Ultimate Teacher Review

Hi there! Well, 34 reviews down, and 6 more to go. Today’s marks number 6, and is the last full-blown comedy I’ve got, as the rest are more serious shows/OVAs. This one’s quite obscure, and buried in the sands of the vast anime desert. It’s funny, fucked-up, and all kinds of “Huh!?”. Well, I’ve dug up this piece of anime obscurity from it’s dusty tomb, and now for you, here’s my review of Ultimate Teacher.

Story/Setup
Taken from the anidb page:

“In 1988, a terrible accident in a bioresearch lab allows one of its test subjects to escape. Fast-forward 3 years later at the worst school in all of Kanto where facilities are falling apart and teachers, mainly consisting of paroled convicts, have their very own graveyard. A mysterious man named Ganpachi Chabane appears from the shadows and promises to bring new hope to the school system with a vigorous disciplinarian approach. The school gang-leader Shiratori Hinako, a beautiful yet staggeringly strong girl, will represent the students in a fight against the ultimate teacher in which everything goes.”

Okay, for starters, this looks like a somewhat serious story. Genetic experimentation, evil teachers, and oppressed students sounds like things you’d find in a cyberpunk-style anime. However, this is in fact a slapstick comedy. The entire backstory forms the basis of the humor throughout the movie, and is not meant to be taken seriously. In fact, Ultimate Teacher seems more structured as a group of sketches, rather than a solid movie. In other genres this doesn’t necessarily work, but given that this is a comedy, Ultimate Teacher is able to get away with it.

Setting
Ultimate Teacher takes place in a high school, which is a pretty standard setting for many anime. What separates this one from the rest is that is incredibly run down (As fellow anime reviewer Bennett the Sage once said: “Looks like a run-down meat factory in Cleveland”), populated by some tough looking students, and is so hazardous there’s a graveyard for all of the deceased teachers (There’s a Detroit joke in there somewhere, but I can seem to find it.). There are other places that Ultimate Teacher goes to, but the bulk of the OVA takes place at the school.

Characters
Ultimate Teacher has three big weaknesses, and it’s characters are the first weakness. Despite being populated with a mass of characters, the spotlight is only pointed to three of the characters: Ganpachi, Hinako, and one of Hinako’s friends/allies (The specific one escapes me at the moment). In reality, Ganpachi & Hinako take up a giant chuck of the scenes, whether together or apart from each other.

Animation
Because of the fact that this hasn’t been re-released on DVD, and thus being remastered in the process, the animation quality of Ultimate Teacher isn’t the best. You cam make out details in the movie, but more often than not it’s not the best looking OVA. Ironically enough, the one point of the animation that isn’t horrible looking (I’m stretching that last part a bit) is the characters. All of the characters, whether primary and/or secondary, have their own look and feel, and despite the quality of everything else, look slightly decent.

Voice Acting
This is Ultimate Teacher’s second biggest weakness. The movie was released in the United States (And the United Kingdom, but I’ll get to that in a second) back in 1988, and voice acting during that time wasn’t necessarily the best quality. With the U.S. dub, all of the voice actors are reading the lines in a completely serious manner. While this does add to some of the OVA’s humor, at the same time it sounds rather boring.

Like I hinted above, Ultimate Teacher also made it’s way over the pond, and into the hands of British Otaku, thus getting a different dub. This version has nowhere near as much of a monotone touch to the voice work, as the characters have a bit more depth to them as far as voices are concerned. With the change in voices, the movie itself takes on a slightly more serious tone, but it still keeps the core wackiness that makes the OVA great.

Episodes & Episode Length
Like this past Wednesday, Ultimate Teacher is a one-shot movie that you can watch during part of an afternoon. Clocking in at close to an hour (55 minutes & 45 seconds, to be specific), this is a rather quick movie. Unlike some of the other fast-paced movies, the nature of this OVA makes this much more acceptable than the rest, but at the same time you’ll feel a bit of whiplash.

Availability & Pricing
This is the final weakness of Ultimate Teacher. Unlike some of the old OVAs that have been reprinted in recent years, Ultimate Teacher isn’t one of those re-releases. As I’m typing this up, there are only two of the original VHS copies over on Amazon, and they’re both used. Pricing for the two of them is okay: the first is about 34 dollars, while the second copy is almost 40 dollars. In this circumstance, I suggest you find a video file or torrent file, and download it.

Extras/Other
Since I downloaded this, I don’t know what the extras are.

Perhaps the strangest aspect of Ultimate Teacher is it’s usage of racial stereotypes. I can’t list all of them, as there were a bunch, but I did see Chinese cyclists, an Arab riding a camel, and a African-American track-runner jogging with a speak. Luckily, the only time you see these stereotypes is right at the beginning, a moment halfway through the movie, and a few scenes towards the end. While I’m not the most political correct individual out there, these moments were a little head-scratching, and slightly offended me (But not much).

General Impression & Rating
To a certain extent I understand why Ultimate Teacher hasn’t be re-released on DVD. The animation isn’t the best, the voice acting (At least for the U.S. edition) is just meh, and it’s characters are rather weak. What ultimately won me over was it’s oddball humor: it’s so batshit crazy, so mind-warping, and so insane, it’s hard to hate. If you can overcome it’s weakness, and it’s lack of availability, you have a comedy gem here.

Ultimate Teacher gets a 7.5 to 8 out of 10.

See you all next week. Until then, stay Otaku!


***
Click on the links below to watch the US & UK dubs:

(US Dub)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mF5NHl0ydT0

(UK Dub)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSDj5vgQ4OA