List of important characters in the series Gokusen.
Kumiko "Yankumi" Yamaguchi
- Played by: Yukie Nakama (drama)Voiced by: Risa Hayamizu (JP, anime), Caroline Lawson (EN)
Our heroine. A high school math teacher and granddaughter of one of the most powerful yakuza bosses in Japan.
- Action Girl: Kumiko was trained to fight by her uncles and is very effective at it.
- Badass Teacher: Of course, since she's incredibly strong, brave, and protective.
- Beautiful All Along: She's quite pretty when not wearing her nerd glasses and track suit.
- Bunny-Ears Lawyer: She's a proficient high school math teacher, while simultaneously being a weirdo.
- Cloud Cuckoo Lander: Some of the plans she comes up with are very... imaginative.
- Distaff Counterpart: Kumiko is the Distaff Counterpart to Eikichi Onizuka. Only difference is Onizuka is a delinquent while Kumiko is the Ojou to a tough as nails Yakuza clan.
- Girlish Pigtails: Part of her playing the docile, feminine teacher.
- Hollywood Tone-Deaf: She's an incredibly shit singer, being so bad that she continuously scored a 0% on a karaoke machine.
- Hot-Blooded: As only a yakuza can be.
- Hypocritical Heartwarming: She might be a jerk and regularly beat up Tetsu Asakura and Minoru Tatsukawa, but she makes it quite clear only she is allowed to do that to them. It's actually because of how far she would go to protect them is the reason they are so loyal to her.
- Hypocritical Humor: She will sometimes lecture her students against something she has done herself. When called out on it she will just tell them to shut up.
- Iconic Outfit: Yankumi's red jumpsuit, Girlish Pigtails, and Scary Shiny Glasses are easily recognizable among the Gokusen fandom.
- Kicking Ass in All Her Finery: has a few cases, although this might be a subversion, as mostly those attempts don't end well.
- Large Ham: Whenever she passionately starts talking about honor and blood brothers and such.
- Love Can Make You Gonk: Kumiko does this whenever she is fawning over Shinohara. Her eyes go from their usual fixed glare to big, sparkly, bishojo-standard and can flick back and forth between panels when the situation calls for it.
- Neighborhood-Friendly Gangsters: Her and the rest of the Kurodas.
- Nerd Glasses: Kumiko's glasses are actually arguably multipurpose, and are sometimes used as Mask Power or Scary Shiny Glasses.
- Obfuscating Stupidity: She acts like a ditz to cover up her yakuza mannerisms.
- Oblivious to Love: Kumiko puts so much of herself into her work and helping her students that she doesn't notice Shin's feelings towards her at all.
- Ojou: Kumiko's yakuza family often calls her Ojou.
- One-Man Army: She has been able to take down any opponent in front of her easily and singlehandedly. Except Yvegney.
- Scary Shiny Glasses: If her glasses go opaque, brace yourself.
- She Cleans Up Nicely: Kumiko. She wears a sweatsuit and Nerd Glasses with her hair in pig tails at school, but she's beautiful when wearing a kimono, a little black dress, or even a girlish nightgown.
- Skewed Priorities: The reason she tells her family to not kill her students? If they offed some of her students it would blow her cover.
- Stealth Hi/Bye: Constantly creeps out her students by just appearing along side them without them even noticing until she speaks up.
- Team Mom: Treats her students like their her own children.
- Tomboy: Even her own Grandfather calls her one.
Shin Sawada
- Played by: Jun Matsumoto (drama)Voiced by: Kenichi Suzumura (JP, anime), Kevin T. Collins (EN)
One of Kumiko's students. He quickly figures out Kumiko's background and eventually develops a crush on her.
- Amazon Chaser: Clearly gained an interest in Yankumi when she showed how tough she was.
- Big Man on Campus: Incredibly smart, popular, and athletic, he's loved by everyone in the school. Not that he cares.
- Distressed Dude: On occasion. He saves Kumiko just as often, though.
- Dating What Daddy Hates: Shin's police chief dad isn't very happy about his son liking a Mafia Princess.
- Even the Guys Want Him: He has his share of admirers, within and without Shirokin.
- Hello, Attorney!: He decides to become a yakuza lawyer in order to chase after Kumiko.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Shin is very aloof and cold, but he goes to great lengths to help and protect his friends. He even saves Kumiko a few times, though that's arguably after he started developing a crush on her.
- Likes Older Women: If his crush on Kumiko is anything to go by.
- Only Sane Man: And one of the smarter guys of his entire grade, if not the entire Shirokin Gakuen Private School as well.
- Perpetual Frowner: He is rarely seen smiling.
- Speaks Fluent Animal: He appears to be able to understand dog language.
- The Stoic: Shin very rarely changes his expression of casual disinterest for anything or anyone. So, when he shows anger when he hears Kumiko has been tricked to get ambushed by her students, you can see why O.O.C. Is Serious Business.
- Surrounded by Idiots: He was able to convince his friends that his bruises and cuts were from a cupboard falling on him after a huge earthquake... until Minami points out that there hadn't been an earthquake recently.
- Team Dad: Shin is a great supporting figure to his friends and the "leader" of his class.
- Will They or Won't They?: With Yankumi. They are in a relationship in the final chapters, once Shin graduates.
Teruo "Kuma" Kumai
- Played by: Tomohiro Waki (drama)Voiced by: Hiroomi Sugino (JP, anime), Ed Paul (EN).
Shin's best friend and classmate since middle school.
- The Big Guy: He is big boned, and his nickname, "Kuma", means "bear" in Japanese.
- Book Dumb: He somehow managed to get a zero on his math test.
- Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: More rough around the edges than bad, but Kuma really loves his mother. There was even an arc in the manga devoted to Kuma considering dropping out of high school to take care of his mom, with his whole class pitching in to help so he wouldn't have to.
- Gentle Giant: After some Character Development.
- Gonk: Mildly, compared with the rest of his classmates.
- Shipper on Deck: Probably the biggest supporter of Shin's crush on Kumiko.
Haruhiko "Uchi" Uchiyama
- Played by: Shun Oguri (drama)Voiced by: Yoichi Masukawa (JP, anime), Jamie McGonnigal (EN)
Part of Shin's circle of friends at Shirokin.
- Adaptational Attractiveness: A gonk in the manga (especially at the start) and anime, but more attractive-looking in the drama.
- Casanova Wannabe: He succeeds near the end of the manga because the girl thought it was cute how he would faint all the time.
- Cloud Cuckoo Lander: Mildly.
- Hair-Trigger Temper: If there's a fight involving a Shirokin student, expect Uchi to have compulsively instigated it somehow. And he will lose these fights, because he's also a...
- Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: He finally gets a girlfriend late in the series, a beautiful girl named Shiori Imai, who's a horror fanatic. In fact, they first met in a horror booth, with her as a scary ghost woman, and him fainting on the spot.
Youichi Minami
- Played by: Yuma Ishigaki (drama)Voiced by: Takurou Takakuni (JP, anime), Sebastian Arcelus (EN)
Friend and classmate of Shin.
- Broken Masquerade: He's the one who ultimately outs Kumiko to the entire school, not out of malevolence, but because he was shocked. Also, it's because of him that the Laughing Church got outed as corrupt.
- Delinquent Hair: Has a tall, blond mohawk.
- Gonk: With his protuberant eyes, chubby face, and mohawk, he closely resembles a fish.
- The Hedonist: Exemplified when he gets mad that his friends are trying to get him to think about his future since he has no plans. He ends up taking up a job that earns a lot of money doing very little work without thinking about what kind of organization it might be, and gets in trouble.
Takeshi Noda
- Played by: Hiroki Narimiya (drama)Voiced by: Isao Yamagishi (JP, anime), Matt Kaplan (EN)
Friend and classmate of Shin. Marginally more calm and thoughtful than the others.
- Never Bareheaded: He's always wearing a baseball cap.
- The Nicknamer: He was the one who came up with "Yankumi" as a nickname for Kumiko.
Ryuuichiro Kuroda
- Played by: Ken Utsui (drama)Voiced by: Chikao Ohtsuka (JP, anime), Dan Green (EN)
Kumiko's grandfather and the head of the Kuroda family and Ooedo Clan.
- Cool Old Guy: He is very relaxed despite his yakuza's connections. Despite his age, he still can act when something closely happens... especially if it's threatening the life of his granddaughter, Kumiko.
- Even the Guys Want Him: According to the Kuroda's councilor, Ryuuichiro was such a man in his youth, "Even a guy could fall in love with him."
- Father to His Men: A very respected mafia boss, between his peers, and many of the guys that form part of his clan see him as a paternal figure.
- Papa Wolf: When Kumiko comes home extremely ill after being kidnapped by Kudou, Ryuuichiro orders the destruction of the entire Nekomata kumi. The kumi had enough sense to scatter before the Kurodas came after them.
- Not So Above It All: He might be the Only Sane Man, but he can get just as emotional as the rest of the clan if Kumiko is upset.
Tomoya Shinohara
- Played by: Ikki Sawamura (drama)Voiced by: Katsuyuki Konishi (JP, anime), Josh Mosby (EN)
The Ooedo Clan's lawyer, who is in a deep emotional debt to Ryuuchiro and the Kuroda.
- Distressed Dude: He gets thrown into harm's way quite a bit.
- Hello, Attorney!: He is an attractive lawyer, who serves the Kuroda family.
- Non-Action Guy: Shinohara is the only man in this series who can't hold his own in a fight. He got in trouble with some gangsters he was still in college and had to be rescued by Ryuuichirou, Kumiko's grandpa.
- Obfuscating Stupidity: You may think Shinohara completely doesn't notice Kumiko's very obvious crush on him. You would be wrong. He has his reasons, though.
- Oblivious to Love: Or so it would look like, since he is very aware of what Kumiko feels for him from the very beginning.
- Will They or Won't They?: With Kumiko. They eventually don't, thanks to a couple of reasons — one is that Shinohara has to take care of his sick father and family, and the heavy one is that being a yakuza lawyer (as Ryuuchiro previously warned him if he stayed with them) would definitely affect his career in a long term. And even though he still has feelings for Kumiko, she had to let him go.
Kyotaro "Kyo" Ooshima
- Voiced by: Norio Wakamoto (JP, anime), Peter Ganim (EN)
The young boss of the Kuroda group.
- Adapted Out: For some reason, he doesn't appear in the drama adaptation.
- Big Brother Mentor: He acts as this toward most of the Kuroda group, but especially Kumiko. He was the one who taught her how to fight. He also tries to be this to Shin, though Shin is strongly against it.
- Kavorka Man: He's approaching middle age and it shows, but somehow women are all over him.
- Large Ham: KNOW THAT YOU HAVE BEEN DEFEATED BY ORE-SAMA!
- One-Man Army: He is the man who taught Kumiko how to fight, after all.
Tetsu Asakura and Minoru Tatsukawa
- Played by: Ken Kaneko (Tetsu) and Shinji Uchiyama (Minoru), (drama)Voiced by: (as Tetsu) Keiji Hirai (JP, anime), Maddie Blaustein (EN)(as Minoru) Hiroaki Yoshida (JP, anime), Sean Schemmel (EN)
Kumiko's "younger brothers". You rarely see one without the other.
- Animal Motifs: Tetsu is sometimes referred to as "octopus," Minoru sometimes as "squid."
- Face of a Thug:Kumiko: Stop crying! You both have faces that could kill a cow!
- Fat and Skinny: Tetsu and Minoru, respectively.
- Small Role, Big Impact: It was due to how their teacher treated them like garbage is the reason why Kumiko wanted to become a teacher. Since she saw a teacher was supposed to nurture kids not treat them as useless.
- Those Two Guys: They are almost always seen with each other since they were younger, especially since they act as bodyguards to Kumiko.
- Ugly Cute: At least Kumiko thinks they look as such.
- Younger Than They Look: They are 22 and 21 years old. Just a year and two years younger than Kumiko.
Shizuka Fujiyama
- Played by: Misaki Ito (drama)Voiced by: Rica Matsumoto (JP, anime), Suzanne Gilad (EN)
Female music teacher at Shirokin.
- Big-Breast Pride: Apparently she's an F-cup, and she doesn't mind people mentioning it. She also drew herself with giant boobs on her flyer for her choir club.
- Buxom Beauty Standard: The students of Shirokin certainly think she is more attractive than Kumiko (the other only female teacher on Shirokin), just because of her big breasts.
- Dark and Troubled Past: During her previous teaching job at a middle school, one student attempted to commit suicide due to bullying, and Fujiyama, as his teacher, was blamed for not noticing it. She went on an aimless journey (i.e. she took a vacation), and since then has been determined not to let the same thing happen to one of her students again.
- Ephebophile: She jokes about it, but she might not be serious. She does like her boys young and thin, though.
- In Love with Love: She claims she used to be called "Love's Busty Savior".
- Must Have Nicotine: She is rarely seen without a cigarette.
- Shipper on Deck: For Shin and Kumiko. And it all started because she thought at first that Kumiko had the same preference on (younger) guys as her.
Miura
A teacher sent by Shirokin Gakuen Private School's chairman to spy on Kumiko.
- Butt-Monkey: He becomes the butt of many of the jokes once his cover is blew up in the high school, but it becomes even worse once his sexual orientation becomes public.
- Camp Gay: Miura embraces the fact that he is homosexual after he gets some Character Development, and after he becomes the adviser of a club that two other Camp Gay freshmen (who are also coming to terms with their sexual orientation) form with him.
- Ephebophile: Played for creepiness, since he likes being surrounded by younger but attractive male students.
- Sadist Teacher: Combined with a literal BDSM fetish. He tries to force Shin to become his "pet".
- Stalker with a Crush: Starts following Shin around for perverted reasons.
- Stalker without a Crush: He is told to stalk and spy on Kumiko to find something that would definitely get her out from Shirokin.
Hiroki Kudoh
A Shirokin student who was expelled in his third year for bullying.
- The Bully: What he was when still in school.
- Boxed Crook: A variation. After he fails to kill Kumiko a third time, he's captured and brought back to the Ooedo compound, where he's kept as a servant. This is to reform him, and he actually does get a lot better because he realizes the Kurodas are keeping him in to protect him from all the people he's angered.
- Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain: He goes up against Kumiko three times and fails three times.
- Schoolyard Bully All Grown Up: Not all that grown up, but even after being expelled from Shirokin, he's fixated on continuing to make the students' lives a living hell.
Ichiro Tsuruta
- Voiced by: Tadahisa Saizen (JP, anime), Marc Thompson (EN)
Kudoh's right hand man from Shirokin Gakuen Private School.
- Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy: His ideology is, "The weak must obey the strong."
- Berserk Button: Insulting his looks is asking for an ass-kicking.
- The Ditz: He is apparently so dumb that he couldn't remember what class he was in and unwittingly dropped a year to be in Kumiko's class.
- The Dragon: To Kudoh.
Gonzou Shirakawa (The Principal)
- Played by: Ryosei Tayama (drama)Voiced by: Tomohiro Nishimura (JP, anime), Dan Green (EN)
The short, bald principal of Shirokin Gakuen Private School.
- Accidental Pervert: He sometimes forgets to put his pants on before letting people see him.
- Cloud Cuckoo Lander: He does a lot of silly things, like putting on a magic show for some visiting teachers, or posing dramatically while saying something cool-sounding.
- Dirty Old Man: He sometimes drools over Fujiyama or lets slip something perverted.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: As troublesome as the students of Shirokin are, he still believes in them and backs them up.
- Obfuscating Stupidity: He knew full well that Kumiko was a Yakuza Princess and hired her because of that, knowing full well someone like her wouldn't be pushed around by juvenile delinquents.
Goro Sawatari (The Vice-Principal)
- Played by: Katsuhira Namase (drama)Voiced by: Ken Uosaki (JP, anime), Marc Diraison (EN)
Has much more involvement in the anime than in the manga.
- Adaptational Villainy: In the anime, as many of the intentions of Shirokin's chairman to get Kumiko fired are transferred to him instead for simplicity. He is actually more supportive to her in the manga, as she is bringing good results to Shirokin.
- Ascended Extra: Again, in the anime.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: He becomes this in the Shibata arc and concedes that Kumiko's unorthodox teaching methods are sometimes effective.
- Non-Giving-Up School Guy: He's desperate to make Shin take the entrance exams for prestigious universities in order to raise Shirokin's reputation. He's apoplectic when he hears Shin doesn't want to go to college.Vice-principal: FINE! I'LL GET A HOLD OF HIM AND PERSUADE HIM MYSELF! *leaves office* Shawada-kuuuun! <3Fujiyama: Oh my... Poor Shin Sawada.Kumiko: It's all right. He won't be caught.
Fuji
- Voiced by: Seizo Katou (JP, anime), John Avner (EN)
Kumiko's dog. Half Tosa dog, half... horse?
- Ascended Extra: He shows up for some silliness in bonus chapters and occasionally provides some help in the manga, but in the anime, he shows up every single episode and even has some important acting and speaking roles (though no one can understand him except the audience).
- Funny Animal: In the anime, it's almost as if he's a human in a dog's body.
- Half-Dressed Cartoon Animal: In the special chapters of the manga, he wears a sweatsuit jacket similar to Kumiko's, though when he shows up in the main story, he's naked except for the ribbon on his tail. In the anime, he wears the jacket all the time.
- Intellectual Animal: In the anime, where you can hear his thoughts.
- Interspecies Romance: It's unknown who Fuji's father is, but judging by his tail, many have presumed it was a horse.
- Shipper on Deck: In the bonus chapters, Fuji seems to be very supportive that Shin and Kumiko would end up as a couple. He even teases Shin to be more assertive with Kumiko.
- Talking Animal: Only to Shin in the special chapters of the manga. To everyone besides Shin, it just sounds like barking. Even outside the special chapters, though, Shin seems to know what Fuji is thinking.
