Student crushes on teachers are a pop culture staple (ask any Van Halen fan). In real life, they're a minefield, with trip wires becoming ever more sensitive.
"Sensei Kunshu," Momoko Koda's hit manga about a teenage girl (Minami Hamabe) goo-goo-eyed over a handsome math teacher (Ryoma Takeuchi), harks back to the innocent days before YouTube exposes and Twitter autos-da-fe. Instead, schoolgirl fantasies rule, leavened by the comedy of awkwardness and embarrassment, exaggerated to the human limit. Want to see actors doing their darndest to imitate comic book characters? This is your film.
"Sensei Kunshu" is also a reminder that Western trends can be slow to arrive here. In American films and TV heroines now range from the admirably strong (Wonder Woman) to the comically resilient (Kimmy Schmidt). In "Sensei Kunshu" the moony heroine, Ayuha Samaru, is as dim and inconstant as an expiring light bulb. All she knows for sure is that she really wants a boyfriend.
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