ANIME REVIEW . Please Teacher!

by Chris   ⋅   August 3, 2006   ⋅   Comment now   ⋅    RSS

The teacher turned lover is one of the most common male fantasies — at least for nerdy academic overachievers. There’s something appealing about an attractive woman with an intellect superior to your own (Heck, that’s one of the reasons I fell in love with and married Kris). The teacher fantasy is quite the popular one, having been addressed throughout many (non-hentai) anime series, including various portions of Gantz and a set of episodes in Chobits. The funny thing is, back when I was in highschool in Denver, CO there was no such thing as an attractive teacher, alien or otherwise. The school was staffed by little roundish ladies with thick glasses, bad hair, and/or cankles. I have since come to believe teachers such as the one in this story only exist in Japan and Texas.

I picked up the first Please Teacher! disc at Fry’s for $1.90 (That’s right. Less that $2.00). I had been eyeing it off and on for a while, but that was a deal I couldn’t pass up. Anyways, the story of Please Teacher! concerns a young man, Kei Kusanagi, suffering a “standstill” disorder that has caused him to lose three years of his life and keep his body from aging. Consequentially, Kei is still in high school, stuck in the 10th grade and looking like a 10th grader. His breezy life of shy academic bliss is disrupted with the arrival of an alien life form (the hot female type, naturally) who finds employment as his class teacher, under the name Mizuho Kazami. Kei discovers Mizuho’s true identity, and after a series of absurd events the two are married. What follows is your basic romantic comedy of misunderstanding and pent up sexuality, with a healthy dash of illicit love thrown into the mix.

To be honest, Please Teacher! is one the most illogical narratives I’ve seen outside of Chinese cinema. Characters do and say things that really wouldn’t make sense in a real life context, and many of the dilemmas they face seem more than a bit contrived. There’s nothing deep to really be found in the story; the main character’s disorder serves nothing more than as an excuse to have a younger looking character in compromising situations with an older woman. The animation is clean and bright, but really just par for the course. That said, it’s actually pretty fun and surprisingly sexy. The romantic anime genre is one that I don’t have much of an affinity for (save for Goldenboy, but that doesn’t really count), and often laugh at, but Please! Teacher kept my interest. Heck, for $1.90 I’m not complaining.

About the Author

Chris Nelson is a Java Developer and contract Technical Writer living in the Silicon Valley. He has been a film fan since age six. He ventured out of his basement abode at age 17. He is now married to the smartest, most wonderful woman in the world.

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