Recently I finished watching a Japanese drama called Nobuta wo Produce and I was touched by the three main characters’ friendship. This drama tells the story Kirigaya Shuji, who is the most popular person in his class at a private high school. At home he’s a lazy and withdrawn person so in order to maintain his popularity he had to pretend to be a helpful person in school.
Shuji’s friend is an indecisive and naive character called Akira Kusano. Akira always likes to pester Shuji and Shuji thinks Akira is a fool. A girl transferred to their high school called Nobuko Kotani. Nobuka is shy and lacks confidence in herself and she is bullied by her classmates every day. Shuji and Akira cannot stand watching this so they wanted to transform Nobuka into the most popular girl in school in order to boost her confidence. Nobuta is a nickname Shuji gave to Nobuka because they sound similar and it means wild boar in English.
During the drama Shuji and his friends had to face many obstacles and Shuji even got isolated by the whole class, but these three conquered every problem together. At the end Shuji had to transfer to another school and at his new school he saw Akira was there as well. Turns out Nobuka sent Akira here because she wanted Shuji to be happy.
This drama taught me about real friendship. When Nobuka became more popular and Shuji was isolated by the class, Nobuka and Akira still talked to Shuji in front the whole class and admitted their friendship. They were welling to gave up their popularity for Shuji and for me that’s what true friends do. The ending was touching because Nobuka thinks about Shuji being alone at a new high school so she sent Akira there to be with Shuji, and Nobuka was the one being left alone at their old school. She said she is going to be ok and she wanted Akira to be with Shuji because she knew these two are inseparable.
After watching this drama I feel the power of friendship. No one can live without their friends. A person who’s always there with you no matter who you are or what situation you are in. They are there to talk to you and help you and that’s how humans can become the strongest group on Earth.
Nobuka is on the left played by Maki Horikita. Shuji in the middle played by Kamenashi Kazuya. Akira on the right played by Yamashita Tomohisa.