Do you love anime enough to travel to Japan? Would you teach English if it paid for your flight over? A growing community of foreign otaku — including Your Friend in Japan — have paid for their stay in Anime-land by teaching. None of them ever found it as hard to adapt to the classroom as Haruaki-sensei in A Terrified Teacher at Ghoul School.
Haruaki Abe-sensei (voiced by Ryōta Ōsaka) had high hopes for educating the youth. Unfortunately, he wasn’t ready for his student’s harsh words and bad manners, so he spent his first year as a teacher in hiding. A Terrified Teacher at Ghoul School picks up when Abe lands on Hyakki Academy Island to take up his new teaching post. It’s a rare second chance. How would he cope with a homeroom of horrifying hobgoblins and hoodoo hoodlums if Abe thought delinquents were hard to handle? For one hundred points, I’ll take “What is a uniform fetish?”
Jokes for Men of Culture
Plenty of the jokes in A Terrified Teacher at Ghoul School will come from Haruaki-sensei’s uniform fetish. I mean “appreciation for uniforms.” He doesn’t wear them or anything weird like that (or so he claims). Here at J-List, we certainly can’t relate to Abe’s uniform appreciation in any way. Nope. Not at all. Of course, I’m not saying I’m not intrigued…
We’ll also get plenty of jokes about Haruaki’s cowardice. Anime has no chill when it comes to putting mild-mannered men down. But Seimei — the nickname Abe’s class gave him — did show up. In fact, he shows up even when pain and suffering are in the forecast. The premise is that Abe has no spine, but we wouldn’t have a story if he spent the season under his kotatsu.
Showing up takes courage. Haruaki-sensei is the manliest of men if being a man is about being present. Unfortunately, he’s portrayed as the worst representation of an effeminate pushover, even though he’d obviously sacrifice anything for his students. That’s the joke. I (sort of) get the humor in a Japanese context, where men will shave their chests and wear man-makeup to look pretty. But will a foreign audience laugh at Haruaki-sensei’s soppy, weak-kneed wabbling or feel grossed out? That depends on your definition of masculinity.
You Thought You Knew Your Youkai from Your Yuurei
What makes a man a man? How does a long-necked youkai (a monster) hide her hickeys? These are the questions we need to ask.
I’ve spent hours Wiki diving after youkai, but I was unprepared for A Terrified Teacher at Ghoul School’s wide range of Japanese ghouls and ghosts. The series won’t satisfy your geeky enthusiasm for youkai factoids. But it will introduce you to new monsters and spin a fresh take on others.
J-List fans will want to know about the female youkai in the Ghoul School. Surprisingly, only one has had significant screen time thus far, but it’s the meganekko meanie Zashiki Beniko. We’ll enjoy her teasing Seimei with her covered legs. We know she’s teasing us.
I’m interested to see what the show does with its large cast of monster girls. Do we have time to run through their profiles? For paranormal science, we’ll make time!
It stands out that the cast includes no female teachers despite the diversity of characters in Abe’s class. Only a handful of the girls earned an entry on Ghoul School’s official website. Will that change if we get a second season? It might be too late to find out.
Shiver and Shake with Ghoul School Laughs This Halloween
Ghoul School might be a comedy, but it could also be about finding the mental fuel to keep you going. Life’s tough, even if you don’t have to face a class full of monsters. So, you should find something to keep you going. I’d like to think that’s why J-List is here. Because sometimes, a plastic waifu is enough of an excuse to try a little vigorously.
Katsumi Ono directed A Terrified Teacher at Ghoul School for studio Satelight. Takahiro Inafuku wrote the music, and Deko Akao wrote the adaptation, whose credits include the recent You Are Ms. Servant. The anime is based on the manga of the same name, 妖怪学校の先生はじめました！ (Yōkai Gakkō no Sensei Hajimemashita!).
You can watch A Terrified Teacher at Ghoul School on Crunchyroll, with all the usual subtitle decorations. The show earns a lukewarm Chibi Megumi rating of three because I’m not sure it’ll find an audience, even if you get the jokes that depend on an intimate knowledge of Japanese schools. It is fun to watch Seimei flubbing his way through teaching — sure — but J-List fans would love to get better acquainted with the female half of the student body.
Let’s Chat
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Have you watched A Terrified Teacher at Ghoul School? Do you have any predictions about which girl will terrify and tease Haruaki-sensei next? Tell us in the comments or on social media.
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