StoryPlease Twins, if nothing else, is a prime example of missed potential. Here we have a truly brilliant premise that is pretty much completely ruined by its follow-up story and ending. So much more could have been added to the following episodes to keep the story interesting, but no: the plot instead sinks into autopilot, and the result is horrifically boring and uncreative.
Of course, I am exaggerating when I say “truly brilliant premise.” Much like Please Teacher before it, Twins aims for pretty much the lowest common denominator. The basic idea of both series is to take some random Japanese fetish(es) and somehow build a plot around it. Not exactly Shakespeare, to be sure.
Despite this, Please Teacher somehow managed to be engrossing in a tasteless, trashy sort of way. The romance in Teacher was surprisingly convincing considering the absurd set-up, and the characters were generally likeable as well. As a result, I hoped that the same low-brow fun might be found in the sequel.
Admittedly, the first episode promises truly awesome things; the beginning is ridiculously slutty and in comically bad taste, and looks to surpass even Please Teacher in pure raunchiness. Essentially, Please Twins’ story is a standard love-triangle, but with the added twist that at least one of the girls is the protagonist’s blood sister. Awesome! Seriously, the premise was so potentially rife with cheesy drama and unwholesome innuendo that screwing it up seemed next to impossible.
After a “promising” start, however, the creators of the anime seem to lose all semblance of their previous boldness. Instead of going further with the idea, the story regresses into a super-standard harem story. The girls walk around, get jobs, and take a WHOLE lot of baths, but nothing else really ever happens.
One major problem is that the series leans far too heavily on the premise to maintain interest. In place of actual plot or character development, the script-writers pummel us ad-nauseam with constant reminders that one of the girls might be related, as if they expect us to forget after half an episode (duh, it’s why we’re watching the series). The overuse becomes so horrendous, in fact, that somewhere along the way the oft-repeated line, “we might be related, but we might not!” veers from tedium into unintentional comedy.
By the time the series finally reveals who is actually related to the protagonist, I didn't even care anymore. I did care about one thing, however – the fact that I had somehow let a promising start sucker me into watching more than four hours of utter garbage.AnimationThis is one of hundreds of post-2000 anime that blows its budget on appealing character designs and then doesn’t bother actually animating the show. Scenes are generally limited to stationary characters that move only their mouths, and whenever there is actual movement, it’s choppy and awkward. Reasonable backgrounds and nice character designs stop the visuals short of being actively bad, but unless you have some sort of fetish for nipple-less breasts (big frowns), this is not a show to watch for eye-candy.SoundThe seiyuu try their best, but no amount of acting could save such an asinine script. In fact, there’s a strange juxtaposition here between the mind-numbingly bland dialogue and the seiyuu’s heartfelt delivery of it. Imagine an opera singer soulfully belting out sections from a Xerox manual and you’ll have a good idea of what I mean.
On the other hand, the music is almost universally good. In particular, the OP is fantastic; like the theme to Please Teacher, I’ve been happily listening to it off and on for several years now. The rest of the BGM is solid, albeit unremarkable.CharactersWithout hyperbole, these are some of the blandest characters I have ever seen in an anime. In some series, everyone has a clichéd personality. In Please Twins, everyone is simply devoid of any sort of a personality whatsoever. The show does make feeble attempts early on to differentiate the two girls (one’s quiet and one’s active!), but ultimately both feel like the same whiny, one-dimensional plot device that they are. Calling them characters is perhaps a little generous.OverallWith terrible characters, a hideous script and subpar animation, Please Twins can’t even be called mediocre - it's just hideous. The fact that the series failed to meet my low expectations speaks to what a disaster it really is. If you're a hardcore ecchi fan you might want to check this out, but even then you’re probably better off just watching Please Teacher again, or even Love Hina Again again.
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