Why the hell are you here, Teacher!? Review

Produced by the now-defunct Tear Studio and directed by Hiraku Kaneko and Toshikatsu Tokoro, Why the hell are you here, Teacher!? is a short-form ecchi comedy series based on the manga by Soborou, that sees four staff members of two related high schools in Kawanuma each placed into compromising situations with one of their students who then quickly becomes the object of their affections.

The show is split into four arcs comprising of around three or four episodes each, focusing on each central couple: Ichiro Sato and Japanese language teacher Kana Kojima, Rin Suzuki and art teacher Mayu Matsukaze, Takashi Takahashi and PE teacher Hikari Hazakura, and finally Ko Tanaka and school nurse Chizuru Tachibana. The plot is generally episodic, where each episode sets up an embarrassing or erotic situation between the student and his teacher, with the resolution somehow deepening the romantic bond between them. As much as I’d like to say this is just a wholesome schoolboy fantasy, let’s face it, we all know where this is heading as the show quickly proves itself to be utterly ridiculous perverted trash with the ultimate objective of getting you off on cheap titillation.

It unashamedly knows what it is trying to do and for the most part it does it well enough, mostly thanks to how silly the situations get, from finding your female teacher in the guy’s toilets in the cubicle that doesn’t lock properly, to a fountain squirting water up your teacher’s nether regions when you pick her up out of the pond she fell in, or to somehow ending up inside a bear costume with your teacher who hasn’t got any other clothes on. As you can tell, some of the stuff that it comes up with is just insane, and I’ve got to admit that I did have a giggle at quite a few of them, mainly because of how cringey or cheesy they were. It doesn’t go quite into full hentai territory and often feels like it is straining to hold itself back with this being a TV show, but it does do a good job of teasing your imagination so you fill out the blanks for the stuff that they can’t show beyond euphemistic imagery.

While it does rely on what the viewer is most into, I found the first half of the show to be the best of what is on offer here, as it mainly focuses on Ichiro and Kana’s developing relationship which is probably the most realistic of the four pairings. The couple’s hidden past that gets revealed at the end of their arc is surprisingly sweet and wholesome for a series such as this, and I think that made me want to root for them more than any of the others. It also helps that a lot of the gags feel rather fresh at this point, as when the second half comes around, it quickly runs out of ideas and starts to recycle jokes that it made earlier on, just with different characters. As a result, it does become boring to watch, particularly with how forgettable the male leads are, and, as much as it tries to connect the different arcs together, each couple generally gets dumped out of the show as soon as they start dating, which makes it difficult to get attached to them in any way. They do occasionally reappear at certain points, but there is generally no further meaningful development until the final episode and OVA where they all properly get together as a group.

The work that has gone into the character designs is clearly more focused on the female characters, with the male characters being very bland and faceless, so much so that I struggled to remember any of their names, although this is likely done on purpose to allow you to insert yourself into their positions. The teachers themselves follow basic stereotypes but are fun enough to make the series at least somewhat entertaining. Kana is your stereotypical sexy teacher with good looks and a very tight-fitting outfit, Mayu is a cute and clumsy airhead, Hikari could be one of dozens of tracksuit-wearing teachers that pervade the medium, and while Chizuru may appear cold and calculating, she’s just shy and isn’t good at expressing her true feelings.

I think a lot of the credit for making the characters come to life goes to the voice actresses, with a couple of surprisingly big names appearing in the show. Sumire Uesaka (Girls und Panzer, Don’t Toy with Me, Miss Nagatoro) absolutely nails the role of Kana, while Yuko Goto (The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, Puella Magi Madoka Magica) applies her characteristically sweet and high voice to Mayu, which fits the character well. Also appearing are Shizuka Ishigami (Food Wars!, Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?) who voices Hikari, and Nozomi Yamamoto (The IDOLM@STER Cinderella Girls, PriPara) who voices Chizuru.

The English dub is pretty good too, and really leans into the cheesy nature of the show. You can tell that the English voice actors are rolling with it and just letting rip, and it honestly gives something more to the male characters who are played by their Japanese counterparts a little too straight. Austin Tindle’s screams of “Why the hell are you here, teacher!?” are just perfect as he really gets into the role of playing Ichiro, while Andrew Love works well as the gruff Rin Suzuki. If not for my love of some of the Japanese voice actresses, I would recommend going for the English dub as it just fits the nature of the show a lot better.

The animation here is surprisingly decent for this kind of show, although being what it is, it doesn’t particularly have much to work with. The backgrounds are nice but lacking in variation with most scenes happening in school, at a beach, or in someone’s home, while the character animation is good enough to reflect the overall impact of the scene, and it knows exactly just where to place each shot. Being the home video release, it is also completely uncensored, allowing you to experience it without the obstacles of the TV broadcast version.

The soundtrack, composed by Gin from BUSTED ROSE, works well with the show, punctuating each scene with an appropriately cheesy musical cue that you’ll soon learn to spot as you move through the series. The opening theme, “Bon♡Kyuu♡Bon wa Kare no Mono♡”, sung by Sumire Uesaka is surprisingly catchy and works well enough on its own in that it’s one I can always pick out when listening to the album it is featured on, “NEO PROPAGANDA”. The opening animation also switches things up with its last shot changing between each main female character for each arc. This also happens for the vocals of the ending theme “Ringo-iro Memories”, which is a cute and fun little song.

The UK release of the series is brought to us by MVM, with all twelve episodes and the thirteenth episode OVA on a single Blu-ray disc, with audio options including the English dub and the original Japanese language track with English subtitles. The only extras on the disc are the clean opening and ending, and trailers for other titles licensed by Sentai Filmworks.

Overall, Why the hell are you here, Teacher!? gives us a school-based ecchi comedy series that is filled with cheap titillation and bottom-of-the-barrel entertainment that’s good enough for a quick fix but is ultimately forgettable beyond the odd joke or two. If you want a more meaningful look at taboo relationships, you’d be far better off watching something like Domestic Girlfriend or Scum’s Wish than wasting a few hours with this.