Onegai☆Teacher

One day, Kei Kusanagi notices a strange glowing woman by the lake. He discovers that the woman is actually an alien officer from the Galaxy Federation named Mizuho Kazami, and even more shocking—she's also his teacher! In spite of this setback, he and his teacher gradually get to know each other and a romance blossoms between them. However, soon enough, the principal of the school finds out about their relationship. The solution? Get married!

Together, the newlyweds must keep their marriage a secret, not only from Kei's high school friends, but also the Galaxy Federation. Onegai☆Teacher is the fragile but comedic love story of an alien and her student.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Kazami, Mizuho Main

Inoue, Kikuko Japanese

Kusanagi, Kei Main

Hoshi, Souichirou Japanese

Morino, Ichigo Supporting

Tamura, Yukari Japanese

Marie Supporting

Kaneda, Tomoko Japanese

Kazami, Hatsuho Supporting

Takada, Yumi Japanese

Herikawa, Koishi Supporting

Kawasumi, Ayako Japanese

Kazami, Maho Supporting

Koorogi, Satomi Japanese

Edajima, Minoru Supporting

Uchida, Naoya Japanese

Misumi, Kaede Supporting

Ohara, Sayaka Japanese

Magumo, Hyosuke Supporting

Iwata, Mitsuo Japanese

Morimoto, Kouji Producer

Ide, Yasunori Director

Kikuta, Hiromi Sound Director

Aoki, Ei Episode Director, Storyboard

Reviews

Nov 14, 2008

Skadi

Recommended

This is an interesting series to review. First because I think a lot of people are going to read the summery of this show and dismiss it right away without even giving it a try and that is really a shame. As far as romances go this is one of the more satisfying series I have watched.

Let’s face it that for a large number of people the student teacher romance that is the core of this show is probably going to offend or at the least make people feel a little uncomfortable. With so many high profile real life cases, this ... sort of thing doesn’t feel like the innocent school crush that I think almost everyone (boy or girl) had for a teacher at their school at some point in their life. To be honest I felt a little uncomfortable at times with it. Even though they do point out that Kei is 18 and do to an illness that caused him to miss 3 years of school he was held back. So legally at least no laws are being broken I suppose.

The premise of the story is, well to put it bluntly, one of the silliest if not the silliest I have ever seen in an anime (and that’s saying something really). But what develops out of this turns into a very touching romance as both develop their love and feelings for one another. The supporting characters also have romances of their own and it was refreshing to see a show in which all the female characters were not in love with the same guy. The whole alien aspect of the show and Mizuho's really reason for being on earth is really just a small subplot of the series and the story is pretty much totally focused on the romantic elements. Which is great! Also you might think a show like this would be pretty echii but it really isn’t, which was a pleasant surprise for me. Sure there is fan service but it’s pretty tame for the most part. There are a lot of adult themes as well so this isn’t a show for kids.

The show does a great job in developing all its characters. The two leads and the main supporting characters all get fleshed out very nicely and by the end of the series I really felt they changed and grew. This is really a strong point of the show. However a couple things did annoy me that forced me to knock down the rating I gave it a little. One, Kei constantly refers to Mizuho as Sensei, even when they are alone and intimate. I expected him to grow in this way but with few exceptions he almost never refers to her by her name. I know that may sound like a silly thing to some but I think it’s important. In addition it constantly reminds you of the whole indecency of the relationship I talked about above. Also Kei is also kind of an annoying wussy.

The acting is pretty good, Kei's voice actor is not that great. He kind of reinforces the whole weakling aspect of his character that got on my nerves as the show went on. The music shines though, with KOTOKO and Mami Kawada doing the songs pretty much saves my view of the overall sound. The art is great too, especially Mizuho and her mother. I love Mizuho's school hairstyle and dress! Again Kei suffers here as well as sometimes he almost looks like a girl.

I think I could have gone higher in my rating on this show, but really some of the discomfort I felt about the story takes away from my overall enjoyment of this series. But don’t get me wrong this was a great show! If you even like romance anime even a little you should watch this.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Aug 21, 2009

MajorTom

Mixed Feelings

Onegai Teacher is an alright show with some interesting ideas and some good characters, but it's wrapped in a completely ridiculous scenario.

The premise behind the events in Onegai Teacher is pretty absurd. Oh, the alien side of things is OK, if fairly standard. There's nothing much to either endorse or complain about that. But I could not suspend my disbelief for any decent amount of time over Kei's illness, it was just soo silly. I don't like the 'mystery illness' plot device as a whole because it always seems so very contrived, and Kei's illness has convenience and contrivity coming out the ... wahzoo. Even though we get a faily bare bones explanation of what the disease is, what sort of stress brings on a standstill is applied pretty inconsistantly.

Fourtunately the show sidelines the illness for the first half of the show and concentrates on the characters. Aside from episode 4 being oh so very convenient, this part of the show is alright. But when we get to the reason behind the illness, it's difficult to take seriously. The conclusion to this is done via the introduction of a new character we only saw previously in a couple 1 second flashbacks. Because we know so little about this character and the relationship between Kei, this part of the plot loses a lot of impact. However, that part of the story does have a sound basis so it's not too bad. If the illness itself wasn't so absurd that part of the story would have been much better.

Where the show does shine is the characters. The relationship between Kei and Mizuho starts off quite timidly and grows at a steady pace, and even though the Hyosuke and Kaede thing comes out of nowhere the show runs with it and makes does a good job of it. The group of friends work quite well together. The only characters that didn't come off well were Ichigo and Mahou. Ichigo was just too flat and emotionless to be convincing, and I didn't like Mahou at all. I assume she was supposed to be a character like Skuld from Oh! My Goddess, but instead of coming off as someone who adores her sister, she looks like a vindictive, possesive bitch.

There's nothing much to say about the animation and artwork. They both do their jobs well, if not standout. Thought character designs do a good job of making each character look quite unique, and the artwork is quite colouful. The music compliments the show, but it's pretty standard stuff. The OP and ED are alright, but again, nothing particuarly great abou them.

The dub work was good overall. Bridget Hoffman does a fantasitic job as Mizuho Kazami, she portrays her timid earnestness very well. Ichigo's voice was far too deadpan, even for her character and Kei did sound a little too weedy, but the others did a good job overall.

The underpinnings of Onegai Teacher are too silly to take seriously, but it's got some good characters in it and some amusing jokes so it's not all bad. More a reccomnedation for fans of the romance genre.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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May 25, 2011

kekekeKaj

Not Recommended

"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.

Reviewer’s Rating: 3

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