Harenchi Gakuen

Harenchi Gakuen (ハレンチ学園) is a Japanese media franchise created by Go Nagai. Harenchi Gakuen was one of the manga serialized in the very first issue of Shueisha's manga magazine Weekly Shōnen Jump. The series was the first big success for Go Nagai. It is also considered as the first modern erotic manga, sometimes considered the first Hentai manga, though Nagai never used explicit sexual situations in the original run of the manga.

There are many works around Harenchi Gakuen, including numerous manga series, one live-action TV series, five live-action movies and one anime OVA. The first manga series was not adapted into an anime, but rather a live-action TV series; only the opening sequence to this television series was animated. This isn't the only show of Go Nagai where live-action and anime are combined: Pro-Wres no Hoshi Aztecaser features completely animated action sequences when the hero uses his powers, even though the show itself is tokusatsu.

Many comedies of Go Nagai use a similar setting as Harenchi Gakuen, while changing the situation. An example of this is his series Supeope Chu Gaku, a space school modeled in a similar fashion as Star Wars.

Origins
In 1968, while Shueisha was getting prepared to launch its first manga publication, Shōnen Jump, in order to compete with other magazines from rival companies (like Shōnen Magazine from Kodansha and Shōnen Sunday from Shogakukan), Nagai was invited to be one of the first mangaka publishing in the new magazine. He contemplated this, since he had to design a long running series instead of the autoconclusive short stories that he had been developing until that point. . He accepted and the series became a big success, being the first for Nagai and making Shōnen Jump sell more than one million copies. With Harenchi Gakuen, Nagai became the originator of ecchi manga, opened the door for a series of taboo-shattering gag comics and also became the symbol of an entire generation. This work has influenced Japanese society radically, effecting both social mores and what was considered appropriate for manga.

Harenchi Gakuen started with the idea of making a manga around a school. Nagai liked the word "Harenchi" (scandal), used commonly to advertise adult movies. For him, scandal and school were like oil and water, and he thought that mixing them would be funny. That's how the name Harenchi Gakuen came to be. At first, Nagai didn't have an idea of what stories to develop, but his assistant at the time was boasting about how he had peeped on the girls during their physical examinations from a hole in the roof of his school. That gave him the idea of what would be the stories. Originally, open erotic references didn't appear in Harenchi Gakuen. The first physical examination scenes only showed from the shoulders up. But the many girls that appeared and their images became popular. The editor asked Nagai to go further, which Nagai was eager to do.

The inspiration for Harenchi Gakuen came from the West. Nagai liked foreign movies, and used to read Playboy magazine, where the women had gorgeous and well-balanced bodies, unlike Japanese women of that time. For the depiction of breasts, he took particular inspiration from the Venus de Milo. According to Nagai, what he in fact drew was not about eroticism per se, but about Japan's culture of shame. He wanted embarrassment to be the eroticism of the stories.

Characters

 * Yasohachi Yamagishi (山岸 八十八)
 * AKA Boss (親分). The violent yet pure hearted protagonist. He is the son of a butcher. He is assumed dead at the end of the 1st series, but is alive in part 2.


 * Mitsuko Yagyū (柳生 みつ子)
 * AKA Jūbei (十兵衛). The beautiful descendant of the Yagyū ninja family and the heroine of the story. Like Yamagishi, she is assumed dead at the end of the 1st series, but seen alive in part 2.


 * Fukurokōji (袋小路)
 * AKA Ikidomari (イキドマリ) Yamagishi’s subordinate. During the Harenichi War, the harsh situation forces him to experience shell shock and he commits suicide.


 * Sayuri Yoshinaga (吉永さゆり)
 * AKA Hige Godzilla (ヒゲゴジラ). He greatly resembles a caveman, sporting a bushy beard around his mouth, wearing tiger pelt, and usually carrying a club. A teacher at the school, he speaks in a style of Japanese typically used by women. At the end of the 1st series he is seen severely wounded and crawling away from a pile of dead bodies.

Cast of Harenchi Gakuen (film 1970)

 * Miyuki Kojima as Mitsuko Yagyu
 * Shunji Fujimura as Hige Godzilla
 * Jo Shishido as Macaroni
 * Hosei Komatsu as Marugoshi
 * Toru Yuri
 * Bokuzen Hidari
 * Osami Nabe
 * Midori Utsumi

Cast of Harenchi Gakuen: Shintai Kensa no Maki (film 1970)

 * Miyuki Kojima as Mitsuko Yagyu
 * Shigeo Takamatsu as Hige Godzilla
 * Jo Shishido as Macaroni
 * Konpei Hayashiya as Marukasa
 * Hiroshi Kondo as Marukoshi
 * Masahiro Oyake as Yasohachi Yamagishi
 * Ruriko Ito as Keiko Yoda
 * Bokuzen Hidari as Jinbei
 * Jun Otani as Fukurokoji
 * Ichiro Attack as Kazama
 * Midori Hoshino as Ayuko
 * Hiroko Masuda as Hiroko
 * Akemi Kurata as Akemi
 * Kacho Tsukitei as Kacho Tsukitei
 * Anne Mari as Sister Antoine
 * Kazuko Miyagawa as Sister Emily
 * Osami Nabe as Tadanori Yagyu
 * Hyoei Enoki as Katsuko Yagyu
 * Toyoko Takeche as Yayoi Yagyu
 * Kin Ishii as Daihachi Yamagishi
 * Kyoko Kozakura as Hana Yamagishi
 * Hiroko Ikeda as Mami Yamagishi

Cast of Harenchi Gakuen: Tackle Kiss no Maki (film 1970)

 * Miyuki Kojima as Mitsuko Yagyu
 * Shinji Maki as Hige Godzilla
 * Jo Shishido as Macaroni
 * Bonta Seshi as Marukoshi
 * Taro Tairabon as Marukasa
 * Hiroshi Chiba as Yasohachi Yamagishi
 * Kishiro Kawakami as Munenari Yagyu
 * Toyoko Takeche as Yayoi Yagyu
 * Hyoei Enoki as Katsuko Yagyu
 * Akira Oizumi as Tadanori Yagyu
 * Jun Otani
 * Bokuzen Hidari as Jinbei
 * Keisuke Otori as Kyota
 * Utako Kyo as Torako

Cast of Harenchi Gakuen (TV series 1970)

 * Miyuki Kojima as Jubei (Mitsuko Yagyu)
 * Shiro Otsuji as Hige Godzilla (Yurio Yoshinaga)
 * Shobun Inoue as Marugoshi sensei (Matagoro Araki)
 * Eiji Go as Macaroni sensei
 * Kokan Katsura as Parasol sensei (Marudan Marukasa)
 * Bokuzen Hidari as Yomuin Jinbe
 * Fumihiko Kobayashi as Yasohachi Yamagishi

Cast of Shin Harenchi Gakuen (film 1971)

 * Yayoi Watanabe as Jubei Yagyu
 * Shigeo Takamatsu as Hige Godzilla
 * Jo Shishido as Gebageba
 * Eric H. Eric as Silkhat
 * Katsuwo Umino as Kotaro
 * Straight Combi as arufata
 * Akira Oizumi as Shungiku
 * Hiroshi Chiba as Yasohachi Yamagishi
 * Machiko Nakajima as Mami
 * Jun Otani as Ikidomari
 * Ichiro Attack as Fusen
 * Chieko Harada as Tomoko
 * Tomoko Aki as Yoshiko
 * Hiroko Masuda as Hatsugo
 * Bokuzen Hidari as Jinbei
 * Susumu Abe as Kabagon
 * Toyo Fukuda as Hana
 * Kensuke Tamai as Haitatsu Yubin

Cast of Heisei Harenchi Gakuen (film 1996)

 * Senna Matsuda as Little Jubei
 * Yoshiyuki Yamaguchi as Yasohachi Yamagishi
 * Rika Harada as Jubei
 * Sugisaku Imagawa as Koji Fukuro
 * Kei Mizutani as Sexy Hygiene Teacher
 * Nobuyoshi Kuwano as Hige Godzilla
 * Daijiro Harada as Chief of the Section of Bureau Education of the Intelligence Cabinet
 * Moe Ishikawa
 * Natsuko Tohno