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Friday, 23 December 2011 00:00 |
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Page 1 of 2
 Taro Sado has a problem - he's gotten a little too attached to the pain of physical damage, to the point where he's labelled himself a "super masochist", eager for the next person to come along and beat him wonderfully. He needs help, and in realising this he turns to his school's Second Volunteer Club for help. Bad move, Sado, bad move...
There are twisted tales and twisted tales, but few are as twisted as poor Sado's, who's just realized that he LIKES being made miserable. Of course, knowing that only makes him more miserable, which in turn... Well, you get the idea. Desperate to break the circle, Sado volunteers for a special club where he hopes he can work through his issues, only to discover that the other members have equally... complex... issues to deal with. For example, the hyper-aggressive club president Mio not only has a violent fear of cats, but also believes herself to be a god. Then there's Yuno, who's terrified of men; the Nurse, who forces other people to perform cosplay; and Hayama, Sado's best friend and a compulsive cross-dresser - who also happens to be the 'girl' that Sado is infatuated with...
So, here we have a series full of thoroughly messed-up people - meet any of this lot in real life, and you'd run a mile, but fortunately this is anime - it's played for laughs (as far a whips and leather can be a laughing matter, anyway) and has a healthy dose of teenage fumblings at romance as well. Which is a combination that works surprisingly well - the characters may have their issues, and dealing with them may often boil down to giving Sado the beating that he really wants, but at the end of the day they're all still looking for people to spend their time with.
That side of things boils down to a love triangle between Sado, Mio and Yuno. Sado's a masochist, Mio's a sadist - the appeal of a relationship there isn't hard to see, and you can figure on Mio delivering a beating at least once per episode. Yuno, though, is far more interesting - her fear of men comes from a particular event in her past, one that has a decent amount of time devoted to explaining it and its aftermath, in such a way that Yuno becomes probably the one person in the series who feels like a well-developed character. Her issues aren't just for comic relief (although her reactions around males certainly fall into that character), and Sado seems to realise that - over the course of the series, the pair become quite the couple, in a purely unofficial way, and it's fun to see the small changes in Yuno's personality along the way.
Mio mellows a bit as well, in an effort to give Sado some reason to like her other than as his mistress, but she never quite reaches the same state of likeability. Cross-dressing Hayama and his female alter-ego, a thoroughly ojou-sama personality, don't get as much screen-time as I would have liked; while Sado's mother and big sister, who possess strong brocon / shouta tendencies and would both unashamedly like to get into his pants, get far too much (seriously, you two: cut it out). Add in genius inventor Noa, Yuno's overprotective friend Yumi, and a class president with a worrying obsession with Mio, and there are lots of opportunities for fun twists and turns that keep things entertaining.
Now, if you don't think that regular beatings are fun, even in a controlled, willing and humorous environment, then MM! won't be for you - there's a strong reliance on physical humour that definitely won't work for anyone, and some of what Noa and Sado's family in particular get up to is right on the edge of pushing it too far. For me, at least, it never quite crosses the line, and the humour combined with a decent cast makes it fun to watch. Don't expect a conclusion to the love triangle, though - the author of the source manga sadly passed away not too long ago, without the series ever tying such things up. But lack of conclusion is hardly unheard of in this type of show, anyway. Shallow and ultimately with a limited bunch of tricks, if it's the sort of humour that pushes your buttons you'll find a lot here to enjoy.
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