The Drifting Classroom (漂流教室) is a Japanese horror manga series written and illustrated by Kazuo Umezu. It was serialized in the manga magazine Weekly Shōnen Sunday from 1972 to 1974, and published as collected tankōbon volumes by Shogakukan. The series follows a school that is mysteriously transported through time to a post-apocalyptic future. In 1987, The Drifting Classroom was adapted into a live-action film directed by Nobuhiko Obayashi. An American adaptation, Drifting School, was produced in 1995. The Long Love Letter, a Japanese television drama loosely based on The Drifting Classroom, was released in 2002. The series was critically acclaimed, and won a Shogakukan Manga Award in 1974.

Plot

Sixth grader Sho Takamatsu travels to school after a bitter argument with his mother Emiko. Meanwhile, a burglar breaks into the school to steal money. While in class, a tremor shakes the facility, and the school is transported to an otherworldly wasteland. Yu, a three-year-old boy who was caught in the tremor, shows Sho a memorial buried in the dust commemorating the disappearance of their school. It transpires that the school has traveled through time to a post-apocalyptic future ravaged by environmental disasters. As the hopelessness of their situation becomes clear, most of the adults descend into insanity. Delivery man Sekiya hoards the school's food and immolates the teachers who attempt to stop him, but is then subdued by Sho’s class. Meanwhile, teacher Wakahara murders his colleagues and several students before being killed by Sho in self-defense. With all adults except Sekiya dead, Sho and his companions attempt to lead the children as a quasi-government. Nishi, a telepathic student who is able to communicate with individuals in the past, is able to contact Emiko, who prepares objects in her own time to assist the children in their future. The stranded children face many threats in their fight for survival, including hostile megafauna, a deadly plague, food and water shortages, delinquents who sow dissension, and creeping madness, as well as sadistic schemings by Sekiya, whose mental faculties gradually deteriorate. Eventually, the remaining semi-feral children come back to their senses after Otomo, a high-achieving student who is jealous of Sho, admits that he had planted dynamite in the school the night before the tremor, which had probably caused their temporal displacement, and apologizes for his behavior. The burglar who was caught in the explosion survived, but fragments of his body, including his arm and much of his brain, were displaced in time along with the school, remaining alive and telepathically connected to the burglar. Nishi ultimately falls into a coma, though the children are able to use her powers one final time to send Yu back into the past. Sekiya appears one last time intent on spoiling the children’s plan, but the burglar’s displaced arm kills him. Yu promises that he will try to avert the events that have led to their future, and delivers Sho's journal to Emiko upon returning to the present. Emiko then dedicates her future to building an artificial satellite that will orbit the Earth with supplies necessary to start a settlement. Just as Yu is sent back to his time, Emiko’s satellite lands back on the barren Earth, providing Sho and the remaining children resources needed to survive. The children remaining in the future vow to rebuild the world from the ashes of the past.

Characters

Main characters

Schoolmates: Sho's Class

Schoolmates: Other 6th Graders

Schoolmates: 5th Graders

Faculty

Villains

Reception and legacy

The Drifting Classroom won the 20th Shogakukan Manga Award in 1974. Dash Shaw has cited the manga as an influence on his film My Entire High School Sinking into the Sea.

Adaptations