Originally a four panel manga series by Tamami Momose, Sensei no Ojikan (Doki Doki School Hours) was enough of a success to be turned into a twenty episode anime. Just when you thought that the anime world had enough high school shows to chew on, another one comes along. Doki Doki School Hours is a charming yet strange series that tries to impersonate Azumanga Daioh but doesn't quite capture the feel of it. While Azumanga felt naturally funny with some hilarious situations, Doki Doki's humor feels a little too forced for its own good. It's ironic because Momose's manga actually predates Kiyohiko Azuma's Azumanga Daioh.

The basic concept is not unlike anything you have seen before. A group of eclectic kids all go to school together and their teacher gets involved with their antics. Random things happen and Seinfeld put it best with the saying "it's a show about nothing". Each episode on the first disc has an overall story to tell and just like Azumanga Daioh, it's broken up into chapters, or "breaks". These serve as smaller facets of the overall episode and each tells their own little tale.

The group of characters fits the idea of the show very well, but to be honest many of them are cliché. You have a stupid jock, an animated otaku that draws manga, the girl that likes girls, the boy that likes boys and the main character (Mika-sensei) is short and adorable, the only twist being that she's 27 and the kid's teacher. Some other students that round out the ranks include a cross-dressing self-absorbed metrosexual, standard anime girl with braids and glasses, as well as a kid that for all intensive purposes is an old man.

The four episodes here follow the adventures of Mika through her daily life and showcase the torment that she goes through because of her stature. She's often the butt of many jokes but isn't the only source of funny stuff that the series offers up. The kids themselves are fairly amusing though to be honest many of the jokes are a little tired. Even in the first volume they recycle the gags to a point where they are just repetitive and annoying instead of fresh and funny.

Another point of the show that gets old rather quickly is the animated prompts that appear on screen to symbolize an emotion or action. When someone sighs for instance, the Japanese symbols for the word fill the screen and the backgrounds dissolve into colorful wallpaper. It's an effect that was cute the first couple of times that I saw it, but honestly got to be pretty irritating after a while. Like, I know that one character is pinching another; I don't have to have big letters appear on screen that says "pinch, pinch, pinch".

The style of the show gives off the impression that it's for younger viewers despite the fact that it's rated for 13+. Much of the humor here is broken down into sexual references that just come off as awkward given the whole "loli" appearance of the program. As I said before, the comparisons to Azumanga Daioh are extremely hard to avoid, though the two series are very different. Each offers their own charm, but at this point it's really hard to tell where Doki Doki is going to go. I'm going to suggest a rental for the first volume until we see how the rest of the episodes shape up because it seems like it could go either way.

Doki Doki School Hours is presented with the broadcast ratio of 1.33:1 full frame and offers some decent picture quality. The artwork is very simplistic but is accompanied by some great animation that looks wonderful. The image is very clean as well with no apparent grain or cross-coloration though at points there are some trace amounts of aliasing that make their way onto the transfer. The color palette and overall style match the personality and humor of the show well.

The show comes with the two stereo tracks and sadly enough a 5.1 mix isn't available. As it stands though the DVD offers some decent quality with a slight use of directionality with the audio. Both the English and Japanese language selections are relatively the same in terms of what they offer, though I preferred the show with the original language and subtitles. The voice acting for the series matches the premise well and the music was offbeat enough to catch my attention.

If you enjoy textless opening and closing montages then you're going to be very pleased since they are both offered here. Sadly there are no character profiles, artwork reels or commentaries to go along with the feature.

Doki Doki School Hours seems to be one of those shows that will be hit or miss and at this stage it's very hard to tell which this one is. I had a couple of laughs watching the first four episodes but even by the end of the volume several of the jokes were being recycled to the point that they just weren't funny anymore. The whacky sense of style the show has does it justice, but puts it dangerously close to being referential to Azumanga Daioh considering that series beat this one to the punch. This could be a show to keep an eye on, but for now I'm going to suggest a rental until I see where the rest of the episodes take the characters and concept. Rent It

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