All right, I’ve managed to get through the first three episodes of Teasing Master Takagi-san without much issue. I mentioned it in my previous blog post, but I’ll mention again that I’m watching this in Japanese with no subtitles.
Honestly, the Japanese part has been more interesting and entertaining than the actual anime.
I had some things I wanted to mention, so I figured I’d just cover this anime in three episode blocks.
Teasing Master Takagi-san
First off, I have to say that this anime is very difficult for me to watch, because Nishikata is such a cringeworthy character it’s painful. One moment he’ll be acting like a total jackass, the next he’ll be a bumbling idiot from the smallest thing, like Takagi looking in his direction. If I wasn’t watching this to pick up on the Japanese, I probably would have dropped the anime already. It’s not bad, just painful….
The three side character girls that have gotten some screen time have been my favourite moments in the anime so far. They’re pretty fun to follow, and a breath of fresh air from Nishikata. I don’t mind Takagi, I just think Nishikata is way too exaggerated in all aspects. You’d think he’s never interacted with a girl before in his life, despite being a first year in junior high school.
Anyways, I’ll keep at it, hopefully I get more used to him or something.
Some Japanese Stuff
First off, I will say a few things I’ve picked up from the anime, which as I mentioned, has been fairly easy to follow. Just the occasional pause and dictionary check on my phone as I watch along.
First is デマ which means “false rumour / misinformation”. Takagi uses that paired with らしい ( デマ らしい) which basically means “seems like a false rumour”. I actually haven’t used らしい much myself, or heard it very often.
But it’s possible people have been saying it and I just wasn’t noticing it, which happens – language can go right over your head if you don’t recognize the words. So I guess the combination of the two was what I found interesting. And I’ll remember them both now.
Another easy one I didn’t know / haven’t heard was ドジ which means “blunder”. The girls mention this when Hina forgot her umbrella. And then Nishikata tries to tease Takagi-san by saying it as well. I’ll also keep an ear out for it, and maybe I’ll try using it for fun with some students or something.
Other than that, I was able to read several of the words that popped up, particularly during the calligraphy bit, which was cool. Before the anime showed us that they are in class 1-2 I thought they were in elementary school to be honest. If anything was mentioned before then, I missed it.
From this we can see that they are both in class 1-2, that Takagi is number 18, and that Nishikata is number 20. I had to look up the actual message they both wrote, because I only recognized the easy 大. I was happy that I could read their names and class info though.
Minor Points
These are just some observations based on real life experience that don’t really matter cause this is an anime.
First point is obvious, but any teacher would be able to see / hear Takagi and Nishikata talking and messing with each other. Their class has 30 students, which is pretty standard from my experience. The biggest class I have is 38 students, and the smallest is 22 students. Of course, in the end this all depends on the school and area, so my experience doesn’t mean much.
And to be fair, the more students, the louder the ambient volume can be in the class. It depends on the atmosphere though, because some classes will have enough students willing to talk / mess around that all of the students feel emboldened to do so. In that sort of class, Takagi and Nishikata could probably get away with their chats / games in class. But some classes, even with a lot of students, are just dead silent. It just depends if the class has any “hero” students who break the ice for everyone, because many don’t.
Second point is that despite being in first year, their class is being taught the future tense in English. Which wouldn’t happen. Actually, that’s not the only discrepancy. In Episode 2, at the beginning of the English class scene, the teacher is giving a lesson on giving directions (Walk to the post office and turn left. You will see the station.). This is something that I have taught first years. But what’s odd is that immediately after that, we see Takagi is taking notes using future tense, and then when she’s called to answer, she answers using future tense.
First years in junior high school literally start the school year from the beginning in English, with the alphabet. Furthest they get is past tense, which is taught before future tense. Future tense is a second year grammar point (although it’ll probably make it’s way to first year soon enough, as the English curriculum is changing in Japan and being pushed down to younger ages).
Now none of this matters, but I wanted to write about it anyways.
As I mentioned, while Nishikata is difficult for me to watch, both the Japanese has been interesting to study, and seeing how school is portrayed in the anime is also fun to see. There are a lot of nice views of green mountains in the background, which is what I can see from both my schools and my apartment. But they also seem to be living next to the ocean, something I can’t boast.
Still, some nice views in the anime and I can confirm that Japan does indeed look this way in real life, for whatever that’s worth haha.
I’ll check back in in another three episodes.
Until then,
Thanks for reading.
Umai Yomu Anime Blog 
My feelings about Takagi-san were almost the opposite — I liked all the Takagi/Nishikata back-and-forth but didn’t care for the three girls stuff. I can see how Nishikata can come off as irritating, though. He is kind of a little shit at times.
Good point about the in-class talking as well. Maybe part of the reason they’re in the back of the class is to excuse this somewhat, but I don’t care how far back you sit — if you mess around as much as these two do, you’ll be caught right away unless you have the most oblivious teacher in the world.
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Thing is that even if caught there’s not much that will be done, because schools are very lax on students in elementary / junior high school. Most a teacher can do is basically yell at the student in front of the class. There’s no “go to the principals office”, or detention, or anything like that for students that act up in class.
In one class we’ve got a pair of boys that just mess around all the time, and basically the teachers will just ignore them and teach. They like me though, so I usually stick around them and at least get them pretending to work here and there.
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