Please Teacher review

Alternate Titles: Onegai Teacher, Onetei

Original Japanese Release Date: 2001

Episode Length/Run-time: 12 ( 22 mins ea. )

Summary:

Kusanagi Kei, a highschool student, has an encounter with an alien who is a teacher at his new school. He is later forced to marry her in order to keep her secrets. From this, various romantic problems occur multiple times throughout the story.

Review:

One would think that this is your typical run of the mill love triangle anime, but its not. The development of the characters and their true-to-life problems are one of the things that sets this anime apart. Between the comic relief of Mizuho fiddling with her personal computer and the bickering that occurs between her and Kei, you can really see how the two exhibit real life problems that couples often have. Although the two get together due to the unusual circumstances, they actually have a lot of chemistry and the relationship feels like it could be real. This is what makes this anime so good! It feels real ( besides the fact that Mizuho is an alien). It even feels real when Kei is hanging out with his buddies.

However, the plot suffers from relying on all-to-familiar circumstances and cliches which get old as the series drags on. The creators also had to make Kei’s female  friends adequate love rivals, as if the marrying-a-space-alien thing didnt already top it off. The side characters, even though they are also given time to develop in the story, get super old when they randomly pop in to interfere with whats going on between Kei and Mizuho. Its also annoying when the characters, which are given such development, have to jump through hoops and barrels to get to where their going with the plot. This is unusual for TV animes, as usually its the characters that ruin it and not the plot. At least there is some originality in the problems that occur as the plot progresses, which leaves the characters just as annoyed as you.

For the animation side of it, its very well done. It has nice cinematic scenes, detailed backgrounds that are beautiful, and the character animation is up to standards with what you would expect for a TV anime. The music is nothing special and easily forgettable however.

What makes Please Teacher! interesting and enjoyable to watch is the diversity and development of the characters, not the plot. Its worth checking out if your into this kind of anime.

[starrater]