Seishun Shiterukai! (青春してるかい!) is a manga series by Ryō Azuki about a sixteen-year-old girl who graduated in Australia and returns to Japan to teach English in Shishimaru High School. As the homeroom teacher of class 1-B, she get into some various types of troubles.
Usami Rika, a 16-year-old girl, come to Japan to teaches English and become a homeroom teacher in Shishimaru High School. She’s really happy to be a teacher until she finds out that something goes wrong in this school. At first, she saw Sahara Reo gives a large amount of money to Shirou Ookami, both her student in class 1-B. Later she finds out one of the top student, Watanuki Kumiko, steals some of the mid-year test paper in the staff room. She then realizes the culprit of the test question selling is Sahara Reo who kisses her as the bribe to shut Rika up.
Usami Rika
She’s an energetic 16-year-old teacher who just comes back to Japan from Australia. She already graduated from a university and chooses to be a teacher because she influenced by her teachers back in Australia. She’s actually kind of genius. She can memorize all names, faces and registration number of all students in Shishimaru High School. She also can write in Swahili and Arab.
She got two kangaroos named Kanta (male) and Garuko (female). She often called Rika-chan by her students who treats her rather as friends than a teacher. She teaches English in Shishimaru high school. Rika always dreamt of a wonderful youth life that she got from old films her mother had and imagining things that she always pretend as if it’s the truth. She does some strange funny attack in the series, just like ‘Chalk Missiles’ and such.
She’s Sahara Reo’s old friend, but they don’t remember each other.
Sahara Reo
The class committee member, class registration 7.
The male main character of this story who is the second top student of the years. He’s very popular among the girls, even among his seniors. He’s the culprit behind the rumor of test paper question selling and uses both Watanuki Kumiko and Shirou Ookami in this dirty job. Later, Rika ended his bad doings and started to get crush on Rika because of her simple kindness.
He hated school because of his past. His parents teach overseas and he lived with his uncle who is the principal of Shishimaru High School, Kagetora Sahara. He’s phobia of kangaroos because he’s kidnapped by a kangaroo when he went to Australia with Kagetora. Rika’s the one who saved him and he got crush on Rika that day and promised himself that later, he’s the one who will protect Rika. He then kidnapped again by the same kangaroo and loses his memories of that day.
Shirou Ookami
The ‘bad guy’ of the class, class registration 4.
He used to be a member of the volleyball team and very good of it, but then took a fight with his seniors and caused his seniors taken to the hospital because of his seniors pick on the juniors too much. After that Reo made him not expelled and from that on, Ookami stay loyal to Reo. He seems to have a crush on Rika.
Despite his outer appearance, he dislike exerting violence towards girls. Through the story, he’s called ‘Bancho’,’Gangster’ and ‘Wolf’ by Rika. His name ‘Shirou Ookami’ can be translated to ‘White Wolf’.
Watanuki Kumiko (Jimiko)
Class committee member, class registration 40.
She’s the top student of Shishimaru and she always feed the school’s rabbits. She’s Rika’s first friend and helped Rika several times. She always used nerdish glasses and braided her black hair.
Reo takes chance of her because previous months ago, when she doing the math test, she can’t remember the formula and she cheated. Reo tells her that he knew what she had done in the test and threaten her that if she not obey him, he will spread that Jimiko become the top student because of cheating.
Sahara Kagetora
The easy-going principal of Shishimaru School, who is the uncle of Reo. He often drinks tea, uses Japanese clothing and a Japanese fan while he designated his room to be Japanese styled. He loves to tease his nephew and uses his power as the principal to do some weird things. He seems not aging in the story. He’s the one who reveal Reo’s kangaroo phobia to Rika and the one who reveal where Reo is throughout the game he and Rika was in.
Miketani
Kagetora’s tea-time companion. She uses glasses and seems to be easy-going and a close friend to Kagetora. She lives in the teacher’s hostel along with Rika. She’s the one who take care of Rika when she’s caught and the one who makes the report for the International Education Committee.
The Seishun Shiterukai manga was published by Ribon Mascot Comics, Shueisha. In 2004, Seishun Shiterukai was published in Indonesia by m&c! under the same name.
