A Review of Kyojo

This is your reminder to start watching Japanese dramas again- that is, if you stopped. It's hard to find sites with variety these days. Thankfully Netflix is releasing more on their platform.

Kyojo is a suspenseful police academy drama on Netflix.

A strict and intimidating police academy instructor named Kimichika Kazama, an elder gentleman with an injured eye, prepares a class of students for real world police work. Weeding out the strong willed from the weak.

Every episode of Kyojo has the same pattern. Students of his class are introduced and a special focus is given to two students. These students will end up clashing with each other, or facing similar dilemmas.

The "strong-willed" student is the one who will stay to graduate, and the the "weak-willed" student will be the one who gets kicked out. One could simply refer to them as good or bad, but "strong-willed" students aren't always good, and "weak-willed" students aren't always bad either (At least at the start, most of Season 1's weak willed students are closet psychos).

In the very first episode the first student we get to know is Miyasaka Sadamu, he was rescued by a diligent police officer when he got in a car accident. His car was buried underneath the snow with a fallen tree branch stuck on it so it was truly a miracle.

Miyasaka is a kind young man so much so that he purposely performs badly in class to help a gloomy underperforming student feel better about his low grades. However this student finds Miyasaka's kindness/pity disgusting and unforgiveable. He locks Miyasaka in a room and tries to force him to inhale chlorine gas made using toilet cleaner and bath salts.

You might have guessed it from that summary and that's right.

In Kyojo, not all those who try to become police are doing so because their good people.

"Weak-willed" students are the villains of every episode, In season 1, they are typically mentally unstable psychos or monsters masquerading as innocent sheep. I just finished season 1 and I can confidently say there was only ONE case in which the student wasn't a psycho. In season 2, you truly can't tell until the final moment who's the one that's going home.

Things I disliked

I had a few complaints that made me stop taking the show as seriously as I did before, this is mainly due to

1. Kishikawa Saori and Kusumoto Shinobu's episode.

Every male student who turned out to be a secret psycho injured other students and were escorted away by the police and their parents, but there was a female student who got off scot free and I personally think she was way worse than all of those psychos combined, that is Kishikawa Saori.

Kishikawa Saori tries to crush her former best friend, Shinobu in between the moving platform's of a parking garage's lift system. No one is there to save Shinobu until later and she ends up injuring her leg but thankfully surviving.

I was a bit stunned and annoyed at the fact we get to see Saori working at a cafe later and even having brief appearances in later seasons. Why do all the students who caused bodily harm to others get escorted by police while she gets off scott free and even gets to move on with her life?

This leads me to my second point.

2. I disliked the overreaction of characters.

Kyojo takes Joker's quote-

"All it takes is one bad day."

-to a whole new level.

In kyojo, one small mistake can lead to the birth of a villain. And the person that makes the mistake often ends up being severely punished for it, this isn't always the case for every episode but it always made me tilt my head. It made me wonder if the show was originally a manga or death game at some point due to the leaps in logic and justification for violence. The show reminded me of certain episodes from Hell Girl, and Girl From Nowhere. Look, I get it, in high stress situations people end up having extreme reactions but c'mon. Really? There are times I wished the characters wouldn't blame themselves for the retaliation they got, but at the same time I also realize they blame themselves for it because they truly felt bad about hurting the feelings of the culprits which they should feel bad to an extent. Still.... my feelings are mixed.

3. The students are stuck up.

You don't need a super cool reason to become a police officer. Yet students will look down on them and disgustedly ask, "That's it?" It's incredibly rude, and it's always surprising because this mentality is always said by the nice students.

I know I complained a lot just now, but overall, Kyojo was truly a fun watch, every episode was full of suspense especially in episodes where you can't tell who's the one that's going to end up going home. Not only was the story entertaining, it was educational. It dropped random facts about dangerous substances, first aid, forensics, and Japan's police procedures that left me intrigued.

I had no idea so many household appliances could create dangerous gases when mixed and that homemade bombs could even be created, I had no idea terrorists used them to make bombs. I think everyone should keep an eye out for things like that too. So if you have time to burn and am looking for something slightly educational, you could watch Kyojo.

(As I said before it says that there are only 2 episodes out but there are more than 2. Whoever made the netflix page needs to update it.)

Have you seen Kyojo? What were your favorite and least favorite moments?