Summer 2010: Mitsudomoe

There has been plenty of praise about the innocence that the series Yotsuba&! brought to manga pages. There's a lot about growing up that we have forgotten by becoming adults, and watching Yotsuba explore the world around her with a carefree attitude and a childish optimism is something to behold. However, reading all that innocence has got to make the average reader wonder where the lowlights of one's childhood are. We weren't all like Yotsuba when we were young—we were squishing bugs, getting into fights, and falling into open toilets.

For every giggling cherub, there needs to be a cackling problem child.


Spawned from the mind of gag-manga artist Norio Sakurai, directed by Masahiko Ôta (Minami-ke), and animated by the Aniplex crew through the Bridge Studios, Mitsudomoe takes that innocence that Yotsuba&! brings and plucks the leaves off of that lucky clover. The story focuses on the terrors brought by the three "Mischievous Marui Sisters" at Kamohashi Elementary with each triplet able to bring unique swaths of destruction—Mitsuba has a sadistic desire to dominate the smaller folk (only to get the brunt of the attacks), Futaba doesn't know her own strength and little else (outside of boobies), and the silent bookworm Hitoha...well...


...let's just say that Sawako from The Ring has a little competition.

While the show is about these unintentional hoodlums, we mustn't ignore their victims. The center of the trio's attentions criss-cross around Satoshi Yabe, their much-maligned sixth-grade teacher. Being new to the job isn't such a bad thing, especially with the cute-yet-ditsy Kuriyama-sensei equally new at the nurse's office, but the antics of the Marui Sisters present a new challenge. Throw in a pervert kid (what's with the "69" hat?), a popular kid who wants to avoid his fan club, and a few other flawed characters, and Class 6-3 could be one of the hardest classes to sit through.

There are a few misconceptions about this show that the original images might convey. First of all, there is very little about Mitsudomoe that appears to be "moe" in the first place. (It's more "tomoe", as in the symbol seen at plenty of Shinto shrines.) There may be emphasis on the ridiculous in this anime, but there doesn't appear to be much about the designs that provides attraction to particulars about the characters. In fact, the sympathy appears to be more for poor Mr. Yabe as he tries to be diligent and caring for his students while hiding his attraction for Ms. Kuriyama.

Most of all, this isn't your innocent love-comedy Hanamaru Kindergarten wannabe. This show gets pretty intense by depending on dirty comedy. Not only does the show get over-the-top with sexual innuendo (Futaba and Hitoha settle on "Nipples" as the name of the class hamster) and crotch-shot humor (a plan to bring Mr. Yabe and Ms. Kuriyama together involves just that), but a lot of the physical comedy is mixed with...bodily fluids. Not going to spoil just how blood, snot, and urine make its way into the show, but they do. Somehow. It's not pretty.


Mitsudomoe does go for the jugular with its jokes about breasts, nosebleeds, and pee, but I actually had to pause before I made my mind up about the show. While the class level for Mitsudomoe rivals all those shows that use poop as props, I had to wonder—when did elementary school turn into such a perfect sanitary institution? Fart jokes and potty humor defined elementary school for us, representing a time in a kid's life when he or she learned what was and was not appropriate. Heck, we were all a brat at one moment in our lives—why not watch a show about three of them? While there are parts of Mitsudomoe I didn't want to watch due to their filth factor, those parts were not only just as funny as the cleaner segments, but they were essentially foils to make the cleaner segments better in the end.

I'm surprised to say it, but Mitsudomoe's tongue-in-cheek humor might make it the biggest surprise of the summer TV season. It also makes me beg the question—is this why Yotsuba&! hasn't been animated yet?

Summer 2010: Seitokai Yakuindomo

While I have never been one to witness the organization in action during my three years as a language assistant in a Japanese middle school, the seitokai (生徒会, "student council") plays a vital role in the development of leadership amongst the student body by providing an outlet for students to improve student life through administration and constant feedback from other students.

In other words, it's a teenage board of directors. Student-run government. Hard work.

Suffice to say, real student council meetings don't involve a shadowy organization of manipulators (Utena, Medaka Box) and likely don't involve accidental fan-service scenes or breathless confessions during some of the paperwork (Seitokai no Ichizon). If they did, my guess is that there would be more volunteers and candidates for student-council work. In reality, it's just another club for students to be involved in, so it's also another target for anime shows to focus on.

So far this year, we've already seen one student council get turned on its head with the introduction of a female president in an all-male school converted to a co-ed school (Kaichô wa Maid-Sama!). However, it's a bit surprising to see that the opposite scenario has already been animated for the next season in the form of Seitokai Yakuindomo ("All Those in the Student Council"). It's now time for a male to enter the female-dominated student council at Ôsai Private Academy.

"Domination" is probably too light a term to describe the student body at Ôsai—the ratio is almost oppressive to the point that it's surprising this isn't a harem anime. Our male protagonist Takatoshi exits the train turnstiles as the lone male representative in the hundred or so females going to school, only to be singled out by the members of the Ôsai Student Council for not adhering to the rules of the school uniform.


It's under the puffy sakura blossoms that we meet the trio. The student president Shino is diligent at following the rules, but lacks reserve and knowledge about the opposite gender, leading to ditzy stereotypical declarations about males. It doesn't help that the lighthearted secretary Aria adds fuel to the misconceptions with her own dark jokes behind a smiling expression. The only real knowledgeable one in the group is Suzu, a half-pint genius who has to put up with the perception that her lack of height makes her appear to be a kid...even though she fits the pattern with childish actions.

The only thing missing in the Student Council is a vice-president, and that is where Takatoshi is shuffled into the plot, having to learn from the others about the places and rules for the academy. This makes for a slow start to the series, especially since the yonkoma style that the manga follows is followed so closely. The comedy comes in short bursts that barely last fifteen seconds, so the flow from scene to scene is not necessarily smooth, but this may correct itself as the school year unfolds.

However, it is the comedy itself that doesn't quite help Seitokai Yakuindomo in the end. The status of the Council makes all of the things floating in their heads come to the surface, but Shino and Aria are dense to the point of disbelief when it comes to self-censored humor from prophylactics, masturbation, and "health education". Takatoshi, unfortunately, doesn't help his cause as the straight man of the bunch, as his comebacks and punchlines are so quiet and helpless that it makes him sound...bored. He makes Kyon look like Prince Charming. Suzu might be the only gem, as the "Suzu-Head" shot with her barely in camera frame is a hoot.


Ennui is not exactly the sort of image I would want the anime to portray regarding the Student Council, but I sense repetition. It seems that the success of past shows that take place in ordinary school meeting rooms has caused others to want to copy the pattern, and it's really not working yet. Perhaps the comedy threatens to become robotic in the future, as the give-and-take is easy to witness in the first episode alone. For now, Seitokai Yakuindomo needs a little guidance from the teachers.

This is for all my homies in Porter Square.

(Courtesy of Sonny Wong and 40ozmaltliquor.com)

When I first woke to the concept of anime and manga in Japan, it was after I had moved down to Georgia Tech in 1993. I had seen some copies of Ranma 1/2 sold monthly at the local comics shop at the Billerica Mall when I was a high-school senior infatuated with X-Men, but I thought little else of it. Once I got to understand the concepts (and dealt with the idea that comics didn't have to be in color), I warmed up to the culture back home during the summer breaks, only to see that comics store vanish into bankruptcy (along with the rest of the mall).

The next step, after learning to appreciate comics in Atlanta through anime clubs and nearby shops, was to take manga appreciation to the next level--actual Japanese mastery. That meant that I would have to find a way to purchase actual Japanese-text comics. While I didn't know the proper channels in Atlanta, I did find the authorities for Japanese-language tests and manga in Boston at a small bookstore in Porter Square called Sasuga Bookstore.

The store was just off of the Porter Square stop in Cambridge, a few steps away from the major Japanese center in the college town. People could get a bowl of ramen, a bunch of boxes of Pocky at the local Japanese-brand grocery store, and a few tankôbon of Fushigi Yûgi just like that. For culture fans, it was a manga mecca; for students, it was a Valhalla for literature. Most importantly, it became a site that catered to the desire to learn more about the language, as there were bulletin boards for tutoring in both Japanese and English.

However, something happened on the way to niche-market success. Somewhere after its celebration as a decade-old bookstore, the shop closed some time in 2004. The shop pulled its headquarters to Waltham and was open for sales on Saturdays, but soon all business was pressured into moving to a web-only set-up. While it was great to see the store hit dealers' rooms all over the East Coast convention scenes with lines jammed with customers, competition with other online stores and accelerated translations of manga into English likely slowed sales to a crawl.

That left the horrible realization on July 4th: Sasuga Japanese Bookstore wouldn't make it past July 5th. The online website closed for good July 6th.

I feel like I lost quite a bit of opportunity with the store, as all of my business was in Japan from 2000 to 2003. By the time I got back, the store was limping to its end in Cambridge. Once it left, Porter Square didn't seem the same, and stores have been closing slowly since then--Kotobukiya was moved out to Medford and renamed Ebisuya, while the kiosk restaurants have been struggling for business.

So now I realize that my Japanese-language purchases now must come from further outside New England, and trips to the dealers' room will no longer be a joy like it used to be. What I can offer is merely my gratitude for the company through a short anecdote.

I have been a big collector of the Naruto Japanese-language comic books, and I usually went to Sasuga at conventions to appease my thirst. However, I found myself buying a fukubukuro "grab-bag" of mystery manga. I opened it up to find Volumes 5 through 8 of Idejû! ("Ide High School's Judo Club Story").

Since then, I have managed to get the other nine volumes, all thanks to that accidental discovery.

Thank you for everything, Sasuga Bookstore. I pour my 40 of Chû-Hai out for you.