Review for Mahoromatic: Something More Beautiful - Volume 2

Introduction

You might have heard of hentai. Whatever you do, don't type it into Google. It means perverted, although in the world of the Internet, it's somehow come to mean anime and manga pornography. You start off at Legend of the Overfiend and work your way downward. Ecchi on the other hand is tamer stuff (ecchi refers to the initial letter of 'h'entai) and isn't explicit or hardcore. It's saucy, Carry On and Benny Hill territory, with just enough fan service to get males of a certain age excited, but not really worth complaining to your MP about. Sexiness will occur, but sex never will, and it's usually played more for laughs than anything else. It's where we find ourselves now, with the second volume of Mahoromatic - Something More Beautiful.

Mahoromatic is sort of part Evangelion and part Love Hina, unsurprising when you see that studios Gainax and Shaft produced the anime. It's set in an alternate world, where aliens invaded in the 1980s, and a group named Vesper created combat androids to protect the world from the insidious menace of Saint. Following a successful tour of duty, one such android faces the end of her existence. Mahoro has just 37 days left to live if she continues to fight, but if she shuts down her combat programming, that will be extended to 398, and given her exemplary service, her commanders offer her the choice as to how to live out her life. She decides to live out her last days, serving a young orphan named Suguru as his maid. But there is a reason why Mahoro has chosen Suguru. At the end of the first season, Mahoro had an inconclusive battle with the Saint android Ryuga, who was masquerading as Suguru's schoolteacher. Now as this second series begins, Ryuga and Mahoro have made peace, and Ryuga is trying out life as a human, when into Mahoro and Suguru's lap falls the cyborg warrior 370, quickly christened Minawa, who is fleeing her masters in The Management. You wouldn't have expected it, but Suguru's life is actually going to get more complicated.


The next five episodes of Mahoromatic - Something More Beautiful are presented on this disc from MVM.

6. How Happy It Is
New Years ought to be a time of celebration, and it is. Except that it also is an opportunity for the rivalry between Mahoro and Miss Shikijo to escalate. Five days of New Years holiday beckon for Suguru and his friends, and five days celebrating leaves a trail of mayhem behind them as Mahoro and Shikijo never let up. What no one realises is that someone from The Management is in contact with Minawa.

7. Don't Ever Come Back Again
The Hiryu Dark Martial Arts Festival is impending, the one day that the people of the town get together and try to batter each other into submission, using foam weapons, and aiming at a carefully perched flower on their opponents' heads, all aiming for a midnight showdown at the local shrine. Suguru's been in training, and is looking forward to taking part, but Mahoro doesn't approve of such wanton violence, and forbids him from leaving the house. So Suguru sneaks out anyway. Now Mahoro and Minawa have to find Suguru and protect him from the foam-wielding hooligans, only Mahoro gets caught up in the contest instead.


8. Grandfather and Grandson
Suguru's grandfather is paying a visit, and the Misato household is naturally thrown into mayhem. Yuichiro was expecting to instruct his grandson in the way of women, but finding him surrounded by a harem of beautiful girls, he is certainly taken aback. Still, he does have a thing or two to impart on the fine art of peeping on maids taking baths. Of course Suguru is unaware that his grandfather is the grand leader of Vesper, or that events are transpiring that will have great effect in the future.

9. Sweeter Than Love, But a Bit Bitter
Valentine's Day is coming up, which means that Mahoro and Minawa get to learn the pitfalls and potential rewards of giving chocolate to the ones that they love. Except that Mahoro has to balance that with being the perfect maid, while Minawa is unsure of what love actually is. Suguru's got his own problems, chocolate from several admirers, and all are eagerly waiting, and watching to see just whose chocolate he will choose to eat first. But Minawa's idyllic escape from her life is about to come to an end, when the Management pay her a visit.


10. Things I Like
Spring arrives, and with it the final day of the school year. The Management's true purpose also becomes clear, they want Mahoro, the ultimate android, and even if Minawa can't act directly against her big sister, she can still be manipulated into fulfilling the Management's goals. All that Minawa wants is a heart, and in exchange, all that she has to do is kidnap Suguru, so that Mahoro will come to the rescue and fall into a trap. But by just kidnapping Suguru, a wholly unexpected chain of events is about to take place, where Suguru learns the truth about his parents, and where Mahoro may just use up her remaining lifespan trying to rescue him.

Picture

Mahoromatic gets a 1.78:1 anamorphic transfer, which is as clear and sharp as an NTSC-PAL conversion usually gets, relatively free of ghosting, and smoothly animated. This second series seems to have moved on from the hand drawn look of the first, and it's as clean and bright as most of the CG animated shows of the period. It certainly doesn't look as rough and organic as the first series. It's a pretty straightforward comedy anime, with simple character designs and fairly standard animation, and then one of the action scenes kicks in and you can see some of that GAINAX magic, fluid and expressive action, and with the sort of quirkiness that infuses shows like FLCL and would later show up in Gurren Lagann.

Sound

You have the usual anime choices of DD 2.0 English and Japanese, with optional signs and subtitles. I went with the Japanese track as always, and found it more than acceptable, if a little typical for comedy shows of the period. This is a show that is getting on in years, and the English dub is also showing its age. It's not Love Hina bad, but it certainly pales against modern efforts.

Extras

The disc has static menus and a jacket picture, while each episode ends in a Satellite Poem.

Conclusion

I'm certainly enjoying this second series of Mahoromatic more than the first. The addition of Minawa to the cast has broadened the appeal, and added something of the moe factor to the show. I also feel that the comedy is working better this time around, and as something of the overreaching arc is revealed in this second volume, it turns out that there is a better balance between the comedy and the serious side of things as well. In Mahoromatic: Automatic Maiden, we had about eight episodes of funny, and four episodes of serious, and it seemed like there was a sharp delineating line between the two. Not so in this second series, as even with the threat of the Management made clear, there is also still time for humour amongst the angst.


We start off this second volume where the first left off, in pure silliness mode, and we seem to be working our way through the holidays. New Years is a chance for the rivalry between Mahoro and teacher Shikijo to escalate, as they continue to compete for Suguru's affections, and surprisingly not all of it is down to comparing breast size. Next up is the Hiryu Dark Martial Arts Festival, not a major holiday to be sure, but an excuse for the town residents to have fun and let off steam, hitting each other with foam weapons. Of course, Mahoro having seen the real thing isn't all too enamoured of even fake, comedy war, and she starts off preaching non-violence to Suguru. Of course once she gets involved, all this is forgotten and she starts playing to win, and the ultimate challenge is to beat last year's winner. That turns out to be Shikijo again, and her Fist of the Nude Star technique. Mahoro's counter is hilarious.


There's more relaxation when Suguru's grandfather comes to visit, and back to the comedy holiday action when Valentine's Day arrives, with Minawa slowly learning about love, and winding up dressed as a penguin. But slowly in the background of these episodes, little hints of the more serious, overarching storyline are dropped, beginning first with the revelation that The Management still have a connection to Minawa, that Suguru's grandfather has a high up position in Vesper, and that Saint and The Management are both slowly marshalling their forces. Minawa's awkwardness and apparent emotional naiveté also turn out to have a bearing, as it turns out that the cyborg, like the Tin Man, is in search of a heart. It's something that the Management can use against her, and leads directly to the finale of the disc, where it looks as if Mahoro's idyllic escape from her past is up, and that Suguru learns the truth about her, before it all becomes irrelevant anyway.


The disc ends on a cliffhanger worthy of a vintage movie serial, all that's missing is voiceover man exhorting us to tune in next week, although the preview to the next episode does take the sting out of the tail a bit. I'd actually stop the disc after the end credits instead, and wait on tenterhooks for the final instalment, but I'm a bit masochistic like that. Mahoromatic - Something More Beautiful may not be the peak of the anime medium, but it's an enjoyable little sci-fi harem rom-com, that sticks to all the usual tropes, yet doesn't seem at all tiresome or hackneyed. In fact, it's a fair bit of fun to watch, and just what you need when you want to leave the brain in neutral and just coast through a disc.