Unlicensed Preview: My Wife is a High School Girl
“My name is Asami. I am a 17 year-old high school girl. I’ve kept this a secret from everyone, but the truth is that I’m married. My husband, Ichimaru Kyousuke-sensei, is a physics teacher at my high school.”
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While it sounds more like the title of a hentai show, Okusama wa Joshikosei (My Wife is a High School Girl) is actually the best shounen romance show to come out for a number of years now. The show’s plot is just like the title says, a high school girl is married to her physics teacher. Now upon hearing that, you might be thinking, “Hey, that’s not right!” And indeed, you get that feeling when you first start watching the show. After all, the girl is only 17 and the teacher is 25. It makes you wonder just what kind of a scumbag would possible take advantage of his students like that.
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But then about 10 minutes into the first episode, you find out that Ichimaru is actually the sweetest guy in the world. He really does love Asami very much, and he would never even consider taking advantage of her in any way. In fact, when he married her, he signed an agreement with Asami’s father never to have sexual relations with Asami until she graduated from school. Ichimaru abides by that agreement, and considering how hard it is not to give in to sexual temptation, the viewer gains respect for his character and never doubts his intentions. It’s still a mystery at this point just how they fell in love with each other and how they came to be married, but I’m looking forward to seeing that in a future episode.
But this is a show made for boys, and therefore you have to put a lot of sex into it. As it turns out, the perverted one is Asami herself. Since her husband is not even allowed to give her an intimate kiss, the young girl becomes sexually frustrated and begins to daydream about how she will finally lose her virginity to him. In many of the episodes, she schemes up some ways to convince her husband to do it. Cooking a wonderful dinner for his birthday… offering to wash his back for him… but the plan usually backfires on her and nothing ever comes of it. But still, the male audience is treated to plenty of sexy fan service in each episode.
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Another thing that I’m a sucker for would be great theme songs, and Okusama has them. Every time I listen to the first line of the OP, I know that I’ll be singing it to myself all day. “Labu Labu, chi chi chi, La-la-la, chu chu! Kyutto shite n’ ha-ah-pi!” I dare you to give this one a listen and not have it stuck in your head. This cute and poppy tune sets of the mood perfectly for the sweet side of the series. To counter that, the EP perfectly represents the sexy side. It is a very seductive song about being “your kitten of love”, while added very sexy pictures of Asami for eye-candy.
| To Sum Up… | |
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| The Good: Perfect theme songs, sexy fan service, and some of the sweetest characters ever to be animated. | Final Verdict: Okusama is one of the best anime of the summer season. It is an absolute must for anyone who loves romance anime for boys. |
| The Bad: It takes some time to get over the “this is so wrong!” feeling. | |
That is so wrong!
I’m interested in finding out how they came to be married, though, and how the husband fights back the urge to bang that hot chick. I hope this gets licensed.
Comment by Alex — August 29, 2005 @ 4:58 pm
After watching Onegai Teacher, Onegai Twins, Koi Kaze and Boku wa Imouto ni Koi wo Suru, these sort of taboo things don’t bother me.
Then again, they never did. ^_^ Though the only one that I really enjoyed was Koi Kaze. Teacher I enjoyed mildly — the rest were fluff.
Comment by KT Kore — August 29, 2005 @ 8:55 pm
I will agree on the target audience, but I have to question its quality. Story-wise, it can get over their heads, but I digress (I’ve still not yet reached ep 2, since I find it very hard to watch it at home). But overall, this is quite a good anime to watch, provided you switched off the intelligent side of your brain.
Comment by TP — August 30, 2005 @ 1:15 am
Well, it’s “Soap Opera” type anime, so yeah, it’s nothing mind-blowing or thought provoking. But one of the benefits I find with these kinds of shows is how much it helps me learn Japanese. I only have an elementary level education in the language, but I found myself understanding a good majority of the dialog. And whenever I studied for a vocab test over the summer, I would watch an episode afterwards to find most of my words said through out the show.
Comment by Scott — August 30, 2005 @ 9:14 am
Yes, i’m sure this contains very helpful dialog:
“あああ せんせい！ えっち です！”
The op sounds interesting -_-
Comment by Willuknight — September 1, 2005 @ 4:44 am
Well, now when my Japanese teacher asks me to use the word エッチ in a sentence, I’ll have a good example ready.
(To clear up things for those who don’t read Japanese, Willuknight’s example was :”Ah, Sensei! You’re so naughty!” and I just wrote “naughty”.)
Comment by Scott — September 1, 2005 @ 7:35 am
The first three-four volumes of the manga are borderline hentai. From there on, it only gets worse… or better depending on how you look at things.
Comment by abq — September 1, 2005 @ 5:18 pm
ABQ> I can well imagin that
Scot: I didn’t think Ecchi was an english loan word, therefor katakana? Ecchi is short for Hentai, or ‘H’-y
and i’d love to hear you say that to your Japanese teacher ^_^
Comment by Willuknight — September 2, 2005 @ 7:27 pm
It’s the way the Japanese say the English letter H, and therefore it’s a loan word. Take a look at the title of ふたりエッチ (Futari Ecchi).
Comment by Scott — September 2, 2005 @ 7:37 pm
Let me first say I looked up your blog on Technorati and I like much of what I am seeing here. We obviously have very different tastes, but I am not getting into any of that. What is bothering me is your preview of the unlicensed title above. By “unlicensed” I am guessing what you mean is that you downloaded the eps from Kazaa or BitTorrent and watched them in their entirety without paying for them. As the top-ranked ‘anime reviews’ blog on Technorati I hope you don’t condone this sort of behavior. Personally, I am hoping you were on a cruise ship in Japanese waters for six weeks where you watched the eps on TV without the benefit of subtitles, understanding every word spoken with your fluent grasp of the Japanese language. That must have been fun! Tell us more about it will you?
http://animesnobs.blogspot.com/2005/08/bittorrent-and-anime.html
Comment by The AnimeSnob — September 6, 2005 @ 10:44 pm
Actually, I’ve been quite vocal about my stance on fansubbing and how I believe that the fansub community does screw over the industry. Over the summer I had made a post regarding this. The post brought me a lot of negative feedback as well as unwanted attention from other sources. I took a lot of shit for it, but I still hold true to my beliefs and continue to fight for them.
My personal take on the issue is that if the show is not licensed in the US, you have no other choice but to turn to illegal fansubs. The two main reasons for this is because it is un-translated and that DVDs are region coded. They actually go out of their way to make sure you can’t watch them in the US!
However, I abide by an old rule that says that once a series is licensed, you must delete it from your hard-drive and buy the DVDs when they come out. Since I’ve only been into fansubs for only a year, I’ve really don’t have much to show for it. So far I’ve bought the DVDs to two series that I downloaded, and I’m planning on getting more when they are released in the US. Girls Bravo is a great example. Notice of how I include many links to Amazon.com to invite my audience to buy the same thing I do. I also have a “Scott’s Recent Purchases” section on my right toolbar to also promote people going out and actually spending some cash.
It’s a step that I don’t think many fansubbers actually take, and I’m very proud of it. If you wish, you can view my 400+ book manga collection and 100+ DVD anime collection via the links near the top right corner of my website. That list just keeps getting bigger and bigger as I continue to fork over more of my hard earned money into my hobby.
We’re actually not much more different then you think, Mr. Snob. I suggest you take the time to look at my other posts instead of making some pretty mean assumption directed towards me.
Comment by Scott — September 6, 2005 @ 11:23 pm
Normally, I buy all the food I eat. You can take a look at my fridge and my pantry and see all the food I’ve paid for. However, sometimes the grocery store has a candy bar I want to try and they only take cash (I only buy with credit cards). I usually swipe the candy bar and try it out, and if I like it, I buy it next time when I see a store that sells it and allows me to buy with credit cards. As you can see, I am not a shoplifter.
Hey, I don’t care that you do/don’t download fansubs or whatever, but I think your justification of downloading fansubs is a bit shaky (considering that you seem to be against fansubs in general)? You say you go and buy the stuff after it gets licensed, but does that mean you will buy the DVD even if you didn’t like the fansub? Or are you lucky enough to enjoy every fansub you d/l? I’m asking because if you hate the fansubbed series and don’t buy the DVD, aren’t you still cheating the company?
I’m not trying to make this about whether fansubs are good or bad, I’m just expanding on what Anime Snob said. This isn’t meant to be overly-critical; I merely want to demonstrate how difficult it is to maintain the moral high ground in the fansub debate. Unless of course you only buy DVD’s and use only the really shodding marketing that the distributors offer in making your decisions…
Comment by Kabitzin — September 7, 2005 @ 10:34 am
Kabitzin> the difference is that the shop has the candy bars avalible for sale
If you’re going to use a metaphore use one that works.
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あああ アニメソノブ は エッチ です！
>ランドム
Comment by Willuknight — September 9, 2005 @ 7:21 am
Well, the attitude I am reading here is that if something isn’t for sale, then it is ok to steal it. You big-time anime fans have NO CHOICE, as if compelled by cosmic forces beyond human understanding, but to steal anime because you can’t buy it here. This sounds like a dread condition indeed. Stolen of your god-given free will, you are driven to acts of larceny as if possessed. Scott, can you hand me one of the shovels you keep around here? I need to dig myself out of the bull crap so I can crawl back to reality.
Everyone has a choice and all of you have chosen to steal. Scott, to his merit, has also chosen to buy some stuff, but in coming out against fansubs while previewing unlicensed shows on this website he has also chosen to be hypocritical. No one is forcing you to do anything, and circumstances maintain that you can live and live well without this stuff. Anime is a luxury, not some kind of right. Luxuries cost money to produce.
I can’t understand how people can ignore those facts. I know that lots of you came out of your high-school days downloading stuff, or have been doing it forever and even though I throw a lot of venom around, I can sympathize with you guys too. Your ideas about anime have become so warped that it has lost all value in your eyes. Somehow you have been convinced by yourselves and others that anime isn’t actually worth spending your money on. I am here to tell you that you are wrong.
You don’t need anime to live and you are telling me and everyone else that you have no choice but to steal it. Let me tell you about some people who have no choice but to steal. They are in a place called New Orleans and their Dell XPS extreme gaming PCs with the “My Wife is a High School Girl” .avi files on them are sitting under 20 feet of saltwater. The bloated dead are floating down main street and YOU just can’t deal without your free anime. Here’s a note for all of you dry, happy college students. These are the people who have to steal to live, these are the people who have no choice. Not you.
Comment by The AnimeSnob — September 9, 2005 @ 10:02 am
So does anyone know where I could download this anime. If so please let me know I am intrigued to know how they cam to be married and how their marital life is going. As it is it looks funny. thanks Ciao
Comment by Usako — November 18, 2005 @ 11:22 pm