Jigoku Sensei Nu~be | Mid Season Thoughts

I was, like always, intending to do weekly reviews on this drama but life and other things have gotten in the way to keep me from doing this. Luckily though I’ve managed to stick with the drama to the mid-season mark! And thus far, I’ve been fairly entertained.

Jigoku Sensei Nu~be~, or Hell Teacher Nu~be~, was a really popular manga and anime back in the 90s about a teacher named Meisuke Nueno who was gifted with supernatural powers; one of them involving the power of a demon trapped within his left hand. Throughout the series, Nueno is tasked with saving his students, fellow coworkers, and himself against various demons that threaten them using the power of the demon. The manga lasted for six years, spanning over 30 volumes, and spawning a television anime of over 40 episodes.

But, for something so popular, I had never heard of the franchise.

What was Nu~be~? Why was the kids back in the day (who are pretty much my age) so hooked on this series? What’s all the fanfare about?

NTV, the television station producing the drama, put a lot of money in making sure people knew that Nu~be~ was coming on to television screens across Japan in live action. Posters, advertisements, frequent commercials (by the week of the premiere, it was one commercial every hour), and guest appearances by the cast on several tv shows. I, though, could have cared less. All I knew was that my bias was the lead character and he would be running around with this funky looking claw of a hand defeating monsters on a week to week basis.

Watching the first episode gave me some of the answers that I was looking for but it didn’t really live up to this hype everyone went on about. Quiet frankly, I was a bit perplexed but I carried on anyway because while the effects were cheesy, and acting campy at times, the show itself proved to be somewhat entertaining and very predictable. Six episodes later, and I’m still watching it.

The drama has spent the first half introducing Nu~be~ and his situation to the audience. Which, quite frankly, is a good thing. While the manga franchise was popular, it only brings up nostalgia in people my age and older. The younger the generation, the kids watching this drama today, aren’t necessarily familiar with the franchise. Giving time to introduce characters, the world, and Nu~be~ himself sort of makes getting into this drama more or less smoother than some manga to drama adaptations that assume the audience will know what’s going on based on the hype around the title.

What has been established is that Nu~be~, while a decent teacher, has his own quirky faults as well as a tormented past, which is connected to the demon lying within his hand. His students are just as quirky as he is, all obsessed with paranormal activity once discovering their homeroom teacher is an exorcist. The love of his life, Ritsuko, can’t be bothered with demons and ghosts and a mysterious old man, by the name of Jikuu, has stumbled into town looking for his estranged son.

Not to mention he’s unwillingly co-inhabiting with a snow demon who’s madly in love with him, despite the fact that it’s completely one-sided.

Nu~be~ is not a masterpiece. The acting is campy, the characters over the top, and the effects can become distractingly annoying when you notice they don’t even make an attempt to seamlessly incorporate them into scenes. But, it has its charm points through it’s humor and sometimes touching storyline’s (episode 5’s ‘Jinta’ was a tearjerker).

But, the show suffers from one thing… and that’s camp. Like many other adaptions from anime and manga, for some reason, live action always ends up camping up the show. Sometimes this camp can add a nice touch but in most times, camp ends up becoming cringe worthy. Nueno Meisuke’s portrayal by Maruyama Ryuhei can be really great at certain times but can also be insanely camp. Especially during dramatic scenes which require him to play the atypical Shounen Jump lead. The same can apply to Mokomichi Hayami’s performance as the wolf demon, Tamamo Yoko. Nu~be~ just bleeds camp and it doesn’t make any attempts to hide it either.

So far Nu~be~ has been entertaining. I went ahead and spoiled myself of how the anime/manga ended (there’s a really detailed article on Wikipedia, probably written by a fanboy) and I’m simply watching it to see how it ends in comparison. It looks like Nu~be~ turns into a harem anime with a messy love triangle between the snow demon, Yukine, Nu~be~, and Nu~be~’s wet dream, Ritsuko. With episode 6 introducing this triangle, how what direction this live action will make attempts to go in will be interesting to say the least.

I like it. It could be better… but, I mean, at least interesting.