Three eras, three teachers, one impossible question: what do we owe the children we failed?
10.0114 minSeason 1 • Episode 3
LatestStory 3 In 2011, the junior high school in Ota Ward experiences a complete breakdown in classroom discipline. Takizawa Momoko, an English teacher in charge of the third-year students, writes the words "My dream" on the blackboard, but it is in vain for no one participates in the lesson. Even so, Momoko perseveres in reaching out to her students. Yokote Ryoko, the present school principal who was once colleagues with Goto Akira, is supportive of her. One day, Momoko learns that Omiya Masaki, an extremely defiant transfer student, has not received adequate education because of his family situation, and gives him personal coaching, but ... ... she is criticized for forming an inappropriate relationship with a student. How does she talk about "love", "dreams" and the "meaning of school"?
"Blackboard ~ Jidai to Tatakatta Kyoushitachi~," revolves around teachers in different time periods having to deal with the problems of that era. The first episode stars Sakurai as Shirahama, a junior high school teacher who taught his students about "dying for your country" during wartime. After later losing his right arm in the war, he returns to teaching but is burdened and conflicted by what he taught his students in the past. The second episode of "Blackboard ~Jidai to Tatakatta Kyoushitachi~" stars Sato Koichi as a teacher during the 1980s having to deal with school violence. Shida Mirai plays a delinquent student, and Kanjiya Shihori plays another teacher at the school. Set in modern-day Japan, tackles the story of forbidden teacher-student relationships. Matsushita Nao plays a devoted English teacher who's offering personal lessons for a pupil (played by Kamiki Ryunosuke), who barely can read or write.
Acting
Sakurai's one-armed breakdown is devastatingly restrained.
Writing
Each era interrogates 'teacher' differently—brutally clever structure.
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Each episode mirrors actual Japanese educational crises: wartime nationalist curriculum, 1980s 'classroom collapse,' and modern teacher burnout scandals.
The title's 'blackboard' becomes a metaphor across eras—once for military propaganda, then for gang territory, finally for intimate confession.
JP
