Well, I never expected to finish this since I almost dropped it 10min into the first episode. But my laziness got the better of me and I forced myself to finish the first episode. Before I knew it I was at episode 5, enjoying the drama a lot. And then suddenly, I was bored and annoyed....

The plot is original: a 27yr old yakuza heir, more brawn than brains, is forced back to high school. He has to pretend to be 17 and he has to graduate. I liked this premise and once the school started, it was fun and interesting to watch. The events moved forward very quickly, a bit too quickly sometimes. I found the pacing off. So much so, I lost interest in the second half because of the repetitiveness and the overacting.

The best part of this drama is the cast of secondary, support characters: the gardening aficionado school principal, the embroidery aficionado yakuza, the mysterious nurse uttering the words of wisdom and, of course, a whole classroom full of different types of characters.

The worst part of this drama is the main lead. I don't know if he was written like this or if this was the interpretation by the director and actor but he was just awfully overacting. I have to give it to the actor, he has incredible facial muscles and his jaw moves in mysterious ways. The mafia voice, the grimacing and the jumping around is worth of the best manga adaptation. Apparently this is not one of those. Still, they used many of the manga tropes. The actor, when he stops making faces, is so handsome, to die for. But those goggly eyes, twisted mouth, protruding jaw were weird. What I find the most incomprehensible, is that nobody found his jumpy, grimacing behaviour strange and weird!
The burgeoning romance was cringy at best, completely lacking any chemistry but it helped to confirm the main character's lack of maturity: he is basically an unruly child in an adult's body. And even though he matures through learning, he reverts to his primal state every time he dons his yakuza attire.

The drama stresses the importance of education and how Makio, reluctant at the start, realizes the advantages good education can bring him as a yakuza boss but mostly as a person. The representation of yakuzas does not seem very credible. They mostly look like comedy relief characters in a comedy: ridiculous and, again, over the top with their special salutations and costumes (black suits gang vs. hawaiian shirts gang). The most ordinary looking were finally the kids bringign a sort of balance to the outrageous comedy. Which I did not find funny. At all!

I liked the pudding though I was shocked that a school would not order enough for all who wanted it or allow its pupils to fight over it. Once they dropped the pudding from the plot, the drama somehow lost its flavour.