A still from the TV drama The 35-Year Old High School Student
April means it’s entrance ceremony season in Japan once again, which always brings its share of strange news stories – take last week’s story of Shinshu University’s principal warning students to either quit using smartphones or quit coming to school, for example.
This week, the story of a high school in Yamagata Prefecture that has accepted a single male student – the first ever male student since the school’s founding 118 years ago – has captured the imaginations of the media and netizens alike. Some 2ch users bemoaned the many logistical and social obstacles that surely lay ahead of the male student, while others got a little carried away with jealous fantasies inspired by harem anime. Hopefully the student’s expectations are a little more realistic…
From Mainichi Shimbun:
Yamagata Prefecture’s Tusuroka Kita High School: A Single Boy Becomes a First in the School’s 118-Year History
◇ Gender Integration – Among 159 girls in sailor suits, a single black gakuran
Tsuruoka Kita High School (Tsuruoka City, Yamagata Prefecture), which has in reality been an all-girls high school since its founding 118 years ago, accepted its first male student this spring. With the student’s matriculation, the school has taken a new step forward as a mixed-gender school.
The entrance ceremony was held on April 8. When the male student in his black gakuran entered along with 159 female students in navy blue sailor suits, the enrolled students erupted into applause and made a huge commotion. In his congratulatory address, Principle Tsuchida Shin’ichi offered his encouragement, saying “Using your own unique values and your imagination regarding others, I want you to accept each other’s differences as you continue to build rich human relationships.”
The school, which started as an all-female senior high school, had already switched over to a mixed-gender system, but they were not prepared to accept male students at the time. In 2013, the Yamagata Prefecture Board of Education set forth a plan for accepting male students, and took measures such as expanding the male restrooms and locker room, but no male student entered the school during the 2014 academic year. According to officials, several male students took the entrance exam this spring.
Vice Principal Kawaguchi Akitoshi said, “We are grateful for the motivation that drove students to take the entrance exam with high hopes and do us the honor of entering our school, and we will continue to provide leadership to our staff as a group so they can enable all our new students, including this male student, to demonstrate their strengths.”
From 2ch.net:
名無しさん＠１周年:
This is just like a harem anime (of the everyday variety)!!
名無しさん＠１周年:
This must be tough…
名無しさん＠１周年:
That’s like an erotic game.
名無しさん＠１周年:
He’ll be so popular with the ladies… I’m jealous.
名無しさん＠１周年:
This might be nice in anime or manga, but real-life girl gangs are seriously scary!
名無しさん＠１周年:
They’re definitely gonna make a movie out of this!!
名無しさん＠１周年:
He probably won’t make it on his own…
名無しさん＠１周年:
I think he’ll probably quit.
名無しさん＠１周年:
So he’ll eat his lunch all alone? What about swimming class? At athletic events will he run along with all the girls? Way too many mysteries
六四天安門:
Let them all stay in the same room for field trips, even if it’s just for some pillow fights.
名無しさん＠１周年 [in response to above]:
I wonder if he’d get peeped on while he’s in the bathroom and stuff
名無しさん＠１周年:
I wonder what they’ll do about gym class? Team sports aren’t really feasible, and it would be boring for the boy. Other than the workout for his eyes.
名無しさん＠１周年:
Something like this happened in my prefecture, too. The first year they had two male students, but I heard that they got neurotic and dropped out.
名無しさん＠１周年:
This is the worst. He won’t be able to make male friends at school.
名無しさん＠１周年:
He’ll arouse suspicion just by picking a sports club for his extracurricular activity. He probably won’t be able to pick anything that isn’t a culture club.
名無しさん＠１周年:
To be totally frank, I’m jealous of this situation
名無しさん＠１周年:
(´･ω･`) a harem situation? I would gladly change places with him.
名無しさん＠１周年:
It’s time to turn this into an anime.
名無しさん＠１周年:
All these idiots saying they’re jealous must not know any horrible women w
名無しさん＠１周年:
If he were one among seven male students during the first year of gender integration, then this would be no big deal, but being the only one like this, I would seriously want to die…
