The Drifting Classroom
The Drifting Classroom is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Kazuo Umezu. It was awarded the 20th Shogakukan Manga Award in general category in 1974.
The story was adapted into a Japanese live action movie in 1987, and given a modern setting at an international school in Kobe. The movie starred Hayashi Yasufumi and Aiko Asano. It is unusual among Japanese movies in that most of the dialogue is in English.
A more modern remake came in the form of a fully Japanese language drama titled The Long Love Letter, which changed it into a love story of sorts.
Plot summary
Sho Takamatsu, a sixth grader, proceeds to school following a bitter argument with his mother about her throwing out his things. But as Sho attends his class, a tremor suddenly shakes the facility, and the students and faculty find that the school has somehow been transported to an otherworldly wasteland. In time, they find others wandering through the strange landscape, lost. One of them, a three-year-old boy named Yu, shows Sho a memorial buried in the dust which commemorates the disappearance of their school - indicating that they somehow have landed in the future. As it later turns out, the world succumbed to a variety of environmental disasters some time after the school was time-warped, leaving the Earth nearly depopulated at the end of the 20th century.In the face of this unexpected and frightening development, many of the adults and students at school lose their wits. One of the teachers, Wakahara, goes completely insane and murders his colleagues and some of the students before he is killed by Sho in self-defense, while the previously mild-mannered food delivery man for the school, Sekiya, puts his own survival before the children's lives, which leaves the children with no adult guidance. In this desperate situation, Sho attempts to take charge in order to ensure the survival of all. He meets Nishi, a fifth-grader from Nagano, who has the mysterious psychic power to reach into the past. When Sho's mother, who is remorseful over her son's disappearance, is contacted by Sho through Nishi's power in times of great need, she goes to great lengths to assist her son by preparing things in her own time so that they might help Sho in this bleak future.
The stranded children meet many challenges in their desperate fight for survival. They encounter hostile monsters which claim the lives of several children. They are also affected by a deadly plague, the growing shortage of food and water, hostile delinquents who sow dissension amongst the students and threaten inner stability, and most of all, creeping madness. Sho and his closest companions, who form the school's "government", fight a fierce struggle but are unable to save many of their comrades, who keep falling prey to the myriad of dangers around them and their own despair. In the end, Nishi falls into a coma but the students are nevertheless able to use her powers as a medium between the children and Sho's mother. Sho's mother sends a rocket ship full of supplies to the children. Due to a series of mishaps, only little Yu is able to return, delivering Sho's journal to Sho's mother. However, in the future the children happen upon several beneficial factors which promise the return of life to the devastated Earth and their own survival, and they resolve to stay and try to rebuild the world from the ashes of the past.
Characters
Main characters
;Sho Takamatsu;Nishi Ayumi
;Sakiko Kawada
;Otomo
;Emiko Takamatsu
;Yu
Schoolmates: Sho’s Class
;Ikegaki;Hata
;Okubo
;Yoshida
;Yanase
;Yoshikawa
;Mari
;Kyoko Aikawa
;Yamamoto
;Shinichi Yamada
Schoolmates: Other 6th Graders
;Otsuki;Ishida
;Shibata
;Akabane
;Tashiro
;Nagata
;Tatsumi
;Ando
;Seino
;Uemura
;Hatsuta
;Murata
Schoolmates: 5th Graders
;Nakata;Gamo
Faculty
;Mr. Wakahara;Mr. Sakura
;Principal
;Ms. Tanimura
;Mr. Arakawa
;Mr. Asai
Villains
;Kyusaku Sekiya;"Princess"
;Hatsuko
;Tomeko
;"Scar Kid"
;The Mutants
;Basai
Locations
;Yamato Elementary School- A pool
- A separate gym
- A science room/chemistry lab
- Greenhouse
- First-Aid Room
- Book 4: The school officially becomes a nation and becomes under attack by a giant insect and a swarm of them.
- Book 5: An official census is taken and there is a black plague outbreak.
- Book 6: The plague subsides, an entire building is burned to the ground, plants are grown, and then nation becomes target of a flash flood.
- Book 7: The flash flood ends with no damage done to the school, plants become infested with a strange fungus, the crack in the pool is fixed, and a well is built for water.
- Book 8: The school comes under the control of Sekiya.
- Book 9: The school is converted into a military-like base with barbed wire. The underground monsters attack the school and Sekiya takes off in his vehicle with most of the school's food supply. After the monsters leave, strange starfish like creatures arrive and the school is divided into two sides with Sho on one and Otomo on the other.
- Book 10: The school is abandon due to a toxic clouds passing by.
- Book 11: The school is repopulated and the remaining students stay in order to return the world back to normal.
- Memorial sign for Yamato Elementary School
- Hotel Keiyo
- The General Hospital
- Tokyo Bay: The water has completely dried up in the bay and only a few old ships are still left behind in the end.
- Tokyo Subway: The Tokyo Subway is barely still there. One train cart still exists and is only used by the underground monsters in their ritual. Lots of dead bodies are around as they are the fallen survivors of the future world.
- Amusement Park: It is uncertain when this park was created since it appears to happen after the students are teleported to the future. The entire park still is able to function and the theme of it is time from where it starts in the dinosaur era, to where it ends in the future era, which is destroyed.
Legacy
- The director of My Entire High School Sinking Into the Sea has cited the manga as an influence on his film.
Adaptations
- Hyōryū Kyōshitsu
- Drifting School
- The Long Love Letter