AKA: Natural

Genre: Hentai

Length: OAV, 4 episodes, 30 minutes each

Distributor: VHS and R1 DVD from Anime 18 out of print.

Content Rating: NC-17 (explicit sex, kink)

Related Series: N/A

Also Recommended: Countdown

Notes: None

Rating:

Teacher's Pet

Synopsis

Cute, but terminally stupid schoolgirl Chitose confesses her love to the handsome Haruhiko. Of course, there's immediately a catch: he's her teacher. But that doesn't stop Haru from taking her virginity, then subjecting her to various sex acts, then taking advantage of the various *other* girls who are also going after him.

Oy vey.

Review

On a purely visceral level, I really do like hentai. After all, I am male, and I'm not going to deny it. Granted, I don't tend to rate many entries in this genre very highly, because on an artistic standpoint, hentai generally stinks. There are exceptions, like End of Summer and [b]Virgin Night[/b], which tend toward erotica rather than exploitation.

Teacher's Pet is *not* one of these exceptions.

Green Bunny, at least, does a good job of getting character designers who can draw cute girls. However, the direction (by Fukumoto Kan of La Blue Girl "fame") and the screenplay fall flat on their backs like the girls in this show. When Teacher's Pet isn't being listless and boring, it's being pointlessly kinky (and occasionally bloody), which is just not what I consider to be interesting in a show like this.

For being such a recent title, Teacher's Pet has some spotty animation, and some of the "censorship" choices (genitalia that suddenly goes invisible) counteract the obviously explicit sex scenes. Again, as if we don't know what's going on, though at least the North American release was kind enough to ditch the pointless mosaics.

What really deflates my appreciation for this series is the attitude Haru has towards Chitose, which often involves situations that come close to rape. I don't *like* rape, and while Chitose may be dumb, that doesn't mean we should be trotting out the chains here. Granted, this is a hentai, so we should be expecting stupid situations like a sex scene on canvas (literally), but like its heroine, Teacher's Pet looks good on the outside, but it's terminally stupid.

Not outright bad enough to earn the Red Badge of Discouragement, but it's still not even close to average. Add one star if you're only watching this for the sex, and don't care about the stultifying mediocrity of it all. — Carlos/Giancarla Ross

Recommended Audience: It's hardcore porn. Take a wild guess.