Original Run: January 10, 2002 - March, 28, 2002 Number of Episodes: 12 Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance, Science Fiction
***Warning, the following may contain spoilers for Please Teacher. Reader discretion is advised.***
Series Synopsis
High schooler Kei Kusanagi (voiced by Soichiro Hoshi) is lying by the side of a lake when there is a sudden flash of light. Something crashes into the water, and Kei is shocked by the mysterious appearance of a beautiful red-headed woman. These unexplainable events are too much for Kei, and he falls unconscious.
The next morning, Kei wakes up in his bed and believes the night before was only a dream. At school, news spreads of a gorgeous new teacher. Sure enough, at the start of class, Miss. Mizuho Kazami (voiced by Kikuko Inoue) walks in. To his astonishment, Kei instantly recognizes Mizuho as the person he saw by the lake.
Once school lets out, Mizuho confronts Kei and tells him that she is an alien sent to observe Earth. Kei promises to keep Mizuho’s identity a secret. In return, he offers one of his own. While he might look like a fifteen-year-old, Kei is actually eighteen due to a disease he has dubbed standstills. The two quickly become close, and their relationship soon turns into a romantic one.
Series Positives
I thought about skipping this segment.
There wasn’t much to like about Please Teacher. There is absolutely no reason to waste your time watching this show.
If there were anything positive I could say about this series, it would be two things.
First, Mizuho.
She was adorable enough to be passively tolerable. Don’t get me wrong; she was as flat and unoriginal as you can imagine. Still, to her credit, she wasn’t as bad as every other character in this series.
Second, episode thirteen, the OVA.
This OVA was what the show should have been. It wasn’t anything special, but there was an energy the rest of the series lacked. Everyone suddenly had an actual personality to enjoy instead of bland, inconsequential lumps of background filler. There was even a bit of humor that thoroughly outshone all previous attempts at comedy. Most importantly, though, I finally felt a connection between the two main characters.
Unfortunately for Please Teacher, one OVA can’t make up for twelve episodes of utter bull s@#$.
Series Negatives
Let’s have some fun, shall we?
With Please Teacher, it became a chore to start the next episode. At no time during my viewing would I call this series an experience enjoyable. The sheer absurdity of this show was a joke on to itself.
To start this section: Kei Kusanagi.
Kei is one of the most annoying characters I have ever come across. His main personality traits were – well, that’s the thing. Kei didn’t have a personality. All his actions, as well as his entire state of mind, were determined by convenience.
If this story needed him to be calm and rational (which was rare), he was calm and rational. If he had to be charming and compassionate (which was uncommon), he was charming and compassionate. If he needed to be whiny, wimpy, and awkward (which was damn near always), he was whiny, wimpy, and awkward.
But as bad as Kei was, his friends were an anomaly.
First, you had Koishi (voiced by Ayako Kawasumi). She was a girl who, for some reason, had strong feelings towards Kei. It wasn’t that her reasons didn’t make sense; they simply didn’t exist. Koishi never said why she like Kei.
To be fair to her, Kei had one surprisingly good scene. It was where she confessed her feelings to Kei. This moment was the only time I felt the slightest bit of interest in this series. Sadly, it didn’t take this show long before completely undermining it.
Second, there was Ichigo (voiced by Yukari Tamura). She was disappointing because she’s the kind of character I usually like. Ichigo had an annoying habit of reaching unfounded yet somehow correct conclusions. With no justification or evidence to back her up, she always knew what was going on and what people were thinking.
Third, there was Hyosuke (voiced by Mitsuo Iwata), who lacked any understanding of personal space. I can’t really say much more about him other than this show also put a lot of unnecessary attention on him.
While all these people had their own specific problems, as a group, they did this annoying trick of somehow being everywhere at any time. No joke, Kei and Mizuho could be on an isolated island in the middle of the ocean on a different planet, and these people would find a way to crash the party.
Returning to Kei, I failed to mention my biggest issue with him. An issue which, incidentally, was also the primary reason I hated this show. Kei was an irritating little twat who blamed all his problems on a condition that was so remarkably unbelievable.
Kei suffering from his Standstills, was utter nonsense. Therefore, it was convenient that he was the only person in the world with such a condition. The core idea of this affliction wasn’t all that bad. However, its implementation in the story was terrible. Its only purpose was to give this narrative a hint of tragedy.
Except, Please Teacher couldn’t even get this right. You know how I said Kei was the only person in the entire world that suffered from Standstills. That wasn’t true. There was one other person on the planet who also had this one-of-a-kind disease. And it just so happened that this other person was a close personal friend of Kei. Bull s@#$; f@#$ you; this series needed to stop pull junk out of its ass.
One last thing:
Please Teacher was so because insufferable it didn’t make any damn sense. Nothing in this show had a reason to exist; nothing led to anything.
Kei’s friends showed up in places they had no Earthly business being in. Next, Kei actively made things worse by choosing the dumbest options possible. After that, this series filled itself with subplots that served no purpose, side characters with no bearing on the plot, and shoehorned conveniences that should not have – could not have – exist.
To top it all off, this show’s very gimmick was irrelevant. Mizuho being an alien from f@#$ing outer space, added nothing to the story.
Final Thoughts
Don’t; simply do not watch this show.
The characters were annoying; the plot was a joke; nothing about this worked. I am so glad that I am done with this series.
There is nothing more I can say. Please Teacher can be skipped.
But these are just my thoughts. What are yours? Have you seen this series? How would you advise Please Teacher? Leave a comment down below because I would love to hear what you have to say.
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For Anime Hajime, I’m LofZOdyssey, and I’ll see you next time.
