Reviews

In a sea of recommended reviews for "Sensei wa Koi wo Oshierarenai," I've decided to put my foot down against this not-so-creative premise of a rom-com for one reason: child predation. Yes, I'm fully aware of the implications and severity of what is being said, but the message is being laid clearly in front of readers' eyes from the first chapter, and I never fully accepted the blatant misdoings and skewed rationale of the main characters by participating in this disgusting act. Perhaps there are cultural lines not being communicated from the storyboards to foreign readers that I have not readily understood, but despite this, attempting to romanticize the tale of a teacher-and-student relationship as something not inherently criminal, scandalous, and career-ending rubs me the wrong way. "Sensei wa Koi wo Oshierarenai" as a concept for a romantic comedy, to begin with, is a contradiction in itself. How can taking advantage of a boy when in a professional environment be viewed through a comedic lens? The female professor in this relationship is made out to readers as the intelligent and stringent type but is somehow blind to the fact she is partaking in a commonly understood felony. To readers who oppose what is being said in my argument and have read this series in its entirety, I get that the characters themselves know what they are getting into should they be found out and reported. But if you can imagine the sensei here either behind bars or left on the street without any future chances of employment because she was discovered to be with a minor 8 years younger than her, you can more easily grasp the magnitude of what is being purported by this relationship. There is little means to justify the two and their level of intimacy because 'they weren't caught,' although the characters don't really do that well either. Even story and plot-wise, the chapters and small arcs, later on, fail to demonstrate any meaningful and traceable progress between the two, depending entirely on the basis of their secretive and illegal relationship to carry the comedy and dialogue. There are genuine moments between these characters that allow, even for just a second, readers to confide in the struggles of keeping a tender and warmhearted love a secret. But allowing what's best for the other person and abstaining may be the real signature of love, however much it hurts to do.