Forbidden love made into a comedy

Don’t let the title of this post deceive you, reader. This isn’t a sharp left turn into chronicling French President Emmanuel Macron’s married life, nor is it me announcing that I contacted an old teacher and got down on one knee for a short-lived matrimony. Instead, we’re diving back into my community college days where I watched an ecchi anime known only as Why the Hell Are You Here, Teacher!?

Known in Japanese as Nande Koko ni Sensei ga!?, the series is about a quartet of female high school teachers of different personalities and subjects who develop romantic feelings for their students. A slice of forbidden fruit that can’t work due to a power dynamic that this anime seems to have a lot of fun with and far from the only series animated or not to try this. Most other anime go the “incest = wincest” route of forbidden fruit. From what I’ve seen, there’s a bit of overlap between teacher-student romance and office worker romance, appearance-wise as both tend to feature smartly dressed love interests with professional presentations, but under scrutiny these “professionals” aren’t immune to clumsy f[clicks]k-ups from time to time.

What I remember from Sexy Teacher, Bombshell Wife was that the four teachers all behaved different in front of their respective classes compared to their love interests. Language teacher Kana Kojima was dubbed “Kojima the Demon” because she’s known to be demanding in class, but in front of her love interest, Ichiro Sato, she can behave just like Hinata Hyuga, albeit less creepy. Art teacher Mayu Matsukaze is a busty shortstack with a demure personality, affectionately nicknamed “Lady Matsukaze” for her kind personality. Cupid’s Arrow also makes a fool of her when she’s next to her love interest, the towering gentle giant Rin Suzuki who “helped” her deliver important paperwork. For romantic backstories, this is right up there with a comedic plot of being helped by the protagonist and the “help” in question was just a dropped pencil, or a notice of an untied shoe. Well, it’s simple…

Gym teacher Hikari Hazakura is a trademark, tanned, big tittied tomboy, the kind who’d encourage a novice swimmer to improve by starting at the deep end and giving an after action report, hoping to see her students become Michael Phelps. One student, Takashi Takahashi, is the one she gets real touchy-feely with. They later develop romantic feelings with each other. Finally, there’s the school nurse: a Kuudere named Rei Ayanami Chizuru Tachibana, who’s been dubbed “Absolute Zero,” and the nickname isn’t lost on her in the series. She wants to be closer to the students, notably one Ko Tanaka, and over the course of their arc, they grow so close they lose their virginities together in a love hotel. Going further than Kojima who was engaged to Sato at the end, a bonus chapter reveals that they started a family together. Obligatory, “silent in the streets, freaky in the sheets.”

Ecchi funtimes all around, but with most anime these days merely advertising the manga without guaranteeing a longer run, the anime covered four arcs spread across a miserable 12 episodes. We’re far and away from the likes of Azumanga Daioh and few are expecting a Yotsuba-to! adaptation anytime soon, but AzuDaioh was able to stretch and progress a four-panel manga over the course of 26 episodes in 2002.

But expanding on a romcom could ruin it, you’d argue and if The Way of the Househusband on Netflix is an indicator, then yes, putting effort where it isn’t needed and ignoring it where it is needed would’ve netted us a piss-poor adaptation of Yakuza Yesterday, Husbando Today. So why don’t I look back at Why Does My Teacher Want My Heart? as fondly as others? Largely because of its length.

I gave it some slack yonks ago when I watched it because it did make me laugh with the short time I had with it and also the horniness at the time was on autopilot. My braincells fired up at the end when all the teachers and love interests got together toward the end to announce that some of them were dating, engaged, married, or expecting.

And then it just ended. I didn’t know at precisely at the time, but with only 12 episodes, it felt like more could’ve done even with just the Fab Four and their Lovely Maidens. The source material even lists more than just the characters that got to the anime. So, is this a recommendation in favor of the series or not?

Again, the braincells were out to lunch while the horniness took command, but looking back it’s nothing more serious than a “haha look at this fanservice” gradually evolving into “you may now kiss the bride.” My post history is the evidence needed when I say that I’ve seen this s[bells]t before. It’s also evidence that I know what I like and while I’m not gonna say it wasn’t up my alley, if I’m gonna watch ecchi/fanservice/hentai, a plot can go a long way. Came for the booba, stayed for the story gambit and this may be part of the pipeline into erotic fiction, or it may have been a bit earlier than that… Hmmm…

I cannot say with certainty. For my recommendation, you’re more than welcome to see I Found My Wife in High School, and She Wasn’t a Fellow Classmate up to the last episode and continue in the manga to see what didn’t make the cut, it has 12 volumes and the anime was followed up with an OVA I haven’t seen in 2019. But for something somewhat more grounded, feel free to pair it with 2002’s Please Teacher!

Off topic, I simultaneously adore this old art style and can’t disassociate it from some hentai I’ve seen or read recently.

Happy 4th of July, fellow Americans!