Onegai☆Teacher

"Onegai Teacher" is a series I avoided watching for a quite a while despite its popularity at the time I was getting into anime. One of the reason I avoided it was because back then, I didn't think I would like romance anime. Eventually, I came across it being aired on an internet TV channel. So I watched it. And I hated it. Now, several years on, and having watched and liked plenty of anime of the romance genre, I've come to realise that it's not anime romance that I hate per se - it's bad anime romance. And the romance in "Onegai Teacher" isn't ... just bad... it's diabolical.

But then, what do you expect, given the premises of "Onegai Teacher" (which, by the way, is my second reason for avoiding it for so long)? I mean... just look at its synopsis: An undercover alien - and it just so happens that she's a beautiful woman - who is working as a teacher has her secret identity discovered by a student. And this students ends up having to marry her in order to protect her... this has got to be a bad joke right? RIGHT? Sadly, it's not even a joke - the anime is dead serious about its story, and it is every bit as ridiculous as the synopsis suggests. So anyone who is put off by that should probably avoid this show at all cost (unless they're up for a good laugh about how bad it is).

Rather unsurprisingly, the worst aspect of "Onegai Teacher" is its farcical story. The whole student marrying his fit teacher scenario is obviously a fantasy of forbidden love lifted straight out of someone's head and, like a typical fantasy of this type, it's seriously lacking in the coherency department. The whole thing is weakly held together by gimmicks, contrived twists and bucketload of cliched coincidences and compromising situations of the type often found in harems.

Hand in hand with the bullsh*t story is a weak cast of characters. Thanks to the unbelievably convoluted storyline, the characters are little more than poor puppets, constantly doing inexplicable things for inexplicable reasons, just so that the latest "twist" will keep the story on its intended track. As a result, most of them come off as horribly unconvincing.

The majority of the characters have undeveloped personalities. The severity of the underdevelopment seems inversely proportional to the amount of screen time for the most part. Topping the leaderboard, we have the main characters Kei (the student) and Mizuho (the teacher). Kei is your average harem lead type loser, with a personality so bland that perhaps the most remarkable thing about him is how utterly unremarkable he is. Oh yeah, he's also armed with what's got to be one of the biggest character plot device gimmick ever - his "stand still" syndrome, which I nearly forgot about due to the overpowering blandness of his personality. As for Mizuho, note that the second half of the opening credits of "Onegai Teacher" mostly consist of her in various cute poses as though she's modelling for some "Monthly Moe" magazine... and that pretty much sums up what she does for most of the show neatly - even her voice sounds like that of a pr0n star.

At the other end of the spectrum, we have the ship constrol system with an overdeveloped personality. The ship control system actually has a physical form - it's an obnoxious little... thing (for lack of a better word) called Maria. Despite just being a ship control system, it's been given a personality that, amongst other things, has a tendency to meddle in people's lives... presumably so that it can give the story a convenient push in the right direction when it needs it. It's probably meant to be a amusing, cute little mascot, but as you may have guessed already, I found it to be an annoying little sh*t instead.

The only character that I kinda liked is Herikawa, whose personality seems genuine enough that I was able to sympathise with her problems. I found out later that she is voiced by my favourite voice actress, so that might have something to do with it. Another character worth mentioning is only worth mentioning for being outstandingly annoying - it's that ultra cliched girl with the monotonous voice. I honestly don't see the point in those type of characters, and I can't even begin to describe how that flat, emotionless voice grated on my nerves.

Good characterisation are often backed up good script. The reverse is also true. The piss poor characters of "Onegai Teacher" is underlined by its corny, lathargically repetitive script. In addition to having one of the lamest catch phrases ever - "It's top priority!" or "It's very important" depending on the translation (and it's one that doesn't improve with highly repetitive use either) - half the dialogues seem to involve calling Kei an idiot in one way or another. Most of the character's own monologues also involve calling Kei an idiot. OK! OK! I get it already - Kei's an idiot... I could have told you that from about 2 min into the first episode! Also, about half the epsiodes seems to end with our "hero" saying things along the lines of "It finally feels like the teacher and I are moving on!" Well, they seem to have trouble moving on from the same two lines in the script, let alone anything else!

The one good aspect of "Onegai Teacher" is the music. Even though I didn't think the opening theme was all that, the rest of the music is several leagues above the story content in terms of quality. There's not much to complain about the animation either, though Mizuho's hair colour stands out in a bad way for being pink/purple. All these matters little though, as the story and the characters are what makes "Onegai Teacher" an unsalvageable wreck.

Ultimately, "Onegai Teacher" is as bad, if not worse, than its title and synoposis suggest. It's an abomination of a romantic comedy where the attempted romance drama fails miserably thanks to its ludicrous story, and where the comedy is as lame as a legless camel (I suppose you could argue that's gone beyond lame, but lets not be too pedantic). Still, I can't deny that I laughed quite a lot - not with it, but at it, because it's one of those shows that's so bad it's actually really, really funny.

One thing that does surprise me about "Onegai Teacher" though, is that it doesn't contain any obvious fanservice despite the nature of its premises. But if you're disappointed to hear that, don't worry - there's an OVA episode that makes up for this oversight... but that's another review for another day.

Before I begin this review I’d like to thank Google for helping me find this show completely by accident (honestly though, I’d prefer it if you didn’t ask what I was really looking for).

Onegai Teacher (or Please Teacher for the U.S release) is the logical conclusion of all the wet dream scenarios of lonely students who wanted to bone their teacher in high school and the producers who wanted to make a profit off of them. Since I, like possibly most of the people reading this was a lonely guy in high school that had no date this story concept immediately appealed to my sensibilities ... as a nerd. I watched it, yet I hated it. Publicly denounced it, yet continued to indulge in the guilty pleasure. This is probably the first bad review I’ve written where I’ve actually watched the anime from beginning to end. And why is that? Because this is the scariest fucking anime I have ever watched in my life. Allow me to explain

The soon-to-be-victim in this tragic affair is Kei Kusanagi, an eighteen-year-old high school student who suffers from seizures that he calls “stand-stills” (yeah, they’re called seizures dude), wears glasses and has a pale complexion. So, basically the Anthony Michael Hall of high school characters, but of course his life is about to change. Enter Mizuho Kazami, who has a mysterious past but it is implied that she’s trying to leave behind her career in pornography where she had to take it from behind by two bald guys ten years her senior in order to pursue her dream of becoming a teacher. Oh yeah, she also lives right next door to Kei in his neighborhood and has the hots for him. Really? REALLY?? Really, really? Kei doesn’t even try to woo her besides help her move into her house. All he does that can even come close to a come on is that he trips and plants his head right into her cleavage, which from what I’ve read it is required by law to have at least one of these scenes in all harem or romance anime.

So these two start holding hands and breathing on each other for the first few episodes which is pretty much the equivalent of them having hot Amish sex until they’re caught by Kei’s legal guardians. To cover up the fact that Mizuho is a cradle robber in return for making sure Kei gets an A in her class they decide that Kei and Mizuho need to get married. But, they have to keep it a secret to avoid a scandal. Oh boy, here comes the hijinks! The rest of the series is twelve episodes of giving the male viewers blue balls while they live vicariously through Kei the-MILF-Master Kusanagi.

But, don’t be fooled because that is only half of the story. In fact, did you know that Mizuho is an alien? Yeah, that’s right, a fucking alien! No, I did not just make that up, nor did I pull some M. Night Shyamalan shit on you. It’s made clear pretty much from the beginning that Mizuho is in fact an alien and she wants Kei to stick every inch of his manhood into her hot reptilian vajayjay. It almost kind of makes sense, since the story takes place around the year 2011. What’s the shit that girls can’t get enough of in 2011? Twilight. Mizuho probably beamed that book up when she tried to study up on what human females find attractive and logically concluded that human males that look like Edward Cullen get massive pussy. It would also make sense that Mizuho would want to jump Kei’s bones because according to Twilight it’s perfectly acceptable to act like a total pedophile and bang a high school student because Kei is of course the most desirable male among the other students. She has been slowly seducing Kei throughout the series: wearing revealing outfits and squeezing her boobs together when the opportunity presents itself. All while wearing her fake human skin to attract unwitting human males. Why does she do all of this? Because her planet is dying. Yes, her being there to simply study the humans is a smoke-screen. In fact the only reason she is there is to breed with the humans on Earth in order to propagate her species. Though Kei even though he does know probably doesn’t mind the arrangement: He gets sex from an older woman who superficially anyway, looks smoking hot and cares about him. However, it’ll be pretty awkward when Mizuho and Kei have kids and he has to explain to the nurse at the hospital why they all look like human-xenomorph-hybrids. Along with the male killing ritual that's tradition on Mizuho's homeworld after she successfully conceives the children of her mate.

In conclusion: worse Species remake EVER!

Onegai Teacher is a comedy of errors, or as I like to refer to it, a comedy of "if these characters had a single brain cell between them this situation could be resolved quickly and without any of this stupidity." Of course most people just use comedy of errors because it's catchier.

Basically there's a young man named Kei who looks like a teenager because he has plot convenience disease which causes his body to enter into suspended animation who's going to High School because his three years in suspended animation caused him to miss finishing the first time. He ends up married to his teacher ... who's an alien from another planet because he saw her ship land and they got caught in a situation that looked bad and they couldn't think of a better story to tell the principle than the old "we're actually married lie." It's jut as idiotic as it sounds if not more-so.

You're probably thinking, is it at least funny? No, not really. The entire series has a few semi-amusing moments but it's mostly non-humour that revolves around the situation being awkward. The art in the series is decent, although they do use the "cut out content for fan-service" strategy. Like Bakuretsu Hunters, Onegai Teacher tries to be mostly comedic with some drama and it doesn't work. The "serious" moments are under-mined by the sheer idiocy of the whole thing. The voice acting is passable, but nothing special.

The Yuri Factor:

Onegai Teacher is one of those series where all the female characters are one dimensional love interests for the men. In all fairness the men aren't much more developed and this could just be the result of Shizuru Hayashiya being an incompetent writer. There is no yuri. 1/10

Overall I give this series a 3/10. It's bad but the art and voice acting are decent. The music is also kind of good but the rest of the series is so atrocious that a 3/10 is generous.

ok now this anime is not bad... it is just not very good. it's just mediocre.

it's about a lil spaz that has no life.one day he sees a alien and that alien just so happens to be his teacher. so they marry and move in with each other. are you confused? so was i. it's truly unremarkable in almost every way. now this anime is by no means bad. it just has nothing good to speak of.

the good: i can't say there was a good. the music was o.k and the artwork was not bad.

the bad: the characters. ahhh, my god they were ... so boring!!! i don't care about any of them. the only thing that could make the main character or any of the characters for that matter, interesting is if the little po-dunk town they all live in was hit by a H-bomb... no i still wouldn't care.

verdict: this anime while a waste of space is not to BAD to watch. just to BORING FOR ME to watch. it moves to slow. that the big twist of the teacher marrying the student was done poorly ( mostly because the main character is a pussy and a spaz and is just a lame) so if you have some time to burn and are not looking for something GOOD to watch then this is decent i guess. just don't look to be wow'ed it.

this is a 4 of 10

Please Teacher is a story of how a sexy alien humanoid teacher decides to fall in love with a boy with the personality about as loveable as the lint you find in the back of your dryer. In fact, watching your clothes dryer tumble around and around could be more enjoyable than watching this.

Hiding their relationship from those around them, our main characters Kei and Mizuho dance around each other's emotions while simultaneously dancing around a flaky script and so many moments of filler. It's a marathon to get through. The novelty of the show's scenario took a couple of episodes to wear off ... but once it did I sat there waiting for the next big 'wow' moment, or the next big development to unfold. But the twists and turns are unsatisfying and the supporting cast are usually cast aside for more Kei screen time, who has the appeal of a root canal.

Mizuho isn't much more exciting. Her main personality trait appears to be having Pocky in her mouth, longing for Kei because... um... he's the main character, and falling into the personality trope more typical of a 14-year-old jealous girlfriend. Riveting viewing. They're a painful couple to watch. Nothing they do, say or think is realistic. It's enough to make you pull your hair out.

There's usually a point in a bad anime where, if you're a couple of drinks deep, it can redeem itself through a so-bad-it's-good moment. Perhaps it's a funny scenario, a laughable piece of dialogue or a fanservice moment that's so over the top you can't help but cackle. Too bad there's none of that here. You'll watch our main character make atrocious decisions, lie to himself, deprive himself of what he really wants and you'll enjoy every minute of it, damn it.

This is a priority one!

I think that is about the only thing I'm going to remember about this show.

The voice acting is terrible and that's the only the start of my problems with it. I don't care for the aesthetics in the slightest, though I understood a little bit more about why because the show is 20 years old.

The characters are weak and poorly developed, though I have to give a little lot of credit to breaking from the usual high school celebrations and festivals and whatnot. That being said, I would have taken them on repeat in this case. I was going to drop ... this entirely about episode 8, but I have a hard time convincing myself to do that with anything.

Just know that if you don't watch this, you're not going to miss out on much.

At first, you might think that this is just a really extravagant advertisement for Pocky.

But not a very good one, in my opinion.

This anime was a bit too weird for me. I guess it was okay enough having a teacher fall in love with their "totally age appropriate but looks younger than their actual age" student. That's fine. The fact that he doesn't ever stop calling her "teacher", though, makes it too weird for me.

I also had a hard time relating to the characters, especially the main character who apparently goes into some weird state of being when he gets depressed about something. It was ... too much for me. I'm glad that it was only twelve episodes long.