Do You Love Your Mom?

Summary: >

Masato doesn't get along with his mother Momoko. One day a shifty salesman claims a new experimental MMO can remedy their relationship problem. Masato is skeptical, but Momoko buys into the pitch, and they are transported inside of an MMO. Yes that really is the back story.

The game is unfinished, very buggy, and mostly seems to make mother-child relationships worse. That isn't so much Misato's problem, it's just really lame being stuck in an MMO with your mom.

Thoughts: >

I guess we've moved on from sister-complex to mother-complex in Japan, but I wouldn't call this progress. I knew Do You Love Your Mom and her Two-Hit Multi Target Attacks? would be dumb, but maybe fun enough to be worth watching. That much works, but even with low expectations I wished it had more at it's core instead of relying on the concept as a crutch. Maybe I should just be thankful it didn't crash and burn in a pile of stupidity.

Misato is a generic anime guy, leaving his mother Momoko to become the focus. Anime being what it is, Momoko ends up in countless risque situations and expectedly assaulted by the bane of anime girls in fan service anime: the clothes dissolving slime. That shows the strength of the concept. You can sympathize with Misato, because no one wants to see their mom like that, but on the other hand you have no problem seeing someone else's hot mom like that. Mom specific super powers are a source of amusement, but rarely leveraged well. Momoko also never breaks "the mom" mold, which is a big issue with this anime: the characters are one dimensional. As a comedy anime that's not a huge deal, but it limits how far the story can go.

So Misato and his group wander around the land, helping patch up relationships between mother-child pairs that entered the MMO, but with bad results. Interestingly this is often caused by the mother getting god like powers while the kid has to put up with it. The anime thoroughly embodies this mom theme, and while I wish it did more, I give it credit for going all-in with the theme. This is driven home by some of the most painfully cringy dialog ever. I wanted a traditional anime enhanced by the concept, but instead it's the concept with little else. It's reasonably fun so probably worth watching if you just want something brainless. While the story is incomplete, the plot is so weak it's not worth worrying about.

Screen Caps: >