Kei Kusanagi, an Ordinary High-School Student, has just seen an alien.
Problem is, she's just announced herself as his new Homeroom teacher, Mizuho Kazami. And she just moved in next door.
And the last time he saw her, she tried to wipe his memory of her existence.
One would think a situation like this would not end well, but a few hijinks later they end up married after Kei reveals that he's older than he looks to prevent a potentially compromising situation from being taken the wrong way.
Unfortunately, now they have to keep his age, her origins, and their marriage a secret from Kei's friends, which is going to be difficult, as one of them is starting to get aggressive in trying to catch Kei's attention.
Please Twins! is a Spin-Off involving different characters at the same school. Waiting in the Summer, the third anime series of the franchise, is either a sequel or a reboot with new characters.
Tropes:
- Accidental Pervert: Kei can't help but see up Ichigo's skirt when she catches him trying to hide on a stairway. Naturally she teases him for it.
- Alien Non-Interference Clause: along with a rare example of a protagonist being punished for violating it
- Angst Coma: They have the power to suspend aging.
- Anti-Climactic Parent: Mizuho worries what her family will say about her being married to a student. Her mother Hatsuho has no complaints, though slyly implies to the reader both of them show an interest in younger men.
- Beach Episode: Episode 5, which is also Kei and Mizuho's honeymoon. No one they know is supposed to be there, but of course, Kei's friends and one of the other teachers all just also happened to be there as well...
- Bland-Name Product: Famous Brands such as "Pochy". A poster for the movie Titania can also be seen in episode 4.
- Bromantic Foil: Hyosuke
- But Not Too Foreign: Kaede is one quarter Irish.
- Catchphrase: Mizuho's "This is a Priority One!"
- Chained to a Bed: Happens to Kei in the OVA by Hatsuho.
- Clingy Jealous Girl
- Konoha, Kei's aunt, acts this way too whenever her husband talks about how jealous he of Kei's romances. She usually hits him since he often says it within hearing range of her.
- Maho isn't too happy that her sister Mizuho is married to Kei either. Although she accepts his relationship later, she steals a kiss from him, while in sight of Mizuho. Mizuho responds by crying.
- Converse with the Unconscious: Happens ALL the time, once with Kei to Ichigo, and quite frequently, Mizuho to Kei due to Kei's Angst Coma disorder.
- Crapola Tech: Marie is supposedly self-repairing, but apparently the Galaxy Federation should get a better warranty. After Kei whacks him in the first episode, he becomes permanently scrambled and he stops working or randomly activates ship tech whenever this will cause more grief for Kei and Mizuho.
- Date Peepers: Mizuho spies on Kei during his "date" with Koishi. Ichigo and Kaede also spy on them separately.
- Deliberately Bad Example: Parodied and Lampshaded with Matagu.
- Despair Event Horizon: For Kei, it's the cause of his Angst Coma disorder. For Ichigo, it's one of the effects. Triggered by their sisters in both cases.
- For Ichigo, it was coming out of her long coma to discover her little sister was now a married adult.
- For Kei, it was watching his older sister commit suicide by jumping off the school roof.
- Double Standard Rape: Female on Male: Hatsuho attempts to sexually assault Kei in the OVA, tying him to a bed in a love hotel with a blurred vibrator in her hand. This is seemingly played for laughs, and all is forgiven in the end.
- Dude, She's Like in a Coma: Mizuho kisses Kei for the first time while he's in a standstill (it was Kei's first kiss too!)
- Ecchi: The OVA is officially categorized as ecchi on most anime sites. Not only is it considerably more frank about sex then the main series, but there are multiple instances of barely obscured nudity, including Kei and Mizuho beginning to have sex.
- Emotionless Girl: Ichigo appears to be so, but she has her reasons...
- Even the Girls Want Her: Both the girls and the guys are ahhing when they first see Mizuho.
- Eyes Always Shut: Kei's aunt.
- Fanservice: Happens on occasion in the main series, though considerably less then you might expect from the promotional artwork. The OVA, on the other hand...
- First Girl Wins: Mizuho
- Half-Human Hybrid: Mizuho and Maho.
- Happily Married: Subverted, but eventually affirmed as Kei and Mizuho's initially rocky relationship slowly develops
- Henpecked Husband: Minoru, Kei's uncle. Any time he mentions being jealous of Kei's romances, his wife tends to hit him.
- Hopeless Suitor: Poor Koishi. Her only possible chance would've been to act in episode 1, but after that, it's obvious who Kei is going to have to end up with.
- Hot Teacher: Guess who.
- Human Alien / Interspecies Romance: While it's never made clear which trope is in play, Mizuho's half-human ancestry implies the former.
- Ignore the Fanservice: When Koishi comes up to Kei at the swimming pool, she has to ask Kei what he thinks about her new bikini before he even remotely notices it.
- Innocent Fanservice Girl: Perhaps not fully applied given as how each remotely attractive female on the show (that is to say, all of them) has at least some idea of the influence her looks have, but there are plenty of times where they don't realize the effect they have.
- Keeping Secrets Sucks: It can be difficult for normal newlyweds to negotiate the ins and outs of cohabitation and intimacy. Kei and Mizuho have to do it in secret while being forced to spend a lot of time together in public. Even their honeymoon is interrupted.
- Little Miss Snarker: Ichigo.
- Love at First Sight: The little girl with the dog at the beach has this with Kei, only to get immediately heartbroken when Mizuho approaches him.
- Love Hotels: Kei gets dragged to one against his will by Hatsuho.
- Love Hurts: Both Mizuho and Kei have to deal with this, due to their inability to show their feelings in public and the angst it causes them. Towards the end, Mizuho breaks Kei out of his Angst Coma by convincing him that this is also an important part of loving someone, and he should embrace it instead of running away from it.
- Love-Obstructing Parents: Zigzagged.
- Mizuho's little sis Maho is the very model of Obnoxious In Law. Meanwhile, her mom Hatsuho...
- Marriage Before Romance: Kei Kusanagi marries the alien who is posing as his home room teacher in order to protect her secret identity. They move in together and quickly fall in love with each other.
- Marriage of Convenience: Kei and Mizuho's marriage is not for love, it's to keep Mizuho out of trouble after a Not What It Looks Like moment.
- The Matchmaker: Ichigo attempts to be this for Kei and Koishi.
- Modern Stasis: Although it's stated that it's years since the first manned mission to Mars in 2009, the world at large still looks like the present.
- Moment Killer: You'll lose track of how often this happens.
- My Sister Is Off-Limits: Maho just can't accept that her sister's married.
- Nephewism: Kei himself, though it’s not clarified if it’s his uncle and aunt who are related to his mother or father, or which one is that parent’s sibling.
- Not What It Looks Like: Used at least once (if not more) in practically every single episode. Not to mention that it basically fuels the plot 90% of the time. (The rest of the time it is what it looks like and they have to pretend it isn't.)
- Older Than They Look: Kei and Ichigo.
- Open-Minded Parent: Kei's uncle (and de facto adoptive father) Minoru is actually the one who gets him and Mizuho married in the first place. His aunt Konoha is the one who arranges for them to have a wedding too.note
- Paranormal Romance: Mizuho's alien technology certainly qualifies as "paranormal" to us, and it's mainly there just so it can malfunction at the absolute worst moment possible, dropping her into yet another awkward-looking situation that imperils her relationship with Kei and/or their public masquerade.
- Parental Abandonment: Kei and Ichigo, though it's less abandonment than mutual estrangement.
- Parents Walk In at the Worst Time: Your aunt and uncle do, anyway; such as when you've just accidentally teleported into their bathtub with the hot new teacher in the rather skimpy tights with open cleavage that make up her space uniform, and your legal guardians there were just about to take a bath in that same tub. To make things worse, the startled Mizuho then seizes up in panic and starts screaming while shoving Kei's face into her cleavage.
- Personal Seals
- Pixellation: Often used with alien artifacts.
- Platonic Life-Partners: By the end, Kei and Ichigo seems to be this.
- Primal Scene: Done for Maho for humor, possibly due to alien biology causing her to be Older Than They Look. She makes films of Kei and Mizuho's night life and blackmails him using them. Apparently Hatsuho doesn't know this as she does the exact same thing when she sets them up in a Love Hotel and Maho says she wants to see the video chips, which the former says are for "adults only."
- An alternative possibility is that Maho didn't film anything, but Hatsuho told her to blackmail Kei by pretending she had. Maho is shown later asking Hatsuho why her scheme was so elaborate that she actually had a script for it, to which her mother's reply is also rather cryptic. Maho may not have had any idea what was actually supposed to be on the video chips she showed Kei.
- Purely Aesthetic Glasses: Mizuho in teacher mode. An Onegai trademark.
- Relationship Upgrade: Happens to Kaede and Hyosuke
- In the manga version: Ichigo and Hyosuke
- Reset Button: The Federation forces everyone to forget Mizuho and puts Earth under a quarantine. Mizuho sneaks back and breaks through Kei's Wistful Amnesia. Then they get to redo their relationship from the beginning, with the implication that it all went much smoother this time.
- Sadistic Choice: Mizuho, forced to choose between Kei and her career, makes an impassioned plea to be allowed both on humanitarian grounds. She's convicted of violating the Alien Non-Interference Clause instead.
- Secret Relationship: Kei and Mizuho can't be open about their marriage largely because it'll be seen the wrong way by both the faculty (aside from the principal who already knows but tells the two not to openly show feelings for each other in public), and Kei's friends. Hilarity Ensues a lot due to this trope.
- Sensei-chan: Mizuho has shades of this. She's fairly competent at her teaching job, but barely (if any) more mature than her students. Unlike most examples, she's married — not that most people in-universe are aware.
- Shipper on Deck:
- Ichigo does this for Kei and Koishi. And later Kaede and Hyosuke.
- Maho briefly ships Kei and Hatsuho as an alternative to Kei and Mizuho.
- Marie goes rogue to bring Kei and Mizuho together at one point.
- Shout-Out: To Shin Getter Robo Vs. Neo Getter Robo, of all things.
- Stepford Smiler: Kei himself as he’s plagued by the guilt of not saving his older sister from committing suicide.
- Strong Family Resemblance
- Teacher/Student Romance: Obviously the title characters and the plot of the series. Furthermore, they get away with this because not only is Kei really 18 (and therefore legally old enough to marry the teacher), the school principal married a student as soon as she graduated and sympathizes with them. Kei gets creeped out.
- The Three Faces of Eve: The heroine, Mizuho, is obviously the "sensible and capable" Wife, her "innocent childlike" sister Maho is obviously the Child, and the "Hotter and Sexier" Hatsuho is the Seductress, despite the fact that she's their mother.
- Token Mini-Moe: Ichigo
- Trademark Favorite Food: Mizuho's "Pochy" sticks.
- Tsundere: Maho is just kissing Kei because she wants to make up for her actions towards him. It's not like she actually has a thing for him. Really!
- 20 Minutes into the Future: Mizuho's human father was a member of the first attempted manned Mars mission, which is stated to have occurred in 2009. Assuming she ages the same as normal humans, the earliest this series could take place would be the early 2030s.
- Which is weird due to the apparent lack of
cellphones.
- Which is weird due to the apparent lack of
- Wistful Amnesia: Kei just can't shake the feeling that something (or someone) is missing from his life.
- Yamato Nadeshiko: Subverted by Konoha. She looks the part and is a very good House Wife and nurse, but she's too aggressive about keeping her husband under control to really fit.
