The world of light novels where loser teenage boys are thrust into fantasy RPG worlds to “live the dream” get stranger and stranger. They have to, since the formula is beyond tired at this point. This one features the male lead’s mother as the heroine.
…………what?
Creative Staff:
Story: Dachima Inaka
Art: Iida Pochi
Translation: Andrew Cunningham
What They Say:
A new kind of momcom role-playing adventure!
What would you do if you got transported into a video game…with your mom?? That’s the dilemma facing high schooler Masato Oosuki, who has been unwittingly thrown into an RPG world as part of a secret government scheme, with his doting mother close behind. As an avid gamer, Masato is eager to show off his skills…but that’s hard to do when your mom is an insanely overpowered dual-wielding multi-target specialist!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
I first heard about Dachima Inaka’s 2017 light novel series Tsujo Kogeki ga Zentai Kogeki de 2kai Kogeki no Okasan wa Suki Desuka? because it was featured in a story about light novels with really long and weird titles from a couple years ago. At the time, I thought this one was too strange a concept to make it over here. I was wrong, of course, as just over a year later, Yen Press announced that they would be publishing it here. Granted, the book had won the 29th Fantasia Grand Prize, an annual prize awarded to titles published by Fujimi Fantasia Bunko (one of the many imprints under the Kadokawa corporate umbrella), so maybe there was so merit to it? Regardless of quality, there is the fact that its initial Japanese publication was very well received, selling 12,000 copies in only nine days upon initial release. So, is it any good? Or just salaciously titled?
Technical
As a first volume, I alway like to do a brief technical review, but generally I won’t say much if the volume falls within normal customer expectations. This one does. Good quality paper, clear and clean printing, nice color pages at the start, strong binding. Everything you expect from Yen Press. The translation by Andrew Cunningham reads cleanly without any awkwardness though be aware that he expects readers to be familiar with many bits of gamer shorthand like “AOE” (“area of effect”), though such terms and acronyms are likely well known to the target audience and so no translator’s notes are offered.
Story
Masato Oosuki is your fairly normal protagonist for a light novel that’s going to whisk him into a game world where he can live out his fantasy of being an overpowered stud to make up for the fact that in real life he is a fairly unremarkable kid with a largely unremarkable life that consists mainly of going to school and then coming back home to play games on his computer. And avoiding his mother. It’s not that Mamako (yes…that is her name) is a horrible mother. She seems to be making the best of a bad family situation since…where is her husband, Masato’s father? Nowhere to be seen or heard, it seems. I’m not suggesting a broken family (he could be on foreign assignment for his company; he could be dead; we simply don’t know), but this is not some happy sitcom family. What we do know is that Mamako both looks extremely young for her age (she is supposed to be in her 40s but can pass for a high school girl) and that she literally smothers her son with affection…which would be nice if he were 4 but now that he’s in high school, he would rather be dead than be seen being smothered by his mother’s affection.
So, what serves as the catalyst for our tale? In school, all the students are asked to take a survey for the government judging the state of parent-child relationships. We see Masato’s answers, indicating his general unhappiness with his mother’s overblown attention, but also learn that he made the mistake of signing his name on his response sheet (they were supposed to be anonymous). This sets the Wheels of Fate into motion as later on, Masato and his mother are visited by a Japanese government bureaucrat named Shirase (who delights in informing us that her name means “inform”), who makes them an offer: a chance to repair their relationship, which appears rather strained, by participating in a secret government pilot program involving a multiplayer online RPG called MMMMMORPG (Working Title). Masato is a bit hesitant but Mamako basically jumps on board the chance to participate and Masato is basically bum-rushed (or pushed by something else) into joining. Shortly thereafter, Masato finds himself in a fantasy RPG with Western visual aesthetics. Pretty classic.
…except Mamako is there with him.
Yes, the twist is that this is not going to be Masato living the “dream,” being an overpowered Hero (though his class is “Hero”) and saving the world. Instead, Masato is going to be overshadowed by his mother (whose class is “Hero’s Mother”). After a tutorial section that fairly aptly parodies the tutorial sections that almost all RPGs have, Masato is given an overpowered sword as his login bonus…though Mamako just happens to get two swords that are even more legendary in their abilities, the origin of the title to this series. While Masato’s sword has special abilities to take out airborne enemies (which is actually quite useful), Mamako’s twin swords basically unleash a torrent of attacks over a broad area—a multi-target, area of effect double attack. After some initial adventuring where Mamako basically decimates all opposition while Masato can only stand by and watch until a single flying enemy appears, it is clear that this world was not built for him. It’s obvious who this world was meant for.
The game is given away after Masato begins to form a party, picking up the cute little sister type Porta, who is a non-combatant traveling merchant/crafter and the acerbic and mostly tsun with little dere to go around Wise, a mage (Sage class in this game) who is of limited use, since many monsters and enemies appear to have “magic sealing” debuffs as part of their normal kit. Wise is fifteen, but the author constantly stresses how she lacks a more developed body, which is rather unfair to the vast majority of 15-year-old girls in Japan who do not look like 27-year-old professionals of the pornographic film industry, contrary to the image painted by too many light novels, manga, and anime. It is from the latter (both of these girls are also “players” like Masato and Mamako, not NPCs) that Masato learns the horrible truth of the name of this game (I’ll leave that as a surprise for readings to find out for themselves).
After the party is formed, they set out to adventure since…they have no money. I will not go into details since much of what happens is pretty standard for a role-playing adventure. Killing monsters and leveling up. Receiving quests that promise legendary rewards. Being informed by an in-game Shirase (or rather variations on the bureaucrat Shirase, all just as eccentric as the original real world one) of important areas and game story points. The climax of this volume comes with a confrontation with another player, one who refuses to play by the rules (the rules being that mothers are supposed to make up with their children and be all the mother they can be).
So much for the story and plot. Is this worth anyone’s time? I think that depends a lot on what you find entertaining. The book turned out to be far, far, far less cringe-inducing than I had expected it to be, but was not empty of the the kind of content that did make me shake my head or do a virtual facepalm at times. The idea of making a young-looking mother the “First Girl” in Masato’s fantasy harem should raise hackles and it does, though it’s not quite (yet) played to the degree that made me wish to put the book down immediately. Oh, it’s there, it is certainly there, but it’s not quite in your face the entire time and there are alternatives on offer. The main alternative being Wise, the more age-appropriate heroine, though her personality leaves something to be desired (she slowly gets slightly better over time). At least Masato’s interest in Porta seems mainly as a virtual older brother, not anything that would have made me drop reviewing this work instantly.
There is a bit too much cliched content in character creation as Porta and Wise (and Masato for that matter) are just fairly shallow stereotypes playing out tired roles. Mamako is a somewhat unusual character in this kind of situation, but not one that is adding much novelty to the setting.
What I had been fearing would be present in the story is present, but so far couched with a great many caveats. Masato notices his mother’s charms, the author points out Mamako’s charms constantly, but Masato voices (internally) his opposition to seeing her that way. And that is for the best or this would have been a very short review. This can still all go horribly wrong, but we can hope it remains clearly a parody, not an earnest attempt to present the mother as a viable heroine for the male lead. What probably prevents this from going in that direction is Masato’s clear aversion to his mother, largely owing to her behavior.
And that behavior is a major drawback to the book. It works as a light comedy and a parody of “transported into a game world” stories, but besides the threat of descending into the Squick Zone of unnatural mom lust, what really puts me off at times is how much Mamako’s overly doting behavior just makes me shake my head. I could understand it if he were 3, but when one gets to the middle and late teens, you would think she could get the hint that treating her son like a 4-year-old (including introducing him to other people by a childish nickname (“Ma-kun”) that might have worked in kindergarten, but can only grate upon his ears now) is doing no favors in maintaining this child-parent relationship. Worse, this game world developed by the government seems only set up to enable her, not make any attempt at showing her that rebuilding the broken relationship between Masato and her will require both sides to make an effort. Maybe this will come later, but for the moment, while Masato may well be an ill-tempered loser, I can sympathize with him a bit regarding his mother’s infantilization of him, which drove him to try to seek comfort in playing games alone in his room all the time. This will be a development I will be keeping an eye on in the second volume. If it does not seem to be coming, I’m not sure I will want to read a third.
Oh, a word about the artwork. Iida Pochi, the manga-ka for The Elder Sister-like One, does know how to draw very attractive women, especially those with a slightly older vibe and appeal. I am not yet convinced about the writing, but the artwork for this series is very nice.
In Summary:
In a world (ours) that is overloaded with isekai (“transported to another world”) fantasy stories, Do You Love Your Mom and Her Two-Hit Multi-Target Attacks? tries to stand out by adding an unusual element: the protagonist’s mother as a major character…and potential love interest. Yeah, that’s a problem. It’s being averted so far, but the danger of going down that route has not been eradicated just yet. Otherwise, it’s a fairly cliched and conventional take on the genre, with Masato Oosuki and his mother Mamako transported into a MMORPG with fairly normal parameters. It’s clearly a parody (the tone taken towards explaining game mechanics is more mocking than loving), but the unusual hook for this one may yet prove problematic. We’ll have to see what the next volume brings. This volume might be worth a look for the curious, but I can see how it could also have a rather limited reach.
Content Grade: B-
Art Grade: A
Package Rating: A-
Text/Translation: A-
Age Rating: 16+
Released By: Yen Press
Release Date: November 13th, 2018
MSRP: $14.00
