Kyouichi Taniguchi

Kyouichi Taniguchi (谷口 恭一, Taniguchi Kyōichi) is a character of We Shall Now Begin Ethics.

Plot
Through his entire life, Kyouichi has been bullied for variety of reasons. As the teachers weren't helpful, he decided to become a "good teacher" that will help students in need. He started looking for such teacher and in the end found it with Takayanagi. After the first ethics class, he decides to talk to Takayanagi and finds him in the social studies preparations room. He sees Takayanagi smoking and is disappointed as he is reminded of bullies using cigarettes to frighten him. Kobayashi comes in and scolds Takayanagi for smoking in the presence of a student and how that may affect the student health. They go outside, where Kyouichi just asks for outlines for the next class.

During next ethics class, Ichiko Aizawa asks him for a pencil and he sees her panties. He gets interested in her and realizes she haven't realized they are also in the same class and not just in ethics. As he walks after her, he sees Ichiko being pulled in a room and Masaya trying to force her into sex. As he wonders what to do, he sees Takayanagi and reports that a girl may be raped. Takayanagi then rushes and saves Ichiko, while Kyouichi hears that the teacher is getting hit by the student. After that Takayanagi thanks Kyouichi and states that he will take a smoke and report the problem, however as Kyouichi wants to talk with him after that, Takayanagi decides to skip smoking and after reporting it, they start talking. Kyouichi explains how he was bullied and how he decides to become a good teacher and Takayanagi comments that's possible as he can understand the pain of the students better as he suffered it too. Takayanagi then asks Kyouichi if he can help him with Kobayashi, as while he realizes that second hand smoking is bad, its also the social room is also the only place where he is allowed to smoke, so he wonders if he is wrong. Kyouichi wonders what he needs to do when the bully and the bullied did something wrong and Takayanagi explains he must consider them both "good" and help them both as otherwise he will become a bully to bullies. Before leaving, Kyouichi asks Takayanagi why he started smoking and Takayanagi explains its a silly reason, but there was a teacher he wanted to talk to and he was always in the smoking room. Kyouichi realizes that Takayanagi isn't the "good teacher" he looks for, however a teacher like Takayanagi can also be "good".