Mainichi
Kaasan
Number of episodes: 13
Production Studio: Gallop
Fansub Release Viewed: Timo
Likelihood of US Release:
Streaming at Crunchyroll.com
A mother deals with juggling her job as a cartoonist and taking care of her family in this sit-com about her daily life.
Episode Summary
This series is available streaming for free on Crunchyroll. I have just used the fansubbed version in order to get screen captures.
It’s Spring, and Mom has to deal with her children doing things like drawing with markers on the wall, letting their ice cream melt in her bed, and falling asleep with their father while he drunkenly wets the bed. She makes extra work for herself when she starts drawing cartoons in her son’s communication book for school, and her comics get more and more complex each day. On a free day, the family takes a trip to the beach just to relax, but the kids just won’t stay out of the water and behave.
In the second half, Mom dreams about being alone at the bottom of the ocean, and hearing the faint sounds of waves up above, before waking to find that it’s really the sound of her children sleeping near her. She also deals with an addiction to crab, and also watches the moon with her husband, who is off on assignment as a photographic journalist.
Thoughts
I think that billing this series as a situation-comedy is a bit of a misnomer. While there are humorous moments, this episode seems to deal with events that are more poignant in Mom’s life rather than things that are silly or uproariously funny. I feel like this might throw a lot of viewers off since the show is more a series of vignettes rather than a full narrative, and because much of it revolves around a mother’s experiences, there won’t be much for your average young anime fan to relate to.
The most obvious aesthetic trait of this show is its weird character designs, which seem to be purposely simplistic and decidedly un-cute. Mom seems to exist in a perpetual state of squinty-eyed exhaustion or in some sort of emotional turmoil that causes her face to change odd colors (a trait which is joked about in one of the bits). Dad is scruffy and unkempt with perpetual stubble on his face. Considering the genre, this isn’t surprising to me, since it seems to be taking a page from Crayon Shin-Chan, and isn’t the kind of series to inspire doujin artists (at least, I sure hope it isn’t). However, this is yet another aspect of the show that might drive people away. I actually heard someone say once that the show Kaiba wasn’t real anime, presumably because it didn’t involve characters with the typical anime stylization, and I feel like jokers with similar misinformation might look at this series and regard it with disdain because of the way it looks, which is kind of sad.
Which is not to say the show is a hidden gem or anything. It has its share of problems, the most notable of which is its unusual pacing and non-contiguous story. I feel that it might have worked a bit better in a Chi’s Sweet Home style format, with short episodes a few times a week, rather than as a full 25 minute episode, which seems to drag on. I was also a bit thrown off by the fact that an entire half-episode happens before any sort of formal character introduction, which, while not exactly confusing, seemed somewhat unusual. Perhaps an attempt to create a sustained narrative for each episode might be more accessible.
Not the greatest, but not the worst either, especially if you ignore the “sit-com” labeling and enjoy the series for what it really is — an amusing, sometimes-poignant slice-of-life story about an imperfect family.
Pros
- It has its amusing moments, as well as some unexpectedly poignant ones
Cons
- The weird character designs and odd pacing might drive people away
