Fan reviews: ROOKIES

ester_grace · 23 Dec 2010

Not better than GTO & Gokusen, too naive teacher I think. But I like this because of the student's characters, they're all funny esp aniya, mikoshiba and hiratsuka.

yufan · 2 Jul 2010

this show's crap... i watched it after h2... rookies is seriously lacking in plot and is painfully predictable...

jitpunkia · 5 May 2009

i finished this whole drama in 14hours . i love the characters, aniya, sensei, shinjo and all of em .. def worth watching

cathwaiyee · 13 Apr 2009

At last, Sato-san is leading. I've been watching him on Pride and Umizaru - very funny...

Keep up the good work!!!

8thSin · 2 Aug 2008

This series was really corny and Satou Ryuuta's acting so horrible, but I found myself coming to tears after watching episode 1, and a little in ep 2. I don't think baseball-lovers can resist :P

The following episodes were less impressive for me, but overall, I really enjoyed this series.


Satou Ryuuta's acting was so pathetic though. Even if the character was based on a manga character, he could've been much more convincing. He is still not ready for lead roles, as expected. However, he did show enough passion to get by.
Fortunately, the students in the series were really well-casted. The only exception were the Nya~ guy (character flaw, not the actor's fault), and Shinjou, that half-Japanese guy is hopeless stiff in every single series.

I've seen Ichihara Hayato in quite a few movies and he's never made a big impression on me before, but I was very impressed this time around. I thought this was a perfect role for him (although his character overused his signature lines :roll: )
Koide Keisuke was also excellent as usual... The difference between movie and dorama actors are staggering. These two were more than enough to compensate for the unconvincing acting by adult actors in this series.

Despite all the manga corniness, I think it was a pretty good series. The only thing that really bothered me was that they used "sequential face close-up" of everyone like every 10 minutes. It's an inevitably corny filming technique that's not meant to be overused...

dekatrain · 1 Aug 2008

At last! God has transcended and given the underrated Sato Ryuta a lead role. After years of hard work (see Ikebukuro WGP, Utahime, or Cats Eye to understand what I mean) it was great to find him in a spotlight with a role that suits him as the overtly dorky yet kind-hearted and inspiring teacher. YES, the idea of a teacher inspiring delinquent students is not new - in fact, it deserves a rest. But I think his character is more realistic than any before in that he is totally fallible - for example, he does not beat up 20 students in a warehouse every week and inexplicably get a way with it (Shame on you Gokusen!). My hat goes off to the very accomplished cast - Hayato at first struggled but I think there was obvious improvement as he progressed through the story. Other standouts were Kiritani Kenta (see him in Crows Zero) who provided some well-needed comic relief and Koide Keisuke who is also much improved. Let-downs included the overuse of flashbacks and that annoying background music (and I hate it when the have to show individual head-shots of everyone everytime Kawato says something, anyone else hate that?! Such a time filler!), and a script which struggled at times. But most of all, it was incredibly frustrating to have the drama delayed for weeks at a time (and for volleyball at that!), meaning important plots points would dissolve once I returned. But a good, promising drama.

Tiane · 31 May 2008

This drama takes an old cliche-- about a bunch of bad, rebel schoolboys, and their meeting up with a teacher who inspires them to stop being bad. The difference between this and other such dramas (such as Gokusen 3) is that this drama has been very well-scripted, with exceptionally fine acting and also very good direction. The story is not your typical, run-of-the-mill teacher-wins-over-students.

The major characters are well-rounded out and these schoolboys are not pretty boys-- they are the bad, bad ones I remember reading about in Slam Dunk. Their teacher is hilarious, more than anything else, although he comes equipped with an infectious smile. The script is tight, the story is fast-paced with enough turns, and best of all, the story has a grittiness and reality about it that hits pretty hard.

I strongly recommend watching this.

whatever0024 · 14 May 2008

I'm currently watching this. Haven't finished the first episode yet, but the storyline's old, been there, done that already: a teacher inspiring a group of underachieving and troublesome students. I'll reserve judgment until I see two or three more episodes.