Please Teacher-Volume 2: Meet the In-laws (2001)

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General		Extras
Category	Anime	Main Menu Audio & Animation Trailer-O-ne-Tea Promo Clip (short) 2:28 Credits-Textless opening (1:42) Credits-Textless closing (1:22) Music Video-Music Clip #1 (4:21) Gallery-Character Art (22pp) Biographies-Character-3 Trailer-Madman Propaganda (6) DVD Credits-Madman
Rating
Year Of Production	2001
Running Time	69:33 (Case: 75)
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Yasunori Ide
Studio Distributor	Madman Entertainment	Starring	Soichiro Hoshi Dave Wittenberg Kikuko Inoue Bridget Hoffman Ayako Kawasumi Michelle Ruff Mitsuo Iwata Kirk Thornton Yumi Takada Wendee Lee Satomi Koorogi Sandy Fox Sayaka Ohara
Case	Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip
RPI	$29.95	Music	Shinji Orito

    This is the second volume of Please Teacher. If you haven't read my review of the first volume, I recommend you do so before reading this one.

    The three episodes on this disc are:

    The basic situation is now established, with Kei married to Mizuho, so we move on to two important consequences. One is their first time making love together — they have been sleeping together, but only in the sleeping sense. They try to go on a honeymoon to Okinawa. The other big consequence is a visit from Mizuho's immediate family, being her mother Hatsuho, and sister Maho.

    Maho strongly reminded me of Skuld in Oh, My Goddess. Maho is highly antagonistic towards Kei, even going so far as to attempt to kill him. Hatsuho seems much happier with the idea, but she married an Earthling, too (Mizuho's father was from Earth).

    Maho's spaceship control is called Miruru, and seems to be female (unlike Mizuho's Marie, who is male). It's amusing to see them interacting.

    It's a pleasant surprise to see that the series is taking an interest in relationships other than the one between Kei and Mizuho. Indeed, it looks at the real issue of teenage sex, which is unusually serious for a comedy. It doesn't stay serious for long!

    The potential relationship between Kei and Koishi develops further in these episodes. Kei is not encouraging her, but he can't tell her the truth, so she continues to yearn for him.

    As is usual with a summer vacation episode, there's plenty of fan service.

    These episodes have convinced me: I'll be watching the rest of this series with considerable interest.

Video

    This DVD transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1. It is not 16x9 enhanced. That is the original aspect ratio.

    The sharpness of this transfer is rather variable, from a little bit soft to rather too soft — the credits sequences are particularly poor, but every long shot is bad; close-ups are generally fine. This disc is a little worse in this than the first one, which is a shame. The problem is not attributable to film grain, of which there is no trace. There's no low-level noise.

    Colour is superb, with a broad palette of attractive colours which are well-rendered. There are no colour-related artefacts.

    There are no visible film artefacts.

    There is a fair bit of aliasing, on both horizontal and vertical pans, but it's generally quite mild. There is no moiré. No MPEG artefacts. There is some interlacing, but it's not visible when playing at normal speed.

    The usual two subtitle tracks appear: both in English, with the first being a "signs only" track, while the second is full subtitles. These subtitles are yellow, attractive, and easy to read.

    The disc is single-sided and single layered, so there is no layer change.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The soundtrack is provided in English and Japanese. Both soundtracks are Dolby Digital 2.0, not surround encoded, at 224kbps. I watched all the episodes in English and then again in Japanese. The sound on both tracks is definitely stereo, with a reasonable spread to the music, and occasional directional voice.

    Both the English and Japanese dialogue sounds clear, and seems well-sync'ed to the animation.

    Shinji Orito's score is excellent, and nicely suited to the action.

    This disc is basic stereo, with no use of the surrounds or subwoofer — they aren't needed.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Menu

    The menus are animated with music. They are easy to use.

Promotion: O-ne-Tea Promo Clip (short version) (2:28)

    A shorter version of the promotional clip that was shown on Japanese TV to advertise this series. It features glamourised versions of the characters — quite beautiful to see.

Textless Opening (1:42)

    The opening, without the credits. Exactly as on the first disc.

Textless Closing (1:22)

    The closing, but without the credits. Again.

Music Clip #1 (4:21)

    This piece includes a montage of footage from the first two episodes on this disc.

Gallery — Character Artwork (22 pages)

    A mixture of Draft and Final Setting artwork, concentrating on Kaede and Hyosuke.

Character Profiles

    The characters covered here are:

• Minoru Edajima (Kei's uncle)
• Konoha Edajima (Kei's aunt)
• Hyosuke Magumo

Trailers: Madman Propaganda

    Six individually-selectable trailers:

• Initial D (0:31)
• Spirited Away (2:18)
• FLCL (2:19)
• Haibane Renmai (1:12)
• Voices of a Distant Star (1:00)
• Love Hina (1:41)

Reversible Cover Slick

    The cover slick can be slid out and reversed, giving a front cover in Japanese. The inside cover features the same image of Mizuho as the Region 1 cover, but against a blank background instead of trees — I gather this is the cover used on the Japanese release.

DVD Credits

    A single page that shows credits for the folks at Madman who worked on this disc.

    The Region 1 version of this disc was released mid-2003. Reports say the Region 1 disc has a brilliant transfer, and it has pretty much the same extras (possibly without the character profiles, but with the addition of an included mini-poster).

    Sounds like the R1 is the better disc.

    A pleasant and interesting anime series — it seems likely that this will be one of those series that ends far too soon.

    The video quality is excellent except for the variable sharpness — the picture is just too soft sometimes.

    The audio quality is excellent for a stereo soundtrack.

    The extras are not extensive, but they are nice to have.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall