Happy☆Lesson (TV)

I spotted this anime a few years ago, but since my own mom died around that time, I had to put this off until I could give it a fair shake.

Happy Lesson is about a boy who lost his parents and was sent to an orphanage along with his sisters. Once he entered High School he was allowed to leave the orphanage and live in the house he grew up in. Except this time with 5 of his teachers wanting to become his new mom.

~Story 7/10~
The story itself isn't very unique, but I did find some of the elements of the show to be very ... entertaining and cute. Some of it had comedy and some of it was simply fan service.
Just be warned, the harem fighting starts almost instantly and it is like being smacked in the face 10 seconds into the show.

Most of the episodes usually cover some basic anime formula elements. There is a Hot Spring episode, two with school festivals, etc... But in the end of the day, nothing really changes and everything is neatly tied back into a bow.
Each teacher has a dedicated episode that seemed a little ridiculous.

There are a lot of times where I didn't like what was going on because it seemed a little to much like a fantasy show.
For example, there were robots and exotic animals and super frilly outfits that no teacher would ever be allowed to wear.
It just seemed a little too much at times.

~Art 8/10~
The art is good, the backgrounds are well drawn and you get the usual frilly outfits, and extremely weird hair styles and hair colors.
The characters are sometimes drawn in a very cute fashion making me want to continue watching the show and favoring certain characters that don't get much time or character development.

~Character 8/10~
Since each teacher had a dedicated episode it was a great chance to get lots of character development done. It was interesting to see each teachers motivations and to see what makes each of them so unique.

I thoroughly enjoyed learning about the teachers and why they chose to become the mom of this one particular boy, but I was not impressed by the stories and reasons.
Some of the reasons seemed quite stupid while only one of them seemed natural and genuine.
Sometimes there would be family quarrels and it felt nice to know that my own family wasn't so dysfunctional.

~Sound 7/10~
As a musician I usually notice background music, but in this case, I don't remember any.
The character voices were done well, but I can't say the same for the English dub.
It is overly common to find some of the characters having really high pitched voices and I've become used to that fact.


Overall, I enjoyed the show because it was cute and a little romantic. It made me envious, yet relieved that my family wasn't so dysfunctional. There is a lot of comedy, but most of it is overly obvious. The romance part of the show pulled at my heart strings, but I am very disappointed in the ending, you'll probably see why.

Happy Lesson is about a boy / student who inherits a large house of his parents. He has a sister who's songs and a little sister living with big sister. He is a bit lonely in the house so he let his teachers to live in his house, but there must be a secret because otherwise it can go bad for teachers.

Since the teachers stay with him, they help him to get up in the morning to go to school, cook for him, clean and wash house. He said even at the end of the anime that had it not been for them, he would ... had dropped out of school and no one would show how it would go with him.

Since teachers are like a mother to him, he calls them "mother" and they can always find an excuse to have a party!

At school there is a president, and it is a girl. She is in love with main character in this anime, but it's very difficult for her to tell it to him. He is very cold and dismissive, and she is of course disappointed, but it isn't stoping her. In the end, she finds out he has a secret, and do it mostly to find out. How it ends, I'm not going to tell!

The end should I not tell anything about, but I can tell my opinion about it. Because this was a fun anime, not so tension-filled, but fun, so expect not a big ending. I had no expectations about the end, because the anime was just fun to watch, at least I could not imagine how one would be. Although I failed it was the end still fun and easy. You do not sit back with a lot of questions, and it was actually a very nice way to end an anime on.

So I will not quit rate: 10/10!

The song that big sister song I must say honestly that it was terrible for my taste. My taste, nothing more to say about it.

Grade: 1 / 10

The whole anime's ranking: 8/10

Watching 'Happy Lesson' was the most peculiar experience for me as far as anime watching goes. I hated and enjoyed this anime at the same time and up until now I didn't even know something like that was possible. This anime is every cliched joke, every cardboard cut-out character and every predictable plot point that has been done to death by a 100 animes before it - jammed into a 13 episode series. I knew very well that being a harem and a romcom I wasn't going to see anything profound, but never in my wildest dreams, would I have expected it to be this ... bad. Yet ridiculously, like a 5 year old at a sweet-stall, I enjoyed it.

The story... no wait there is no story here. It's just a single male character with 5 young, infantile looking women and lots and I mean lots of cliched jokes and of course sexual innuendo. The women in question turn out to be the male lead's teachers and mothers at the same. To show you just how much the "story" sucks in this cliche-fest series I can tell you that even that single, most basic plot point that was established in episode 1 was not properly explained or in fact even covered at all. It's something along the lines of "Hey do you want me to be your mom?" - "Yeh, whatever".

The male lead is a no dimensional character. In fact, his only parameter is to be smothered with affection by countless equally no dimensional female characters. I mean, I'm gonna square with you guys here - there is no need for me to go into detail with the story or the characters because they're so banal they might have as well been invented by a cactus. It's just an episode after an episode of cliche jokes, sexual innuendo, fanservice, fake drama. In that order.

That said, I did enjoy this series and indeed if you look at the breakdown of individual scores I gave this anime you'll see an 8 next to enjoyment. It's because it's so gobsmackingly bad that it crosses the barrier and goes straight into unintentional comedy. Two minuses are a positive and that's exactly what happened in here. I know very well that this anime isn't meant to be serious or that the makers never aspired to create a masterpiece out of it but it's even crap for an average harem romcom. And no, it's not a slice of life anime. Nothing presented here has anything to do with real life. So in a way you know it's bad but you can't help but to laugh at the poor writing. The ending is a testament to that. It starts out dramatically trying to be realistic and there's a build up of tension between the characters as they face an insurmountable problem, but then you're slapped in the face with a deus ex machina solution. Teenagers solving problems with a submarine and an electrical bazooka? How is that slice of life?

That brings me to reason number 2 why I actually enjoyed it. As bad as it is, 'Happy Lesson' has a decent opening, a surprisingly good OST and a catchy ending which just makes everything more absurd and inadvertently - hilarious.

With all that in mind, I am rating it fairly. The story is poor and so are the characters, art is good, the sound is very good and I laughed my ass off. I'd say that's a 5. Moreover I will watch the second season and grab the OST because ironically, the entertainment value here is really really high.