Hirate Yurina: I hate class and studying

On her KochiHoshi radio show last Friday, Hirate Yurina came clean about how much she hates class and studying, and how bad she is at it.

A letter came from a listener: "I'm a high school girl from Tokyo. We recently had a test at school. I ended up with a mark of 19 (I'm crying)...and of course a make-up test. What can I do to be able to study? If you know, please tell me."

Hirate: To be frank, I'm terrible at studying, too. (laughs)

It's really no good (laughs). I'm also worrying what I should do (laughs).

But you wrote that you got 19 on the test. I think that's totally okay.

I've recently been thinking how much fun school is. Talking with everyone and so on.

But I really hate studying in class. I just hate it. What I hate most is those print-outs you get passed, and the test-papers to fill in that we got right from the start.

The worst thing is that from the beginning, I was put in the very front seat. I hate it so much that I wrote the line from the beginning of Getsuyoubi no Asa, Sukaato wo Kirareta: "Why do I have to go to school?" (laughs)



I really deeply hate it. After that there's the line: "A teacher with a forced smile talks about fake love." I wrote that, too.

I really don't know why my seat has to be there. Right when I entered the school, the teacher put me in the middle of the front row, right up against the teacher's desk. Right in the middle.

I wondered why I always had to be right in the middle, and so on. I just hate studying. Maybe my marks are so bad because it's a private school.

But my attitude isn't that good, either. I've said some pretty bad things (laughs). Really.... But I think it's okay. Being eccentric is good, I think.

In the answer column on a print-out, I wrote straight out: "I think this is wrong. This doesn't get across what you want to get across to the students." I don't know what the teacher thought when they read that (laughs). But I think it's good to be eccentric.

So then, here's Keyakizaka46, "Eccentric".... (song plays)

Um, high-school girl from Tokyo, let's both do our best to study! As for studying, I think...Japanese is important and I will work hard at that.

And I'll do my best to improve my attitude toward studying. We all have difficulties in our lives. Let's do our best!
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Techi seems to be just the student every teacher fears. Not able to do the work, not willing to try, and cheeky about it all. I hope she does learn to do enough to get by. 

I understand why they want to keep such a difficult student up where the teacher can keep an eye on her, but I wonder if giving her a little anonymity might be a good thing: putting her back among the other students. Maybe she would settle down. And maybe not.

Japanese commenters put her down with words like "rebellious period" and "chuunibyou" (middle-school sophomore disease). 

But I must admit to a sneaking admiration of how Techi is living her songs. Lots of commenters loved it, too -- while others made fun of her for believing the songs and talked about her getting over it and becoming an adult. Those latter comments made me feel sad: people expressing pride at having been beaten down. I guess that's the point of the songs: adults are defeated and false and kids act freely and honestly. It may be necessary to become more like a responsible adult, but how much freedom and joy do you lose when you do that? Akimoto-sensei?

Here's the radio show. And here's a news post with the transcript of this part of it.