Students and teachers, oh my.
What They Say:
Kawanuma West may be a public school, but some of its students are about to get private lessons in sex ed courtesy of four very attractive teachers! To be clear, none of our lady educational professionals begin their semesters by writing “get involved with a fortunate male member of my class” in their daily planners… but strange and inexplicable things keep happening to thrust our teacher/pupil combos into sexually charged situations where something’s bound to happen!
Whether it’s falling into water, doors ripping off clothing, or that frequent staple of Japanese school life, the accidental breast/face collision, these poor ladies just can’t help it. And what are the guys supposed to do as they’re pulled deeper and deeper into titillating TILF traps of epic proportions? It’s time to come and learn in Why the Hell Are You Here Teacher!?
The Review:
Audio:
The audio presentation for this release brings us the original Japanese language track in stereo along with an English language dub, both of which are encoded using the DTS-HD MA lossless codec. The series has a few fantastical moments from time to time but largely operates in the realm of the slice of life genre, just with a good bit of sexual comedy. That means it’s pretty dialogue-oriented throughout and there’s some nice placement with it in how it sets the stage with the cast. This can bring in some decent depth from time to time in how they’re laid out and what they’re interacting with, but a lot of it is a standard and natural design that flows across the forward soundstage. The music is the richest part of it as you’d expect in this lossless form and we didn’t have any dropouts or distortions during regular playback of either language track.
Video:
Originally airing in 2019, the transfer for this TV series is presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.78:1 in 1080p using the AVC codec. The twelve-episode series and OVA are spread across a single disc as episodes come in at thirteen minutes each with credits. Animated by Tear studio, the show is one that works with a number of vibrant colors that fit perfectly, giving it something that really stands out beautifully. There are a lot of detailed backgrounds working off real locations and that gives it a very rich and lived-in feeling as you’d expect, but it blends well with the character animation. I loved the look of the show during simulcast with its character details and the bouncy nature that it handles so lovingly. This release is also the uncensored version, not the broadcast version, so it’s got all the nudity that you want from it. The solidity of the colors is spot on and the encoding keeps it from blockiness or noise during regular playback. I love the visual design of the show and the job done on bringing it to home video here is pretty strong overall.
Packaging:
The packaging for this release comes in a standard-sized Blu-ray case that has an o-card with artwork different than the case itself. The o-card has the familiar key visual that features Kana and Mayu on the cover looking cute with their distinctive designs and curves while the back cover brings in two more teachers in mild states of undress to hint at what’s to come. The premise is covered well and the shots from the show are far too small to be of use here to highlight both the animation design and what kind of fanservice to expect. The summary digs in pretty deep on the ideas so it serves well there. The extras listing is tiny! The bottom, done on top of graph paper, features a good technical grid using black, white, and pink to show how the release is put together. The case artwork itself is a wraparound piece that features our four leading ladies together at an outdoor hot spring set against the mountains where we get to see them all topless. Since it covers front and back and there’s nothing on the reverse side, it’s all there is but it’s welcome that they embraced the fanservice here as they did.
Menu:
The single-disc release has a cute menu that’s done in static form where we get a great rough illustration of Kana leaning into a stuffed animal version of Ichiro that’s just adorable. With a few widget pieces around to give it al little more to work with, it’s bright and colorful but has the right soft elements. The navigation along the left is done with graph paper for the background and utilizes pink bars with great elements for the episode numbers and titles but black text for the actual titles themselves. Everything loads quickly and smoothly and it’s a breeze to get around in both as the main menu and as the pop-up menu.
Extras:
The only extras included here are the clean versions of the opening and closing sequences.
Based on the manga by Soboru known as Nande koko ni sensei ga!?, this half-length episode series is had a twelve-episode run plus an OVA from Tear Studio. The original work began in 2016 in Weekly Young Magazine and Soborou has ten volumes out for it so far. The anime adaptation has Toshikatsu Tokoro as the hands-on director and episodes clock in at about twelve minutes in length, which there are a few like that this season. I’m not a huge fan of that length but it’s something that allows comedy series to work a bit better than trying to extend gags or manga chapters out for too long in a full-length episode. We’ve had a number of these over the years and they’re able to breathe more than the real short-form series and have a good bit of running time to work with.
The show focuses on Ichiro Sato, your typical average male lead student that populates many a series. What he has, however, is the uncanny ability to just end up in the worst situations with his teacher. Kana Kojima is on the younger side for teachers and absolutely attractive in a way that you know would drive men of most any age bonkers. And while this kind of ability may be something that you’d think would be fun it’s actually pretty terrifying since you could land into some serious trouble. We see this at the start as Kana uses the men’s restroom since there are problems with the women’s and Ichiro just goes right into the stall as she’s working through things. A stall whose lock doesn’t work, hence becoming a more complicated problem than it would be if it worked. Kana’s a tough teacher that’s even able to put parents in their places so you know Ichiro is going to get dealt with pretty harshly. Opening on a story about her doing her best to hold it in while he stands there? Oh, he’s potentially a dead man in a situation that just gets worse and worse.
Later in the episode we see him head to the infirmary as he’s struggling a bit and figuring it’ll be empty only to discover that Kana is in there as she’s dealing with a cold. Of course, that means she’s dressed down a bit in a way that ups her attractiveness even more and Ichiro finds himself now doing his best to help her with whatever she needs. Of course, rifling through a medicine cabinet leads to some awkward moments as what she needs can’t be taken… Orally. She’s in desperate need so she lets him handle it but you know how ridiculous the whole thing is. The censoring such moments in the original simulcast was amusing and thankfully not just a big line of white light but in the uncensored version here it just goes full-on nudity as you’d like it to. I do like that Ichiro really is frantic and frustrated by everything, generally not coming across as aroused or anything, but the situations are just so far past the realm of reality that you can only treat it as pure comedy mixed with male wish fulfillment in what they’d want to have happen.
The show embraces this kind of material pretty well as it moves forward and just runs with all kinds of silly situations that put them in more moments of undress. We get another pairing with the teacher/student combo of Mayu and Rin, for example, and that leads to a lot of awkward situations well, including in bringing in both Ichiro and Kana to some of the situations as it progresses. Thankfully, before that really gets dealt with, we get a good bit of time with our original pair. There’s an amusing laundromat sequence that has Kana’s confidence stripping down in there and we have the hilarity of Ichiro’s mother being completely in favor of this relationship – to the point that she gets Kana pretty drunk so Ichiro can properly move the relationship to the next level. Parents in anime shows can always be amusing and this one doesn’t disappoint at all.
But for a show that’s all about exposing itself, it takes a delight in really making it fun. We get a whole beach episode that provides for more moments of nudity – they’re pretty much required – but it also sets us up for some really great moments of swimsuits and just pure visual fanservice. And that’s a big part of the appeal of the show. Coming up with situations that has Ichiro surprised and/or uncomfortable with how thing go down, Kana getting all into a tizzy and ending up with situations where she has to strip down or something else that plays up her sexuality, and it turns into pretty much every pratfall you’re used to seeing play out. I will say that I enjoyed the show more when it focuses on Kana than on Mayu, simply because I like her character and design more, but Mayu has some fun moments as well. And Rin at least carries himself differently without the same kind of overreactions that Ichiro brings to the table. I do think that the expansion on the cast is the right thing but at the same time, I just wanted more Ichiro and Kana.
In Summary:
Why The Hell Are You Here, Teacher? is the kind of show that will turn away a lot of people because it’s all about sexual misadventures – big time. It’s going to bring up a lot of uncomfortable moments while trying to play it for comedy. But it’s also basically just fantasy and something that will make a lot of people laugh with how awkward and unrealistic it is. I can see some problematic material coming up and totally get why it won’t work for a lot of people, but for those that like to mix something utterly ridiculous into their queue outside of the serious stuff or the heartwarming stuff, this definitely fits the bill. It’s basically a softcore hentai series playing out with what are essentially comedy scenes “cut” from something else. Sentai’s release delivers exactly what I was looking for with it as it’s a solidly put together release with a fun dub that lets the cast just enjoy the wackiness and play it straight when they can. I’m also glad we got the kind of o-card slipcover and case artwork that we did since it just shows they’re leaning into the material.
Features:
Japanese DTS-HD MA 2.0 Language, English DTS-HD MA 2.0 Language, English Subtitles, Clean Opening, Clean Closing
Content Grade: B
Audio Grade: B+
Video Grade: A-
Packaging Grade: B+
Menu Grade: B
Extras Grade: B-
Released By: Sentai Filmworks
Release Date: May 26th, 2020
MSRP: $49.98
Running Time: 195 Minutes
Video Encoding: 1080p AVC
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1 Widescreen
Review Equipment:
Sony KDL70R550A 70″ LED 1080P HDTV, Sony PlayStation3 Blu-ray player via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.
