Koko wa Greenwood

Koko Wa Greenwood (translation: Here is Greenwood), is a manga series written by Yukie Nasu. It was adapted into a six episode Anime OAV between 1991 and 1993, and adapted into a 13 episode live-action Dorama in 2008.

Kazuya Hasukawa is in a dreadful bind. His brother's new wife is also Kazuya's first love. Determined to avoid them both, Kazuya leaves home to live in Ryokurinryou or as it is known by its much easier to pronounce English name, Greenwood, the student dorm of the all-boys' Ryokuto Academy.

There, he hopes to find peace of mind. Unfortunately for Kazuya, he starts his term a month late due to the combination of a car accident and a stress-induced ulcer. When he does finally arrive, he finds that peace (of any kind) is hard to find at Greenwood — home of some of the weirdest characters found on any campus.

Now with a handy dandy character page!

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This series provides examples of:

• Absurdly Powerful Student Council: Thanks to Shinobu's influence.
• All There in the Manual
• Aloof Big Brother: Subverted twice with Shinobu and his siblings. Subverted with Akira, who is set up to be the Aloof Big Brother, but who turns out to be an weak-willed Ineffectual Loner who couldn't handle his responsibility to his family. Subverted again with Shinobu, who is an Aloof Younger Brother to both of his older siblings. Especially Nagisa, who has a raging inferiority complex and is constantly trying to get him at her mercy. Interesting, Nagisa seems to have perceived Akira as a straight play of this trope before he ran away, despite the afore mentioned facts.
• Anachronic Order: The OAVs start at the begining, but the second episode falls roughly between the 5th and 6th (it explicitly mentions a character not introduced till episode 5). The second episode is the only completely new story not in the manga (it's a sequal to a manga story). Probably done to get an ensemble story done early, while keeping the climactic story at the end (as it was in the manga).
• Apron Matron: The dorm mother.
• Army of Thieves and Whores: Shun and Shinobu organize one of these out of the dorm residents to help get the female gang that was antagonizing Miya to back off.
• Art Evolution: Compare the first volume of the Manga with the last. Character designs shift as well, most noticeably for Kazuya and Mitsuru.
• Attractive Bent Gender: Most instances of various characters dressing in drag results in this to some degree.
• Author Avatar: The author Yukie Nasu appears in chibi form with an N pasted on her head.
• Baseball Episode: Mitsuru's Forgotten Childhood Friend shows up and wants revenge for losing against Mitsuru in Junior high.
• Bishonen: Nearly every male in the main cast.
• Boarding School: The majority of the student body of Ryokuto Academy lives off campus, but the majority of the characters the series focuses on live in the eponymous dorm.
• Broke Episode: Mitsuru and Shinobu have one of these.
• Class Trip
• Comedic Sociopathy
• Continuity Creep
• Christmas Cake: Mieko's second manager, Yuki Otani.
• Cult: Played for Laughs with the Caught Up in the Rapture Christians who are constantly trying to convert Greenwood's residents.
• Dawson Casting: Of the four leads in the drama, only Yuki Izawa (Kazuya) was actually the same age as his character at the time. The other three were all in their 20s.
• Day in The Limelight: Several of these, such as Watanabe and Fujikake's backstory, Furusawa's romance, and the story about Sakaguchi and Aoki's arcade.
• Delinquents: Any time anything to do with Mitsuru's junior high years comes up this trope is usually invoked somehow. It's particularly prominent in the story that introduces Miya.
• Distaff Counterpart: There is a parallel girl's dorm in another dimension known as "Cherrywood", inhabited by female versions of the cast. Kazuya went there once, and spent the whole time scared and being pushed around by Shinobu and Mitsuru's female versions (some things never change).
• Dropped a Bridget On Him: There's at least three specific instances this in regards to Shun:
  • In all versions, Kazuya is initially tricked into believing Shun is female. In the manga/anime, he finds out the truth when he sees Shun use a urinal. In the drama, he finds out when Shun starts undressing for a bath.
  • In the Baseball Episode, the opposing team finds out when Shun is hit in the groin by the ball.
  • Most of the Pool Episode is told from the point of view of one of the lifeguards, who spots Shun, decides he's a chick, and spends most of the chapter plotting how to ask "her" out, until the very end when Shun takes off his shirt.
• Everything's Better with Chocolate: The Valentine's Day stories. Also the chocolate Golem.
• Fan Service: While the Manga certainly has its share, the OAV turns it Up to Eleven, with its higher density of Ho Yay and Furo Scenes, among other things.
• Furo Scene: Several of these, notably one during the class trip where some of the other characters are lamenting the irrefutable truth that Shun is a dude and one when the guys visit Shun's family's ryokan.
• Golem: An alien made a golem that looked like Shinobu out of chocolate.
• Heir Club for Men: Shun's family inherits through the female line only. Shun may be the oldest, but his baby sister is the one who inherits the Family Business. Shinobu’s family plays it straighter, which is the real source of Nagisa’s woes.
• Heterosexual Life Partners: Pick any set of roommates at Greenwood. There's a high probability that they are this.
• Hey, It's That Voice!: The OAV cast is veritable short list of Names to Know In Anime.
  • Mitsuo Iwata, who played Mitsuru in the anime adaptation, also narrated the drama. He's known for some other things, too…
  • Shinobu shares his voice with Count D, Duo Maxwell and Genjo Sanzo, to name a few.
  • Kazuya's voice also gets around. In addition, he played Tetsuo to Iwata's Kaneda and Kazuhiko Inoue's lover prior to Here is Greenwood.
  • You also may have heard Shun's voice somewhere before.
  • The supporting cast includes Kazuhiko Inoue as Kazuhiro, Hiromi Tsuru as Nagisa, Hikaru Midorikawa as Tochizawa (Here is Devilwood director), Chieko Honda as Miya and Kappei Yamaguchi as Tenma.
• Hot Springs Episode: As mentioned in the Furo Scene entry, the guys visit a ryokan owned by Shun's family, and most of the story takes place in the ryokan's onsen.
• Ho Yay: In the manga, Mitsuru and Shinobu sometimes teased the readers with fake proclamations of love. There's also that Red Riding Hood short in the bonus chapter at the end of the manga…
• Instant Cosplay Surprise: Happens twice in the third OAV, first to Mitsuru and Shinobu, then later on to Kazuya.
• Japanese School Club: There's quite a few that get a mention: afore mentioned Student Council, the Judo club, the not-actually-an-official-club journalism club, the track team, and the brass band to name a few. Also Played for Laughs when the new school year starts and the various clubs are shown pressuring new students to join.
• Lampshade Hanging: All over the place, thanks to the characters' Medium Awareness and the lack of a fourth wall.
• Large Ham: Most of the Dorama cast, but Riki Miura (Mitsuru) and Kengo Ohkuchi (Kazuhiro) in particular enjoy their roles a little too much.
• Live Action Adaptation
• Loony Fan: Mitsuru gets one of these in the form of Kiyomi Seishin, after she sees him in the commercial he did with Mieko Nitta.
• Medieval European Fantasy: "Here is Devilwood," which is a Parody Episode in the manga and film club project in the OAV.
• Medium Awareness: The characters occasionally make remarks referring to their status as manga characters. See also the No Fourth Wall entry.
• Mood Whiplash: Prime example: Space Opera Parody Episode stuck in between the first and second parts of the romantic climax.
• Nakama: The four main characters.
• No Fourth Wall: In addition to the Ho Yay, the main cast sometimes talks to Nasu about plot-holes and such. The OAV has its own version, with the characters talking to each other about the story in the episode previews.
• One-Gender School
• Original Video Animation
• Parody Episode: Three: Here is Devilwood, Here is Edo, and M is for Mwa Ha Ha.
• Plot Hole: Nasu forgot to age the characters up when the school year started again. Handwaved by Nasu Breaking the Fourth Wall to inform the characters. The drama avoids this by combining events from both of Kazuya's first years in the manga into a single continuity.
• Pool Episode: Sumire gives Kazuya tickets to visit the local pool. Hilarity Ensues, mainly a lifeguard mistaking Shun for a chick.
• Product Placement: Parodied with a chapter cover page in which the guys are shown brandishing a coping of the CD drama that had just been released at the time.
• Punched Across the Room: In the drama, Mitsuru starts the library fight with one of these, sending Shinobu into a bookcase.
• RPG Episode: Here is Devilwood. Twice.
• Rule 63: The residents of the aforementioned Cherrywood.
• School Newspaper Newshound: Subverted in that the journalism club was forced underground by the Absurdly Powerful Student Council, and has virtually no power within in the school. It's then inverted when they send wannabe club member Fuse to investigate the student council, but when he finally confronts Shinobu, Shinobu gives him a Motive Misidentification speech, and Fuse decides the journalism club is the bad guy and swears allegiance to Shinobu.
• School Festival: There's multiple stories about Ryokuto's athletic festival and cultural festival.
• Schoolgirl Lesbians: Aki and Ririko.
• Sempai Kouhai: A lot of emphasis is put on the importance of this in general, and the various ways older students try (and usually fail) to abuse their authority over younger students. Unless they're Mitsuru or Shinobu, in which case they usually succeed.
• Shout-Out: Possibly to the point of being Reference Overdosed. In any given volume of the manga as translated by Viz Media, probably half of the translation notes at the end are explanations of the various shout outs in that volume.
• Side-Story Bonus Art: The cosplay chapter in the manga is a drawn out variation of this. The final chapter has some of this as well.
• Stern Teacher: Kimiko Tachiyama, Professor of Classical Japanese.
• Weak but Skilled: Watanabe's baseball playing skills.
• Weirdness Magnet: Greenwood itself, though of a more mundane than fantastic kind of weirdness.
• Whole-Episode Flashback: Several, including the story about Watanabe and Fujikake, the story about how Mitsuru and Shinobu became friends, and the story about how Kazuhiro met Sumire.
• Yaoi Guys: Watanabe and Fujikake of room 117. It's something of an open secret, but that doesn't stop Mitsuru from blackmailing Fujikake whenever he gets a package from home (Watanabe isn't ashamed, Fujikake is).
• Young Entrepreneurs: Sakaguchi and Aoki's "arcade."