My Wife is a High School Girl – So, Kyousuke Ichimaru, this 25 year old, high school physics teacher is married to Asami, one of his 17 year old students, and the conflict of the story centers around the couple trying to keep their marriage a secret, because… ya know, it’s socially frowned upon. For quite the premise, this show is pretty wholesome.
A major misstep this anime makes is, it never goes into how the two met or got together, which is a question, I feel, needed to be answered. Telling that backstory could have strengthen the rapport the audience has with these characters, and from a narrative stand point, could have helped to flesh out the dynamic between our two leads, which would have made for a richer story.
Asami’s father is totally against their marriage, and expresses some very legitimate concerns. I’m sure most fathers would, with a 25 year old man having a relationship with their under-aged daughter. Kyousuke isn’t a bad guy. He seems sane, good natured, smart, a college graduate, has a respectable job, treats his daughter well, but Asami’s father thinks Kyousuke is a creep of moral turpitude, by virtue of his relationship with his under aged daughter… and he should have every reason to. I know, to most people, this show is just pandering to a sick fetish and would immediately be disgusted by the premise. For me, this doesn’t irk me quite as much. In my experience, this is not uncommon to hear about. I’ve actually seen this quite a bit, with childhood friends who grew up in the same church, even in this day and age. -Maybe Asami identifies as a 21 year old…
Anyway, Asumi’s father made Kyousuke sign a contract stating the two would not engage in sexual intercourse until Asami graduated high school. A contract that our Darling-sama is adhering to because, one, he is afraid of her father and, two, he’s a logical person and that agreement probably seems reasonable and sensible. Whereas Asami… well, the girl’s got some needs, and she has a husband who she can legally do stuff with, so, from her stand point, she really does not give a flying one about a silly agreement her dad came up with. With the opposition in the series, I can understand that she may feel her hands are tied; she probably feels like, how is she supposed to keep her husband from straying, if she can’t use her womanly wiles to keep him from eating out? More importantly, she genuinely wants to physically express her love for her husband. In her mind, that agreement her father came up with doesn’t exist.
Here’s another thing that I didn’t like; Her father, the blue collar, tsundere-type, is constantly spying on them to ensure sex doesn’t happen – which the creators portrayed in the most annoying way possible – He serves as a Deus Ex Machina to butt in right before any major intimate moment between the couple happens. He shows up randomly at their school, like a creep, at just the right time – also, even when they’re on a trip nowhere close to where they live- where does he even come from – how does he even know?
There are other women that act as obstacles for Asami and Darling-sama’s relationship. There is Iwasaki, a fellow teacher, who aspires to be a full blown sociopath. Ichimaru-sensei walked in on her one day making out with a student. Iwasaki states that she was lonely, but she had just broken it off with that student, and that was their goodbye, and it would never happen again. Kyousuke, feeling like he was in no position to judge, considering his dirty little secret, voluntarily vowed not to tell anyone about her affair. At that very moment, Iwasaki fell in love with Ichimaru-sensei. Iwasaki is smoking hot. Iwasaki presents a very interesting and fun conflict, because she is very upfront with her feelings about wanting Kyousuke, who strives to keep his marriage to Asami a secret. Iwasaki is constantly inviting him to go do things… and her, apparently. Kyousuke is too polite to firmly decline, and with her unaware of his marriage, he has no good reason not to accept, and Iwasaki knows this. Kyousuke keeps having to invent reasons to turn her down, or find ways to pop smoke and GTFO of being cornered – because that’s what Iwasaki does; she corners him, physically and figuratively and, if not for the hand of God, she would have her man. Man, it’s amazing what we let people get away with when they’re hot.
The other obstacle is Sakura, a woman who just moved in across the street. She’s a street smart, single mom, who works at a cabaret club. She is also smoking hot. Both, her and Iwasaki, are dangerous AF to our couple, because both of them have zero to give out, and they are pursuing their love interest with the prowess of a Viking attack. They both go against Japan’s social norms, probably because their clocks are tickin’ and ain’t nobody got time for traditional Japanese conservative social etiquette and behavior; They found a guy who’s not a complete perv, not hideous, is nice, lives close, and HAS A JOB… all is fair, in love and war? Sakura finds out the couple’s secret early on, but, in reality, doesn’t care. She probably doesn’t even care that Ichimaru-sensei is married. She’s aware that her looks will eventually fade, which is essentially her money maker, so she’s lookin’ for a man to settle down and have a normal life with, and no high school girl is gonna get in the way of that. In the series, she proves to be quite the ally to our couple, and helps Asami keep her man, but in my opinion -Don’t be fooled, she is a viper, waiting for the right time to strike. –And, Iwasaki? Well, not only is she in love with Kyousuke, but she also, in every sense of the phrase, wants some D, and she’s is not taking, “no,” for an answer.
So, Asami… She is nothing to scoff at. She’s not ugly, by any means; far from it, but she’s not the prettiest girl out there. She also has quite the voluptuous body that can go toe to toe with any woman trying to steal her man away. However, Asami is still very much a teenager mentally when it comes to a lot of things. She has a very naïve, fairy tale idea of love. She is completely devoted and in love with her husband, almost puppy love-like, which drives the decisions in her life. She’s very submissive and accepting to the happenings in the series, and that may not necessarily be out of naivety, but out of cultural difference to western culture. I never had any impression that she had any other ambitions in her life other than to be a good wife to her husband… and be a mom of bunch of kids –which is fine, I guess, it just seems one dimensional. Finishing high school is quite the end goal for her. One, it means she, allegedly, won’t have to hide her marriage anymore and, two, she will be able to finally have dirty sex with her husband. But, then what? What does she want to be when she grows up? This is never expounded upon.
There is another complication that creeps in later in the series; high school boys. As mentioned earlier, Asami is not chopped liver. She’s pretty, and well mannered, and “single.” So, when a high school boy she finds she’s attracted to, starts showing her some attention, she is seriously conflicted. Here, Asami shows her naivety and lack of life experience. I feel her conflict is understandable; here’s a guy who is paying more attention to her than her husband has been for the first seven episodes, and it feels good.
Here’s the thing, the novelty of the premise kept me watching, because I’m a creep and the concept of their relationship interests me. However, I do have a problem with this show… -Where’s the filth??? Just kidding. So, Kyousuke is married to a student; going into something like that is a very conscious decision, one has had to decide that whatever comes along with that is gonna be worth it. Something like that, you gotta be full send or nothin’. They’re supposedly newlyweds, he loves her, loves spending time with her, and the creator of the series should have been showing us more of why their love was meant to be, but they don’t. Out of all the girls, in all the world, the creators should have been showing us why this guy is willing to put up with a relationship like this. It didn’t need to be anything drastic, they could have portrayed that with dynamics in conversation between them, or rapport building during activities they do together. Show us something that says these two people love being together and spending time with each other. But, to me, it felt like his marriage was a burden to him, at times, and it is really hard to see that he viewed her as a wife and not just some high school girl he’s having an affair with – ‘cause their relationship isn’t even that. I mean, he could be some weird… pleasure delayer? But, that’s not the case either. We see Asami’s sexual tension, but we don’t get anything from that guy. The show had many wasted moments, pretty much anytime they were alone together, having dinner, sitting around, the creators could have shown us that they were more than just two people existing alongside each other. I feel a few snippets here and there of Kyousuke expressing his love for this girl earlier on in the series, or even them acting like a couple could have made all the difference in the world in making this show more endearing than it ended up being.
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