Yuri Anime: Spring 2004 season

May 24th, 2004

Yesterday, the new season of Maria-sama ga Miteru anime was announced. The good news is that it’s starting as soon as July 4th, the bad news is that they’ve buried it on Sunday morning at 7:30 AM. Apparently they feel that insomniac six-year-olds are the target audience.

Most importantly, now we, the western audience will get to officially meet Yumi’s potential souer candidates, affectionately known as “drill-hair” and “stalker.” Makes you really wanna meet ’em, doesn’t it?

Now, onto other business.

This season of anime is sort of only vaguely yuri-ish. There’s the usual Bee Train yuri implications in Madlax and some fanservice-y kind of stuff in Bakaretsu Tenshi, but nothing that set the yuri-o-meter off at a high level. However, if goofy, silly yuri that will never go anywhere is good for you, then I recommend you catch the fansubs of Sensei Ojikan: After School Doki Doki Hours.

Sensei Ojikan is reminiscent of Azumanga Daioh, but really, only in the sense that they are both very silly comedies set at a school. There is a little overlap in character type, but only a little. If I remember correctly, Sensei Ojikan came first as a manga, so it isn’t really any kind of rip-off at all. Speaking of which – you all know that Azumanga Daioh has been released on DVD here, right? Run out and get it, if you haven’t, because this is a *very* funny series.

Sensei Ojikan is nominally the story of a teacher, Mika-sensei, who looks like a 10-year old. She’s only marginally effective as a teacher, but her class feels very affectionately towards her. There’s a goofy selection of kids in the class: the hyper genki underachiever, the over achiever, the class leader who is a boy idol otaku, the mangaka otaku, the gay girl, the gay boy, the crossdresser, the old guy and the slacker. All together, they make a fun combination and some of the episodes had me laughing out loud.

The gay boy is very obviously in love with the slacker kid and everyone in class knows it but the slacker. The gay girl is Kitagawa Rio and she is even more openly in love with the teacher. She’s very open about her liking girls in general, cute girls more specifically and Mika-sensei in particular…and she plays that card a lot, especially when she’s trying to get a reaction out of poor Mika-sensei.

Again, this is all played for laughs, so don’t expect Kitagawa and Mika-sensei to ride off onto the sunset or anything, but it’s cute. And, in accordance with the Rules of Supporting Yuri Characters, Kitagawa is especially good-looking and smarter than nearly anyone else in class. ^_^ So, if you want a few laughs and aren’t looking for a permanent relationship, check out Sensei Ojikan.

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