Young looking Kei gets to live out a teenage boy’s fantasy in Please, Teacher!

Please, Teacher! V.1, Hot for Teacher. V.2, Meet the In-Laws. V.3, The Honeymoon’s Over. V.4, Hello Again.
TV series (12 episodes), 2002. Director: Yasunori Ide. V.1, four episodes/100 minutes; V.2-4, three episodes/75 minutes. Price & format: DVD bilingual $29.98. Distributor: Bandai Entertainment.

Adolescent boys notoriously want their high school fantasy-comedies more raunchy than the girls do. Please, Teacher! (Onegai Teacher!), a 12-episode TV series (January 10 through March 28, 2002; animated by Daume) is age-rated 16+ for risque innuendo, but it actually blends TV sitcom “misunderstandings” with a tender true-love romantic plot suitable for mid-teens of both genders.

Kei Kusanagi has just moved in with his doctor uncle in a rural Japanese town, and entered its high school as a freshman. Kei looks like a frail 15. His new schoolmates know his uncle is treating him, but they do not know he is actually 18 and suffering from a rare disorder that has retarded his growth. Since Kei does not want to be treated as a freak, the school administration allows him to pose as a real 15 year old.

Kei accidentally discovers that his school’s knockout-gorgeous new teacher, Mizuho Kazami, is actually a rookie agent of the Galaxy Federation observing Earth’s civilization. Since humans are not supposed to know of the aliens, Mizuho is required to keep Kei under closer observation than a normal homeroom teacher-student relationship. They have to become husband and wife! Kei’s uncle and the school principal are dismayed by the “marriage,” but since Kei is 18, it’s legal. However, since Kei is pretending to be 15, the principal insists that they maintain a regular teacher-student relationship in public for propriety’s sake.

The early episodes emphasize the risque humor. Kei is in the dream situation of every male mid-teen whose developing hormones are excited by a really sexy young teacher, but his nerdy personality makes him too embarrassed to take advantage of it. Mizuho’s spaceship’s malfunctioning teleportation device keeps transporting him, her or both into compromising situations. Kei’s close school pals, two boys and three girls, keep dropping in on either him (to socialize) or her (for help with lessons), forcing one or the other to hide that they are living together now.

As the school year goes by, the episodes become more serious romantic dramas. Kei and Mizuho are both shy young people (she is about 21) trying to work out their own relationships. Kei’s school pals begin pairing off (with some adolescent fumblings about how far they should go), and the openness of their romances emphasizes Kei’s and Mizuho’s pain of living a lie. Koishi, a sweet girl, is falling in love with Kei. Kei likes her, and does not know how to politely discourage her. Should he? Mizuho now trusts him enough to release him from close watch.

Should they give up their secret marriage so she can concentrate on her galactic observation assignment, while Kei and Koishi can develop a normal romance? Or have Kei and Mizuho come to really love each other? Episodes 8 through 12 turn into a serious romantic soap opera, although the final episode made for the DVD set ends the series with an overload of screwball lewd sci-fi humor as Kei’s alien nymphomaniac mother-in-law comes to Earth for a visit.