dangermousie | Delinquent Boy and Glasses Girl deliver joy to yours truly

Out of all the spring dramas, Yankee-kun to Megane-chan (literally 'delinquent boy and glasses girl') is the one which probably surprised me the most.

Unlike with other Spring dramas I have checked out, I had no expectations for this one. While a very few manga adaptations are among my favorite jdramas of all time (I am looking at you, Hana Yori Dango and Sapuri), mostly, live-action takes on manga and I don't mix. Almost universally they don't work for me and the best I can hope to get is a "oh, not too painful but utterly forgetful" reaction (Yamato Nadeshiki Shichi Henge, I am looking at you!). All too often even that is too much to hope for and I end up somewhere between puzzlement and loathing.

So yes, knowing that YktMc was based on a famous manga was almost enough to make me give up right there. The sole reason I checked it out was because I really like Narimiya Hiroki (who plays the 'delinquent boy' of the title) and was curious to see how he'd do in a leading role. I have previously watched him in such supporting roles as a rape-arranging, murdering psycho in KKK2003 and a gay man hopelessly and secretly in love with his best friend in Innocent Love, so to see him as a lead, and a 'mainstream' character at that, was something I was pretty interested in. Thank you, Yankee-kun makers, for creating a role for NH where I can swoon over him guilt-free.

The set-up of YktMc is pretty straightforward. Daichi is a highschooler who is the biggest, baddest 'yankee' in school - getting into fights daily. Daichi's problem is that he really isn't a delinquent at heart - he has just been taught to never back away from a fight, and he is really good at it, so he never loses, his fame spreads, more gangs want to fight him, etc. And his troubles get worse when he gets mistaken for the infamous (and mysterious) yankee Hurricane Ada. OTOH Adachi Hana is, seemingly, polar opposite - a total do-gooder and a perennial class representative, almost frighteningly enthusiastic about school, Hana seems to have nothing in common with the school black sheep Daichi. Only she seems to leave no stone unturned to drag him into class, class activities, class interactions etc etc etc. Daichi is pretty annoyed - what does a goody-two-shoes like Hana know about his problems? Only (no surpise), there is a little more to Hana than anyone yet knows. Let's just say...she has a little Yankumi in her :P

I really really adored the first episode. Why?

1. Narimiya Hiroki. One of my big problems with many manga adaptations is that they cast teen idols who cannot act their way out of a paper bag and also look so scrawny I am distracted from their non-performance by worrying whether they will be blown away by a passing wind. Those dramas are the only time I plead for the actors to keep their shirts on. Well, NH is neither teen nor an idol and that helps tremendously. Not only does he look like he gets his 3 square meals a day, he can actually *gasp* act. There are a lot of scenes which work just because he gives them something extra. He is a much much better actor (though a much much lesser star) than these kind of dramas usually get and it shows - YktMc benefits from his presence immensely. It also helps that Daichi is just so darn likeable (he may get into fights out of feeling neglected by his family in favor of his sister, general teenage angst, and as a pure matter of pride, but he is 100% a good guy) but played less well he'd just be one-note or annoying - NH supplements the occasionally thin characterization (the bane of most manga adaptations) with his own chops and it works excellently well.

2. Heroine is awesome. Hana's not-so-secret secret identity is pretty easily guessable and it adds that extra fillip of delight. Hana is stubborn, ridiculously optimistic, committed to reforming the delinquent, fights better than a batallion, and is hiding her own less-than-law-abiding past. Sound like anyone else? Yes. She is Yankumi in high school :) Bring it on! I also like her and Daichi's chemistry - they are clearly being set up as an OTP but even if they were not, I'd enjoy watching their wacky interactions for hours.

3. This is a lot less OTT than many manga adaptations. I mean both in acting (certain broadness is to be expected in live-action manga tales, but here it's at selected moments from certain characters for comedic effect, not a constant onslaught as in some) and in story/world. Too many adaptations seem to take place in a bizarre alternate universe I cannot identify as our own (Mei-chan No Shitsuzu, I am looking at you!), give me the moral heebie-jeebies (Mei-chan again, also Kimi Wa Petto), or are generally so far-fetched, it becomes hard to suspend disbelief (Yamato Nadeshiki, even though I enjoyed it, falls squarely into that category). YktMc has certain exaggerations present in so much of shonen/shoujo manga adaptations but they are limited to fighting powers of protagonists being ratcheted up - the character's views, desires, interactions, and world all seem recognizably ours.

In short - highly recommended.

Viikii has first ep about 80% subbed. Alternatively you can wait for downloadable subs to pop up on d-addicts. TimeLesSub is doing them. Enjoy!