Ask John: Is Onegai Teacher 13 an OAV or an Episode?

Question:
Will episode 13/OAV 1 of Onegai Teacher be released with the series DVDs? And what is this really, an extra episode or an OVA? If it is an OVA, is there or will there be more?

Answer:
Bandai has not announced whether or not Onegai Teacher episode 13 will be included in the American release, but we have no reason to believe it won’t be. It’s somewhat difficult to clearly classify Onegai Teacher episode 13 as either an un-broadcast episode or an OAV. For the sake of simplicity, I limited the title “OAV” to only anime episodes specifically designated as OAVs or anime episodes released directly to home video as independent releases.

Based on its content, Onegai Teacher episode 13 was clearly never intended for broadcast on Japanese television. That would suggest that this episode is an OAV. It was also released all by itself on a single DVD volume. However, unlike typical OAVs released as stand alone DVDs, Onegai Teacher episode 13 was released on Japanese Onegai Teacher DVD volume 7, suggesting that it should be counted as an unbroadcast TV episode and not as an OAV. This same logic applies to Dual episode 13, Nuku-Nuku TV episodes 13 & 14, Hand Maid May episode 11, Love Hina episode 25, Dirty Pair TV episodes 25 & 26, Excel Saga episode 26, .hack//SIGN episode 27, Chobits episode 27, and Rurouni Kenshin episode 95. Although all of these episodes premiered on home video, they’re usually thought of as unaired TV episodes rather than OAVs because they were either made for TV broadcast but never aired, or they were released as part of the TV series home video release and not as separate, independent volumes. In conclusion, it seems more logical to me to refer to Onegai Teacher episode 13 as an unaired TV episode than as an OAV.

Presently there are no plans in Japan for more Onegai Teacher anime; however, Kazami Mizuho, Ichigo Morino, and Marie will be appearing in the Onegai Teacher sequel TV series Onegai Twins that’s scheduled to debut on Japanese television next month.