Sadly, this is not Itaba’s finest work
Creative Staff
Story/Art: Hiroshi Itaba
Translation/Adaptation: Leighann Harvey
What They Say
After having problems finding a job, Shinji starts attending his step-mother’s continuing education school to get some sort of certification. However, the school is full of perverted female teachers looking to bear his child, who would be in line to take over the school… The battle for his seed is now in session!!!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
For as long as I’ve been reading hentai, Hiroshi Itaba’s work always stood out. Hot & Steamy and Cosplay Girlfriend are two that come to mind, favorites because of his ability to not sacrifice story and characters for sex scenes. Most authors will rush through already paper thin plots in favor of showing off the goods, but Itaba puts a lot of care and attention into his work. As such, I found Teach Me A Lesson to be a complete disappointment. Lazy, nonsensical plotting and weak writing gives way to frequent and boring sex scenes that lack the spark of eroticism usually found in his other stories. His character motivations are unclear and even the artwork is a tad underwhelming.
Shinji wants to get a job but without any specialties or unique skills, employment has continues to elude him. To be more attractive for prospective employers, he enrolls in a continuing education school that specializes in certifications for all kinds of disciplines. WIthout any sort of proper preamble, it is revealed that Shinji’s father ran the school as principal, only to pass away leaving Shinji’s stepmother Saeko to take over. The younger boy’s arrival has stirred something within Saeko, a lustful longing for her dead husband. She makes the choice to sexually pursue her stepson so that she may have the grandchild her husband always wanted. To keep him close, Saeko allows him to enroll and gives him a janitorial job to pay for tuition. Little time is spent establishing the relationship between Shinji and his stepmother, let alone his father who only shows up in a colorized flashback. Saeko throws herself at Shinji with such sexual ferocity that we are meant not to care or worry about the narrative shortcomings of this introduction.
Not only does Shinji have to contend with Saeko, who is often seen hunting the boy like some oversexed Michael Myers, the other teachers at the school have learned about his lineage. Did I mentioned that Shinji is set to inherit the school? Neither does the book all that well. To secure permanent employment, a pair of cooking instructors get frisky with Shinji as a means to get pregnant or married because, as the wife of the principal, surely they couldn’t get fired! Shinji’s schooling is constantly interrupted by the affections of these women. He even gets to bang the school’s swim star, a scene that is little more than fluff. The woman has no reason to have sex with him, she doesn’t have anything hanging over her head like the other teachers, making their time together ultimately unnecessary. His only ally in all this is Yagi, a woman he knew from junior high school that teaches the Conversational English class. Shinji and Yagi eventually develop a sexual relationship, one that is far more pure and honest than that of the other instructors.
Eventually, Shinji has an encounter with a mysterious woman named Hoshino whose role as an antagonist isn’t very clear. She has some sort of power over Shinji but it is never revealed what she has done to turn him into a mindless, sexy hungry slave. Hypnotism? Voodoo? The power of her boobs? The final chapters involving this woman spin out of control that when the solution to break Shinji of Hiroshi’s spell is for the other women, specifically Saeko, to have sex with him. She fails to save him and it is Yagi who steps in and saves the day and becomes his chosen lover. The whole affair is over at the blink of an eye. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense but by then, I was so disappointed by the work that I ceased to care at that point.
Teach Me A Lesson is a sad mess. The whole thing feels rushed and unfocused and the story fails to capture interest after the first few chapters. Even the sex is dull! It is nearly the same for every woman Shinji meets and never gets any more adventurous than the threesome witht he cooking instructors. Sex follows a pretty strict pattern: girl goes down on Shinji, Shinji cums on her face, they have vanilla sex, Shinji runs away. For as pointless as the scene between Shinji and the swim star, it is decidedly more titillating only because of how sexy the girl looks in her swimsuit and a well drawn shot of her going down on him underwater. Coming from Cosplay Girlfriend, which offered so many different and adventurous situations and pairings, this collection of scenes is nothing special.
In Summary
Teach Me A Lesson made me sad because I know that Hiroshi Itaba is capable of much better work. This might have worked better as an anthology work considering the disconnect between most of the chapters and pairings. But even then, it wouldn’t match the standard I have come to expect.
Content Grade: D
Art Grade: B-
Packaging Grade: B
Text/Translation Grade: B
Age Rating: Mature (For Adults 18+ Only)
Released By: Project-H
Release Date: June 10, 2014
MSRP: $17.95
