The Show:
Happy Lesson wraps up its run with this third volume. While
the series only had 14 episodes, it was one of the more enjoyable shows
that I've seen lately.
This volume has the final four episodes where some things get wrapped
up but there is still plenty of room for a sequel. The episodes are:
Episode 11: Dizzying – The Big transformation
of Her Dreams: Kisarage performs an experiment, and afterwards
she isn't quite herself. As a matter of fact, she turns into the
other four moms. Each day she takes on one of their personalities
and habits. The other moms don't seem to mind. They like her
better this way, but Chitose misses in Mama Kisarage.
Episode 11.5: Nice and Warm – All alone
with Kanna: The moms win a trip to a hot springs resort,
as do Chitose's sisters, and the class president Fumitsuki. But the
night before everyone is about to leave Kanna breaks in and replaces Chitose
with a robot. The robot only vaguely resembles him, but no one seems
to notice. With everyone gone, Kanna figures that this is her chance
to spend some time alone with the boy of her dreams.
Episode 12: Love-Love – Koyomi School
Festival: The school is holding their annual carnival,
and all of the teachers have a booth or give a performance. Everyone
wants Chitose to attend her event, but he has a hard time with Kanna trying
to kidnap him every time he turns around.
Episode 13: Teary – Did I See a Secret?:
Fumitsuki accidentally hears her teachers talking about Chitose.
It sounds like they are all living with him. She investigates a little
further, and finds out their closely guarded secret. What will the
class president with a strong sense of duty turn them in?
These were some of the best episodes in the series. Kanna is my
favorite character, and her constant creative attempts to catch Chitose,
as well as her lack of "experience with living creatures" makes her a great
foil. Chitose himself is a character cast from the Tenchi mold.
A nice guy who gets thrown into situations he'd rather not deal with.
His constant bewilderment at the bizarre things that are constantly going
on around him are a source of great amusement.
This was a very fun series. It's one of those shows where I was
counting down the day until the next volume was released. Funny and
occasionally touching without getting sappy, this show is a pleasure to
watch.
The DVD:
Audio:
This DVD has a Japanese stereo sound track with optional English subtitles
and an English dub in 5.1. Both were very good. While I wish
that the original language track was in 5.1 also, I couldn't complain about
the sound quality. The dialog was clean, and there was no distortion
or other audio problems. The English 5.1 track had a bit more punch
to it, and used the soundstage a bit more. The voice actors were
very good. I was quite impressed. There were not any stupid
accents or phony sounding voices. While I prefer the Japanese track,
I enjoyed the English dub as well.
Video:
The full frame picture was acceptable if not outstanding. The
colors were bright and vivid, as one would expect from a recent show, but
the lines were fuzzy. It looked like the picture was ever so slightly
out of focus. There were more than the average amounts of digital
defects too. This took the form of a good amount of aliasing, and
tightly spaced parallel lines would shimmer as the camera moved over them.
It wasn't distracting, but it was very noticeable. Other than that,
it was a great looking DVD.
The Extras:
This DVD has clean opening and closings, and a one-minute character
reel of character sketches. Trailers on this DVD are for Azumanga
Daioh, Kaleido Star, Magical
Shopping Arcade Abenobashi, Final
Fantasy Unlimited, Angelic
Layer, and Steam
Detectives.
There was also a mini poster insert that included character profiles
and voice actress interviews on the back.
Final Thoughts:
I really liked this series. It was very funny and outlandish,
but not too silly or over the top. Fans of the 'one guy trapped with
five girls' genre of anime should definitely check this one out.
Highly Recommended.
Buy: