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Dragon Zakura Manga Character Teaches Elementary School Class
posted on by Kim Morrissy
In the popular Dragon Zakura manga series, lawyer and ex-motorcycle gang member Kenji Sakuragi sets up a special class to help high school students pass the Tokyo University entrance exam. Now, in real life, he's helping out elementary school students as a Virtual YouTuber of sorts.
According to the Kobe Shinbun, the Nigawa Academy Elementary School in Nishinomiya, Hyōgo held a special class on Monday where an animated Kenji Sakuragi was projected on a monitor in front of approximately 40 students. The manga's editor Yōhei Sadogashima was manipulating his movements behind the scenes.
In the class, Sakuragi discussed the usefulness of study as a way of understanding society. He also shared a study tip: "Don't make rigid study plans." If you don't manage to follow your study plans, you'll end up beating yourself up, so it's better to decide on a minimum and maximum amount of study per day and shoot for somewhere in the middle. Meeting with people who succeeded in meeting their goals can also inspire you to work as hard as they did.
The lesson was based on the Dragon Zakura YouTube channel, which has been posting videos of Sakuragi sharing studying tips as a virtual YouTuber. The most recent video, posted on Monday, discusses how to get perfect scores in literature tests.
An 11-year old boy who attended the class said, "It was interesting to see a manga protagonist I knew on a screen."
Norifusa Mita's 2003-2007 Kodansha Manga Award-winning Dragon Zakura manga was adapted into a Japanese television drama in 2005, with a sequel in 2010, and a Korean live-action television series in 2010. A sequel manga launched in 2018, which takes place in the year 2020 with the theme of college entrance exam reform.
Source: Kobe Shinbun via Otakomu
