I know, I know, but…

I, My, Me, Strawberry Eggs online videos

I have to admit that I went into this anime thinking “how dumb can you get”. I had read the series description a couple times and had dismissed it as silly. After all, a teacher who is forced to crossdress to get a job just isn’t that original.

I then saw the first episode. I had even lower opinions of it from there. It opens with this little midget of a person taking money from tenants of hir’s (and I use that gender term deliberately, there is no clue through out the entire anime what sex this person is) and shooting them with a gun that fires plastic bullets. Capmy to say the least.

Then the actual plot starts and I was amazed. Teacher tries to get a job at a school and is told that only female teachers are hired. He then goes back to his apartment and tells the owner (the midget person) what is wrong, and s/he comes up with the crossdressing scheme “to teach that woman a lesson” (meaning the headmistress). Not so incidentally the midget will get paid hir rent if the teacher has a job.

From there, things go as you might expect. In that plot line, there is hilarity, crossdressing, “bra man”, a date, angst keeping secrets, makeup and more.

However, there is another plot that is just as important. That plot line is the coming of age of one of the students, and this is where this anime really shines.

Take your typical shy girl, very few friends, isolated and living in a school where it shows boys being subhuman and girls being the pinicle of all that is, and have this girl grow and begin to discover who she is. She is watched by a perv, frightened by everything, an underachiever in sports and can’t walk across a field without tripping, who blossoms into a lovely young lady by the end of the anime.

Not so incidentally she falls in love with her teacher, the crossdresser. She believes she is falling in love with a woman, and there is a lot of personal angst from that. However, by the end of the series it is all as resolved as it gets.

I’m not going to give away a lot of the plot points, but the second plot line is really well done in my opinion. It is worth watching this anime and a real look into a pre-teen psyche. In a lot of ways since this is a secondary plot, but just as important as the primary plot, you find yourself empathizing and identifying with the girl to a greater and greater degree.

There are, of course, several standard Japanese cultural items in this. There are the standard school uniforms for both men and women. There are the short shorts (cheerleaders call them spankies) for the girls in athletics, there is several up-skirt shots and shots of panties and nighties. There is the typical dirty old man who is constantly trying to get better and closer looks at the girls, and a salaryman who is doing the same thing. There is also the jealous Vice-Principal who is trying to expose the teacher for the man that the VP believes she is. There is man-hating all through this, and the celebration of women to a point where it nearly made me ill. But if you can look past these things, the anime is not that bad.

The animation and drawing is average. No one has any more than one outfit that they wear all the time, except when they are “at home” in which they have one more outfit. Clothes are never changed, but they are nice looking outfits. The drawing level is about where “Battle of the Planets” and “Star Blazers” is at, heavy without being bad, cartoonish. I hate the Headmistress’ hair.

My score?

Mini-Biography:  Joy is a transvestite who has been using her stories as a form of therapy. At this point she has no desire to undergo the full transition, but that might change some day. Read more about her story at My Story on this site.