The class is ultimately right in their assumptions here, of course, but the fact that they make them says something about the class itself. At the very least, bullying is probably not a common activity in this class.

[kuromitsu]

Originally Posted by Dormeur

Nakamura: If she really existed in a junior high school, she would be bullied by girls rather than kept at distance unless she is a daughter of yakuza or a powerful leader in the local society. Most unrealistic character in this anime.

I don't know - she seems pretty dangerous. I'm not sure anyone would want to mess with someone who can go up to teacher and call him a fucking maggot in class... Or perhaps there had been some attempts to bully her, but her reaction was so vicious or creepy that people just decided to leave her alone. (Of course the fact that she can speak to a teacher like that with no repercussions is pretty unrealistic, but well, this is fiction after all... )

As for Saeki, I'm sure she's not a saint, but for now I think she's more like one of those beautiful, popular, sociable girls who are unattainable for guys like Kasuga, or at least the guys think so. I'm sure she'll reveal a less pretty side, though...

Originally Posted by Triple_R

One thing I found interesting - Everybody in this class seems to just assume that the person who stole Saeki's gym clothes is a pervert getting off on them. I don't get the impression that anybody even considered it might be purely non-sexual straight-up bullying, likely by another girl.

Well, for one they're gym clothes. Two, I don't think simply stealing them would achieve the goal of bullying, I mean, even in the show her parents just bought a new set and that was it. If someone wanted to bully her I imagine they would've rather ruined the clothes or something, in an embarrassing/humiliating way.

[Dormeur]

As far as I know, junior high school students in Japan, in particular girls, often make friends to avoid solitude, not to enrich their lives, even if the friends are seeming ones. Because solitude means social death for students. A solitary student in the class becomes a laughingstock if she/he doesn't have any companions outside the class. This easily turns to bullying. (Though students will learn moderation and discretion when they will get a little older.) I think it is supported by the fact that the most common way for girls to attack a girl is to unite to ignore her.

There is an unspoken rule to survive in the Japanese junior high school society: Don't stray from the homogeneity. Being eccentric and the deviation from the standard is very risky. You need commerades/supporters to break the rule. Nakamura doesn't seem to belong to any clubs and gangs. I think that they are merely together and nice people if they don't bully her.

Originally Posted by kuromitsu

As for Saeki, I'm sure she's not a saint, but for now I think she's more like one of those beautiful, popular, sociable girls who are unattainable for guys like Kasuga, or at least the guys think so. I'm sure she'll reveal a less pretty side, though...

I'm looking forward to the time Saeki's dark side will be unveiled. It will be entertaining like when I read Sakura no Uta by Tetsu Adachi, which is the manga the author Shuzo Oshimi mentioned in the interview with the director.

[Dop]

ANN: North American anime licensing company Sentai Filmworks announced on Friday that it has licensed the television anime adaptation of Shūzō Oshimi's Aku no Hana (The Flowers of Evil) manga. The company plans to release the series digitally with a home video release to follow later this year.

Marvellous. Kudos to Sentai for ignoring the 'hivemind' and making their own decision. Definitely on my future purchase list.

[bastek66]

Spoiler:

[Utsuro no Hako]

The animators have to be trolling us.

Spoiler for episode 3:

So this week we get a glimpse at how &*#@ing crazy Nakamura is, and damn, it's pretty #@$&ing crazy. Calling your teacher a shitbug and blackmailing a classmate are bad enough, but committing a sexual assault in the middle of the library is in the realm of, "I don't care what happens to me." And yet Kasuga, instead of pushing her in the river like a sensible person, actually sticks up for her.

[kuromitsu]

Uwah, Kasuga....

Spoiler for ep 3:

Way to dig your own grave... Also, if you wanted to get rid of that stuff you should've just buried it in the woods or something.

Anyway, whoa, Nakamura is pretty crazy. I guess here's the reason why nobody would bully her. Being a teenager like Kasuga, with the classic I'm So Deep, Nobody Understands Me issues is one thing, most people go through that in their life to some extent. But being Nakamura... that's something else. And unsurprisingly Kasuga can't handle her at all, I guess one way to do that would be facing her on her own level. (Well, that, or bite the bullet, admit to stealing Saeki's gym bag and spend the rest of his school life scorned and ostracized.) I wonder how she would react to that. Maybe she'd be intimidated. But of course that would mean "sinking" to her level and Kasuga being Kasuga is nowhere close. (Yet?)

But in a way, Kasuga had a good hunch, he and Nakamura are "kindred souls" (ha). It's just that Nakamura is pretty much doing what Kasuga is only thinking/reading about. In her own way.

[NoemiChan]

Originally Posted by bastek66

Spoiler:

That's a laugh... sexually harassed by a girl...

[jeroz]

Spoiler for best girl: