Mr. Ikeda is a funny person, chill and relaxed. He said Japanese 4 is a review of Japanese 1,2,3, so if you have done a good job before, then this is going to be a beyond easy class for you. If you have done a poor job in Japanese First Year, or if you are a transfer student, then you'd better change the grade type to pass or no pass, or you will taste the full wrath that is Ikeda.

He is not the most caring lecturer. I mean it he doesn't really care about his students. If you want a chill lecturer, then he is fine, but other wise, my friends who took Menjo said Menjo is a better lecturer.

I loved this class. He's pretty easy-going and not that tough of a grader, though be forewarned -- if it's apparent that you already have a more-than-average mastery of Japanese (at least relative to the rest of the class), he will be grading you a bit harder than the others. This is especially relevant if you test in and/or your speaking ability is significantly better than your handle on grammar/kanji.

But, in general, you have to completely forget or misuse grammar to get marked down in oral tests (he even corrected me a few times on my grammar, and I got a perfect score overall). He's a bit picky when it comes kanji on homework (write it even if you haven't learned it! it makes for good practice! ...so he says), but usually you don't have to write kanji on the tests OR the finals, unless it's a kanji section.

He's planning on starting a J-pop singing club and a manga-reading club in the near future. I probably should have just left it at that and not written anything else...