Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Anime Review: Morita-san ha Mukuchi seasons 1 and 2



I didn't like the Morita-san ha Mukuchi ("Morita-san is Taciturn") OVA. The jokes felt overused, and the writers particularly seemed to think that the two boys who kept drooling over Mayu and her friends were a lot funnier than they actually were.

The Morita-san TV series remedied the OVA's problems by keeping each episode short and sweet at three minutes and focusing almost entirely on the girls' perspectives.

Morita-san ha Mukuchi is about a girl named Morita Mayu, who over-thinks what she says before she can say it- resulting in her never really saying anything. Her friends Miki (the extra-chatty one who is a little boy crazy), Hana (the soft-spoken one who has a bad home life), and Chihiro (the other chatty one who acts as a foil for Miki) don't really mind, since they know that that's just how Mayu is.

You also have the nameless glasses girl who crushes on Mayu from afar and Yamamoto, the cool Class President who has a lot of fangirls. In volumes three and four of the manga, we can see that Yamamoto herself likes girls. As I recently mentioned, I want to see more Morita-san animated just for that. Mayu's parents occasionally show up also. Where their interaction just made me feel bad for Mayu in the OVA, in the TV series, their relationship feels more sweet than bitter.

Each episode focuses on a slice-of-life scenario: the girls figuring out how to beat the summer heat at school, a festival, shopping, Mayu rewarding herself for a good score on a test, a sleepover, the girls taking a part-time job selling Christmas cakes, etc. If you like this type of series, you'll probably enjoy Morita-san since its characters are likeable and have good chemistry as friends. Thankfully, the service is basically nil.

For a light, yuri-friendly pick-me-up, Morita-san is a good bet.

Story: In three minute increments, B
Art: Simple and low budget, but it matches the manga's style. C+
Overall: B

4 comments:

Felix said...

For a light, yuri-friendly pick-me-up, Morita-san is a good bet.

I think that has been the best single sentence statement of the appeal of Morita-san wa Mukuchi, its a light, fluffy 3 mins of fun with some nice light Yuri. I really do hope that there will be more seasons of Morita-san. Considering the total amount of animation is only about three episodes worth, they shouldn't have to sell many copies of the series to make it worthwhile to make more.

I kind of hope the manga is something Yen Press would pick up considering how the anime is.

Katherine Hanson said...

@Felix- *fingers crossed* Here's hoping.

I'd like to see Yen Press pick it up also. It seems like it would fit their catalogue.

A Day Without Me said...

Welp, I don't really have anything to say in response to this, but I wanted to leave a comment, especially as I could've sworn I did on your last post but apparently did not!

I am also fresh off of deleting several stupid comments on a recent post of mine I did about yuri, so I felt like making sure I left a not-stupid comment on your blog~ Those of us willing to speak the truth about yuri and its audience have to listen to too much claptrap far too often!

Hope your Christmas was good~

Katherine Hanson said...

@A Day Without Me- Thank you! :-) I hope you had a good Christmas too~

And I'm sorry to hear about those comments.