Please Teacher, Vol. 3: The Honeymoon's Over (2002)
Review by Dindrane
Film:
DVD:

Screenplay by Yosuke Kuroda
Directed by Yasunori Ide
Character Design by Taraku Uon and Hiroaki Gohda Starring the Voices of Souichi Hoshi, Kikuko Inoue, Dave Wittenberg, Bridget Hoffman, and Wendee Lee

Features:

• Music Clip #2
  
• Textless opening (non-effect version)
  
• Textless ending #2
  
• Design gallery
  

Dindrane's Anime Warnings:

• Sensual situations
• The appearance of inappropriate love
• Alien and human boobages
• Teen angst

Released by: Bandai
Region: 1
Rating: 16+
Anamorphic: N/A; appears in its original 1.33:1 format.

My Advice: At least rent it; own it if you like comedies or romance

The first two volumes of Please Teacher introduced Kei and his mysterious "standstills" that caused him to remain in a coma-like state for three years; while he's actually eighteen, he looks fifteen and is in high school making up for lost time. We also met his teacher Ms. Mizuho, who happens to also be an alien assigned to watch over this backward planet of Earth. Forced into a marriage to protect her secret, Kai and Mizuho try to have something of a relationship while also keeping that relationship secret.

This third volume leads to increasingly complex interpersonal relationships. Because Ichigo is afraid of her own standstills and wasted life, she is very concerned about Koishi suffering and wasting time longing for Kei, who continues to ignore her. Kei feels for Ichigo and doesn't want to see her fall into a permanent standstill, but the only answer, he thinks, is to pursue Koishi, even when he loves and is secretly married to Mizuho. Rather than delve into serious issues of morality, polyamory, and so forth, the show takes a typically lighter route and looks at how Mizuho and Kei would feel trying to live a lie. Meanwhile, Kei's friends Hyosuke and Kaede are pursuing an extracurricular relationship of their own; can they survive the pressure? This is one of the rare shows that can rely even once upon misunderstandings as a plot device and yet not be incredibly irritating...perhaps because such devices are not used more than once or twice and are not ridiculously drawn out.

The look and sound of the show are both great. The colors are bright and distinct, making the most out of the show's light-hearted and primarily comic feel. The English voice actor for Ichigo, Julie Ann Taylor, deserves a special mention for her work in this volume. Not only does she manage to build her character tremendously, she carries emotion and meaning beautifully.

The features list is nice and stacked: we get another music clip, which is much like a music video, showing off the series art, along with secondary, clean versions of the opening and closings. Fans of the show's attractive style will appreciate the ability to enjoy the opening and closing scenes sans text. The design gallery, as with all galleries of this ilk, is a great way to see the progress of a character or aspect of the show from concept to finished form, as well as specific details of costuming separated and shown for the character-creating details they are; what color a person wears or what their hair looks like helps to create our impressions of them, and viewers can see this process nicely in design galleries.

If you're looking for a fun, engaging show that won't make you think too hard, then Please Teacher could very well be it. If you like romantic comedy or light-hearted shows, then be sure to pick this one up.