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This Week in Anime - Did Masato Complete His Mother-Loving Quest or Is It a Bad-End?




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nDroae



Joined: 26 May 2017
Posts: 382
PostPosted: Tue Oct 01, 2019 3:49 pm Reply with quote
There's an error where these paragraphs appear twice in a row with different screenshots, suggesting there's some text missing from the conversation: [EDIT: article has been fixed, thanks!]

I'm surprised this was much more positive, and close to my own reaction, than I was expecting. Yes, it clearly should have kept the subject matter safe and light.

I thought it was strange that the milf fanservice (which becomes fairly extreme) was pretty much entirely focused on Mamako, largely via subjecting her to various indignities. Wise's mom and Medhimama escaped without having to go through any of that, and that's just not fair... especially to the audience.

Masato doesn't work as self-insert because his attitude toward his mother is completely opposite that of the ara-ara-milf fan target audience. Personally, I'd rather see Mamako paired with an unrelated younger romantic interest who's infatuated with her.

When I first heard about the LNs a couple of years ago, my reaction was "That's not ideal, but still sounds pretty good." Which is pretty much how the show turned out.

P.S. Mamako is great (if rather dim-witted), but out of what I watched, my pick for most attractive mom of the season is Shamiko's mom Seiko Yoshida in Machikado Mazoku / The Demon Girl Next Door (not to be confused with the real life seiyuu of the same name). And shout out to Kanade's mom in Wasteful Days of High School Girls. Lily knows what's up.


Last edited by nDroae on Tue Oct 01, 2019 6:10 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Yuvelir



Joined: 06 Jan 2015
Posts: 1529
PostPosted: Tue Oct 01, 2019 4:01 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
Mind Control: always a bad story idea. Stop using it.

What about that time a Precure movie did it? The one that made droves of little girls cry so much that to make up for it a couple of years later they introduced a likeable character spoiler[ and proceeded to literally, actually murder it]

And hey, vampire lolis are anime world heritage!

nDroae wrote:
P.S. Mamako is great (if rather dim-witted), but out of what I watched, my pick for most attractive mom of the season is Shamiko's mom Seiko Yoshida in Machikado Mazoku / The Demon Girl Next Door

The one who was stated to not have aged a day since she got engaged/married?[/quote]
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ANN_Lynzee
ANN Executive Editor


Joined: 02 May 2011
Posts: 2930
Location: Email for assistance only
PostPosted: Tue Oct 01, 2019 4:21 pm Reply with quote
nDroae wrote:
There's an error where these paragraphs appear twice in a row with different screenshots, suggesting there's some text missing from the conversation


Fixed, thank you!
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jtron



Joined: 03 May 2012
Posts: 183
Location: Chicago
PostPosted: Tue Oct 01, 2019 5:33 pm Reply with quote
This really is one of the best regular features on this site.
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nDroae



Joined: 26 May 2017
Posts: 382
PostPosted: Tue Oct 01, 2019 6:31 pm Reply with quote
Yuvelir wrote:
nDroae wrote:
P.S. Mamako is great (if rather dim-witted), but out of what I watched, my pick for most attractive mom of the season is Shamiko's mom Seiko Yoshida in Machikado Mazoku / The Demon Girl Next Door

The one who was stated to not have aged a day since she got engaged/married?

To me she looked older than Mamako. Maybe that's because of her clothes.



Moreover, does it make any difference? Anime women often change very little from 18 to their late 30's. Mamako doesn't look older to me than 23-year-old Chiyuki Kuwayama, the oldest idol in Idolm@ster Shiny Colors, who was assigned the "gentle, motherly" moe database profile. https://www.project-imas.com/wiki/Chiyuki_Kuwayama

Here's what I wrote on MAL at the start of this show:

Quote:
The inherent everyday magic of anime milfs is that they look mature yet young at the same time, often impossibly so (classic Key moms). It makes me think of C.S. Lewis' Space Trilogy, the description of Ransom's appearance after his visits to other worlds - bearing the impression of maturity, yet also youthful like no ordinary middle-aged man could be. Not to say that the rare realistic moms (Anohana, Tsukigakirei) aren't also good in their own way. Anime needs more older main characters of all types.

On that topic, I was surprised that the group of moms in the final arc of the show fit into the latter category. I was disappointed that they ended up being mostly useless. I would have liked to see Mamako put together an all-mom mahou josei team.
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Hiroki not Takuya



Joined: 17 Apr 2012
Posts: 2501
PostPosted: Wed Oct 02, 2019 12:11 am Reply with quote
As fair and accurate a commentary on this show as I could imagine. At least a few others were incredulous about by the handling of the Medhi arc as I was, which was nearly the worst of all bad anime moments in my memory (School Days end was worst). The absolute best gag though was where Amante's thug captain demands Mom serve them spoiler[(she makes lunch)] and then gets into bed and demands Mom "service" him wink-wink spoiler[(she tucks him in and sings him to sleep).] And he LOVES IT...Laughing Now the question "is anybody just itching to see a second season?"
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Emerje



Joined: 10 Aug 2002
Posts: 7328
Location: Maine
PostPosted: Wed Oct 02, 2019 3:06 am Reply with quote
I think you meant "psychomomical horror". Wink For just a moment that scene actually creeped me out.

And I guess I misunderstood the ending of the Medhimama fight. I thought her staff was the cause of the mind control and Mamako was fixing it. That arc did go on for far too long, but I did enjoy the pool battle. The final arc really was the best with more on brand humor and less obtuse fan service. If they can do a second season like the final arc I would be all for it!

Emerje
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Yuvelir



Joined: 06 Jan 2015
Posts: 1529
PostPosted: Wed Oct 02, 2019 4:54 am Reply with quote
Emerje wrote:
I think you meant "psychomomical horror". Wink For just a moment that scene actually creeped me out.

Porta please...
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Rosiero



Joined: 05 Jun 2013
Posts: 113
PostPosted: Wed Oct 02, 2019 6:28 am Reply with quote
I'm pretty surprised when people view this show in a somewhat positive light. It's even more confusing when someone admits the show has some issues with how it portrays abuse but goes "haha Masato is being completely drowned out by his mom" in the same breath.

Like, I kinda get where you're coming from--isekai can be so drab and samey that it's funny to see what looks like your typical wish fulfilment teen protagonist get nothing of what he feels entitled to. I love Konosuba too, y'know.

But the thing is, while Masato is kind of a brat, it's also completely understandable that he would act this way. If Mamako has always acted this way, it's no surprise he wants to get the hell away from her. Given my own proximity to emotionally abusive adults, I had to turn this off after half an episode when Masato understandably gets mad at his mom for being in on this scheme of essentially tricking him into getting trapped in this MMO and lying about it, but then Mamako turns on the waterworks and that makes it okay because she's just DOING IT BECAUSE SHE LOVES YOU SO MUCH MA-KUN

Ordinarily I wouldn't judge a show based on half an episode, but I have this masochistic friend who loves watching awful anime every week and rhapsodizing about it, which means i got the play-by-play on how the show keeps doing this weird thing where the moms are always correct. They didn't do anything wrong, and if they did do something wrong, they didn't mean to, and if they did mean to, it was for your own good, and-- is this sounding familiar to anyone else?

I'm probably getting way too upset about what's just a dumb fanservice anime that's not that good at being funny, but it just hits a little too close to home for me, and seeing people embrace Mamako's behavior on social media makes it worse.
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Yuvelir



Joined: 06 Jan 2015
Posts: 1529
PostPosted: Wed Oct 02, 2019 8:17 am Reply with quote
It's stoopid so it's fun, basically.
I guess most of us haven't suffered a high enough degree of emotional abuse/manipulation to see anything Mamako does as problematic so it's smooth sailing (besides how she deals with the obviously abusive moms, which were probably meant as exaggerations of non-ideal tendencies that mothers can have but it was too close to reality for comfort).
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FilthyCasual



Joined: 01 Jun 2015
Posts: 2165
PostPosted: Wed Oct 02, 2019 2:46 pm Reply with quote
I found myself in the odd position of liking every character to some degree except Mamako, whose one-note character and one-note gags at the expense of literally every other character rapidly grew incredibly annoying. Given how the entire purpose of the show is 'Mom sugoi' it's ultimately not surprising, but it makes for frustrating viewing.

I'd probably still watch a season two, if nothing more than for the banter between the kids.
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micah007



Joined: 25 Jan 2017
Posts: 205
PostPosted: Wed Oct 02, 2019 10:06 pm Reply with quote
This was yet another show I thought was way more entertaining than it had any right to be. I found myself laughing at the cast antics more often than not which meant no character really annoyed me. Unlike others I'm not sure how much nuanced discussion can be attributed directly to the show given the extreme caricatures of various "bad mom" types we saw but in hindsight that might have been the safest way to keep the show enjoyable without hitting to close to home on the social front for viewers. I did appreciate how you can at least be sympathetic with the goals of the "bad moms" considering unfortunately in real life the balance between parental duties, individual child development, and society in general can be difficult to keep. Mamako to me seemed to represent a balanced aspect of parental influence and I never found her abusive in any way or really even annoying for that matter. If this show received a season 2 I'd probably give it watch.
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