MM! 05 – An Exercise in Generic Shounen Parody

So, I figure rather than trying to catch up, I’ll just hit the most recent episode I saw. Aside from introducing the adorable little package that is NOA, the entire episode was a lot of lazy shounen parodying, including a reference to Kamen Rider belts, Super Saiyans, and the various, unique WORD Energy featured in many plots written for boys, that only a chosen few can have.

The mole's a nice touch actually. It makes the fanservice shot a lot more interesting.

So in general, I think MM! has been a fun show. I’m not really comfortable with the line it’s walking on though, the way it’s balancing pseudo-serious handling of some problems (prominently Arashiko’s androphobia) while still being so intensely gag-focused. I may be one of few on this, but I’m generally happy letting light shows be light, and heavy shows be heavy. The fusion of the two always feels a little off, unless executed with a lot of expertise. And well, I don’t think there is a lot of “expertise” going it.

 

That doesn’t matter though. As much as it nudges me a but, ultimately just going with the flow has made for an alright watch, with the show occasionally getting a laugh or two out of me. The fanservice is rather sparse too, for what you’d expect from a show focusing on a pervert with a really extreme fetish. I don’t think even underwear has been sighted at all until recently, much less nipples or anything of the Kanokon/LadiesxButlers/XEBEC-usual level. There is a bit of cosplay service, but that’s pretty tame in general, and all we really see is just the gag of a guy getting abused and liking it, while earnestly trying to cure himself, or help someone else.

Then episode 5 happened.

Ten ga yobu, chi ga yobu, hito ga yobu! Aku wo taose to ore wo yobu! Ore wa seigi no senshi, Kamen Rider Stronger...!

What happened to my show? It was always sort of gag-focused and a bit ridiculous in the physical humour, but I didn’t get the memo about it becoming an intense reference-parody humour show. Haven’t we had enough of that?

Really, I've even seen *actual* hentai anime make more interesting parody jokes.

Well, I guess I chuckled just a bit when he collected power from perverts the world over for a spirit bomb.

Thankfully, by the end of the episode though, we make a return back to sanity.

V-V-VOTOMS loli?!

We get a pretty normal (?) ending featuring an addition to the guy’s harem. You can tell already she’s not a contender though, since she’s not a feature in the primary romance triangle nor the ending >_>

Which is really too bad. She’s just straight forward, light fun. Which is much easier to swallow than the other two, in a series such as this. I’ll probably keep watching this show. The lightness of the fanservice, though kind of disappointing (why does this even air on AT-X?) in the loss of some more extreme physical gags (that isn’t just torture, but lulz nippelz), it does make the show overall easier to watch without some moment being sort of just facepalm-y due to how familiar a premise X trope is, where the fanservice bit with Noa can actually feel, perhaps not fresh, but at least as good as toasted stale bread (bread being stale being bad is why we toast it in the first place, by the way!).

Did I ever mention how I kind of like the way they do shocked expressions in this show?

Overall, I just hope we don’t get another episode that’s reference humour centric. It’s really just not what I watch the show for, and apparently, not what the writing staff is good at in the first place. The status quo, while not perfect, was what made the show entertaining enough to watch. If I wanted to watch reference humour, there are simply shows more suited for it, and better written for it.