Boy Impersonates Student in Elite Japanese High School for Months

Sneaking into one of Japan’s most elite schools and assuming an identity that is not yours for six months sounds like something straight out of an anime. But for this boy, it was reality — one that lasted for a whole semester.

Tokyo’s Kaisei Senior High School recently found that one of its registered students had not been attending classes and that another boy was pretending to be him. The high school is well-known in Japan for consistently sending more students to the University of Tokyo — one of the best universities in the world — than any other school in the country. Just getting in the secondary school is a feat in itself.

A representative from the school told Japanese newspaper The Mainichi that the boy who took the entrance exam on Feb. 10 and the one who had been attending classes since the school year started in March were two completely different people.

The registered student took the entrance exam, passed, and went to the orientation session on campus, Japan Today reported. He presented his ID on both days to confirm his identity. But because of pandemic restrictions, classes kicked off online instead of in school. That’s reportedly when the other boy started assuming the student’s identity.

He showed up to the online classes and, when on-site classes resumed in late June, continued to pose as the registered student.

In late July, as the first semester was about to close, the school noticed that they had not received a required academic report from the registered student’s previous junior high school, which they should have received in April. Kaisei contacted the student’s junior high school and found out that it had already been sent to another high school, which the student had been attending.

The boy who was posing as a student continued to attend classes when they resumed in early September but the school eventually reported the series of events to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government on Sept. 28, The Sankei News reported.

Kaisei office manager Yoshiyuki Washizaki told The Mainichi that they had “no comment” about the relationship between the registered student and the boy who attended the school.

"We will be thorough in our management of cumulative guidance reports to prevent a recurrence,” he said. “If it hadn't been for the novel coronavirus, we would've been able to confirm this in April. This would not have occurred in any normal year.”

The school has since expelled the registered student and banned the other boy from entering school grounds.