“Monster Parent” a new drama series on Fuji Television premiered yesterday. The story revolves around a female lawyer at a prestigious law firm who is summoned to a public school in the suburbs to help the board of education deal with a “monster parent.”

“Monster parent” is a term that only recently began appearing in the Japanese media. Japanese parents long had a reputation of completely trusting teachers, especially at prestigious schools, and supported the decisions made about their children’s education by officials. This has changed, and many critics argue that the pendulum has swung too far in the other direction.

Yoshihiko Morotomi, a professor at Meiji University who has written a book on the topic, says that parents will strongly oppose even the slightest signs of favoritism or singling out students. Morotomi relates stories of mothers insisting on sitting in on their children’s classes and taken pictures or filming while classes are in session to make sure all is fair. In a recently reported case, an elementary school staged staged a performance of Snow White in which all 25 girls in the class simultaneously played the title character, as all of the parents pressured the school not to favor any one student with the star role. In extreme examples parents will harass a teacher they believe has wronged their child until that teacher agrees to resign.

That a prime-time series has been based on the topic indicates that it is very much in the popular consciousness, and it is possible that educational or even legal reforms will be made to address the problem.

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