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No. 35244
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I did it. I finally finished Sword Mom/Okaasan Online/Tsuujou Kougeki ga Zentai Kougeki de Nikai Kougeki no Okaasan wa Suki Desuka. I’m surprised I enjoyed it as much as I did and I’m not proud to admit that I might have made my judgments too early and too harshly when I complained in the past about this show. To start with the premise in case someone here doesn’t already know it, it’s about a mother and a son entering an isekai MMO whatever meant to repair the bond of a mother and their child, usually a teenager. The main character, Masato, is given the role of the hero with a fitting sword albeit with a strength that requires somewhat rare situations while his mother, Mamako, gets two swords which usually prove themselves overpowered. The rest of the show is about dealing with mom villains and recruiting their kid as a party member, learning about that soon-to-be party member before their mother is defeated and her ways mended. And of course Masato dealing with the embarrassment from his mom goofing off.
This show is clearly more of a comedy than anything else so anyone going into this expecting good action or world-building will be very disappointed. With that said, I feel like it did the comedy well enough since the show, even outside of it’s jokes, didn’t often prove itself to be predictable like I would dread it to be instead trying to do whatever is least expected. It has it’s moments that I might describe as “cringe” or ones that are just plain stupid but I think I warmed up to them by just going with it and turning my brain off a little which is helped by the show not trying to take itself seriously. But it can definitely feel like a babby’s first anime sometimes. I found myself glad that I don’t have anyone to watch anime with because, regardless of if they like it, I would definitely feel some secondhand embarrassment. Despite it’s usually goofy nature, it does have some moments I personally found very touching but I don’t want to spoil.
The characters are kind of a mixed bag and I’ll start with Masato, the main character. I’ve seen a few people say they don’t like him and they said that others felt the same but I don’t understand much of why. He starts out a little too rude but he calms down relatively quickly reverting to the typical straight-man main character. He’s really just a teenager who wants some independence from his clingy mother, especially when he’s about to set out on the RPG adventure he’s probably always wanted. Girls later join the party so naturally he’s going to be even more upset about the things she does. But he’s a good kid and he does his best in the situations he’s in, even if Mamako is usually the one who fixes the problems by the end but it’s sweet to see them work together. In the end he’s not a bad guy, he’s just a teenager. And considering how those can be once they get rebellious I think he’s more than just fine.
Mamako, the character anyone watching the show probably started it for, is Masato’s mom. Unsurprisingly, she shines the brightest in ways more than one. She’s naïve and clearly out of her element but whatever she seriously thinks would work actually does, much to Masato’s surprise at times, because she ends up having some kind of grossly overpowered skill to make her mundane actions many times more effective and helpful for their current situation. Something that becomes clear very quickly is how much this MMO world is centered around mothers which likely offers some kind of explanation for why the things she does work. I probably shouldn’t bother talking about how overpowered she is considering it’s practically in the title anyway so to describe her character in depth a little more, she’s painfully sweet. She’s caring, soft-spoken, supportive, kind, optimistic, basically a lot of the things a good mother should be. Among mom characters in anime I can’t overstate how much of a diamond in the rough she is but even in the context of her show this proves true since the mothers of the other party members prove to be the typical types of bad mothers you could expect while also being the villains they have to fight. I probably should try and be unbiased when I make a review or even just talk about a show but man… I wish so badly more mom characters were like Mamako and had more screentime.
Porta is something of the group imouto and the inventory manager and item/skill specialist often able to craft needed items or appraise skills or items. She’s also a really sweet girl almost never throwing a bitter word at anyone with a personality that you could probably describe as “the ideal imouto”. But I also feel like there’s little more to say about her beyond that. When Shirase isn’t around it’s Porta’s job to educate the viewers and characters on what moves or skills are being used or what certain items do. I often felt like Porta was underutilized which came as a real surprise to me considering that it’s no secret to anyone that Japan loves imoutos and lolis in general. She gets almost no backstory or explanation on who she is or even how she got into the game, just that she’s a test player but the viewer is shown the criteria to be one but that isn’t elaborated on with Porta, who doesn’t clearly meet those criteria, so it’s kind of like she’s just thrown in. It’s a shame because I would have loved to learn more about her.
Wise is one of the more spicy characters in the cast, being something of a tsundere who constantly nitpicks at things before she finally calms down. She’s the magic user and shows it off often to Masato by casting insta-kill spells at him. I want to go into more detail about her but anyone who knows what a tsundere with a tendency for violence is like probably knows almost all there is to know about Wise though with the dere part toned down a lot. Alternatively, if you remember Lina Inverse then you know Wise since Masato himself makes that comparison. She’s really just a fighter but every once in a while she’ll sometimes give her own advice for a problem outside of battle which does actually help, especially when someone needs to say things directly.
Medhi is something of the deceptive type, being the healer but also a capable fighter. Despite this she doesn’t actually heal people very often and instead occasionally casts buffs or uses attacking spells of her own or just hits something with her staff to do a surprising amount of damage. She’s not unlike a 3dpd, having a pretty body at best but a terrible personality all the same and often making snide remarks or hiding her true and less glamorous intentions with initially admirable actions. She does little for the group in terms of cohesion or patching up the often damaged mother-child relations the MMO world is plagued with.
Shirase is kind of a fun weirdo. She’s responsible for giving the cast their quests and roping Masato into embarrassing or aggravating situations, at times acting as if he’s going to enjoy it despite her being constantly wrong. She plays a lot of roles in the world like running the front desk of a guild, working as a GM, giving them their own guild, and even being a bartender. She wears a suit beautifully too. But with her plans and their outcomes I’m not entirely sure if she has some clever plan to mend Mamako and Masato’s damaged relationship or just cause mischief but a lot of things happen because of her because there are problems even the GMs can’t fix. Don’t ask me how that works, I don’t know either.
That’s more or less all I have to say about Sword Mom as an anime. I’m not sure how I should write a good anime review but all of the usual things other reviews would probably talk about aren’t something I think even have enough of to discuss here because this show is mostly focused around it’s characters rather than any in-depth world-building or epic fight scenes and while I should probably talk about the voice acting or the music I feel like it’s enough to just say that they’re both good and fitting for the emotions or context. Maybe that’s anime sacrilege but it’s a little hard to go into detail about good voice acting.
If I may indulge in a bit of sentimental rambling, I appreciate this show a lot, mostly because of Mamako herself, even if it’s teenage girl characters usually aren’t nice people. I’m sure I can just chalk this up to my lack of experience and I would love to have someone smugly prove me wrong but characters that are good mothers are rare and ones that are fun characters with a significant amount of screen-time are even more scarce. I’m confident it’s possible and I’ve seen a few examples but that’s how I know it can be done. I just want to see it a little more often because it scratches a kind of itch I have, it gives me a certain kind of moe to see a cute mom or a certain kind of admiration to see a mom fight to protect her family and seeing both is something special to me. Mamako is cute, funny, surprisingly tough, naïve, and overall just a gem and a sweetheart. Even if she can be described as something of a flat and uninteresting character she’s a certain type that I can’t help but think is probably the first image of a good mom that most people would or should think of yet is unique where few characters are like her in any way instead being written as a slutty cougar, a tired wagie, a depressed drunkard with a streak of bad luck with guys, a snarky type, or something that I can sometimes find fun but never see as that much of a good mom first and instead for her other personality traits.
I don’t have much of a way to end this but if you’re looking for a goofy character-driven comedy or you just like cute moms then watch this show. If the feeling of “babby’s first anime” is something that would drive you away or you expect more out of an anime that is set in some kind of isekai/MMO fantasy world then this probably isn’t for you. Also I want to headpat Mamako and tell her that she's a good mother and headpat Porta and tell her to never change.
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