This Week in Anime

Did Masato Complete His Mother-Loving Quest or Is It a Bad-End?

Steve
Nick, we (meaning, mostly I) joked enough during the lead-up to this show that it's only fair we actually finally talk about it. After all of my only-semi-ironic anticipation, it's time for us to determine whether or not Your Mom saved isekai anime once and for all.

I don't think it's exactly fair to bring up Mari Okada's latest magnum opus, which sublimely addresses numerous teenage anxieties, in conversation with the show that does this, but here we are.

Kudos to the poor translator who had to make MMMMMORPG work, and nailed it.

I mean when you got a bit, you gotta run with it. And Do You Love Your Mom more or less runs it into the ground, but in abstract I respect the concept a lot. Isekai stories are too often about these angry teen boys trying to get what they feel they're owed, and in contrast to that, an isekai starring a mom seems like it would be a fresh and fun idea.

And that was my first red flag when watching it, because I was so hoping that Mamako would be the actual protagonist. If I wanted to watch some lame kid bumble his way through monster encounters, I'd watch literally any other series in this genre, thank you.

Not to mention I won't stand for a kid dissing the NES. You gotta pay respects to the classics.

I do never get sick of Mamako just instantly kicking ass at every turn. And their dynamic does make sense given the real premise of the story, which is that the government creates a video game to patch up the almost-universally fraught relationships between rowdy teens and their mothers. A noble cause, though arguably not the smartest follow-through, given how many of their adventures revolve around these mothers and/or their children wreaking fantasy havoc for everyone else.

Credit where it's due, the shitty character models are one of the show's better running gags, imo.

I appreciate the irreverence, but I also have pretty limited patience these days for "jokes" that are just pointing out tropes and going no further.

Tho I certainly appreciate a good Slayers reference as much as the next guy Also, since you brought it up earlier, I feel that KONOSUBA nailed the isekai parody corner so well that a lot of Your Mom's jokes and character dynamics can't help but feel like a pale shade of a funnier show.

I like comedies about horrible people, but I get where you're coming from. And KONOSUBA certainly did not have any character on the caliber of the pun master that is Porta, I'll give you that

Again, I think Porta is an important part of this equation too, because she's just this genuinely nice little pun gremlin who doubles as a tiny Speedwagon who can explain all of Mamako's motherly powers to the audience. It's a very important job.

Yeah, I like how it's explicitly (and uncomfortably) horny the first time, but every subsequent meeting is very matter-of-fact and barely commented on.

Also the way Porta balances her giant bag on her head each time is perfectly precious.

So Your Mom wants to have Mamako fanservice, but her son is traveling with her and thus constantly present for any fanservice opportunities. Thus, the show reconciles this by making Masato's life a living hell, emphasizing his disgust, yet also trying to titillate the audience with Mamako's mammaries at the same time. The result is...weird, to put it lightly.

It's maybe the worst way this show could've had its cheesecake and eaten it too? Like, I don't know what the solution is, but I'm pretty sure it's not him shooting the camera a thousand-yard stare as his mom goes through various states of undress. I don't know who's enjoying this.

What also doesn't help things is that Mamako herself is barely a character. We get to know her as Masato's unstoppable supermom, but after an entire season we still don't know anything about her outside of her relationship with her son. Which wouldn't be as much of an issue if she weren't the main draw of the show, but she is.

Hooooo boy yeah Medhi's arc in particular is where everything nosedived hard enough to strip away a lot of the goodwill I was still harboring for the show. Just a grossly negligent handling of themes way above its weight class.

Mamako's powers of idealized motherhood are treacly in a way that works for the usual conflicts that arise between a mother and her teenage children, and that's about it. When tackling the thornier relationships that Wise and Medhi have with their own moms, it's just patronizingly bad. Tho while Medhimama is pretty unforgivable, I will hand it to Wise's mom for having good taste.

It's literally the most frustrating trope applied in the worst way.

Again, Mamako as an avatar of all that is Mom is something that only works with much sillier things. Like, one of my favorite moments in the show is her baby bomb defusal, because it's so bizarrely heartwarming.
 
 

That is seriously the best episode. It's where Your Mom finally fully realizes its premise, with Mamako saving the day simply by being the best mom she can possibly be. It's funny and sweet in a way I wish the rest of the show could have been.

Plus, mom maid is good content.

Yeah, ultimately Medhi's arc kind of irrevocably soured me on the show, but the whole Tower storyline was some decent course-correction. Still not terribly compelling, but much more on a level the writing can deal with. I also appreciated its experiments with psychological horror.

Really would have been a good skill to have earlier on to say no to some other choice scenes in the show.

I think I feel a bit harsher about it, not necessarily because it deserves it, but because it had the potential to be the mom isekai of my dreams. And given the higher quality of its final arc, maybe the source light novels get better from this point on. I don't think I could recommend it on its own merits, but when graded on a curve against the rest of the genre, I'd definitely sooner recommend Your Mom over a lot of the competition.

Well, Nick, there's really only one answer I can give.