do you love your mom?

By Dachima Inaka and Iida Pochi. Released in Japan as “Tsujo Kogeki ga Zentai Kogeki de Ni-kai Kogeki no Okasan wa Suki desu ka?” by Fujimi Fantasia Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Andrew Cunningham.

Sometimes you need to be careful not to read too much into “this character is overpowered an perfect”, even in a light novel. We’ve spent ten volumes so far watching Mamako and Masato, and honestly it has felt like most of the growth has been on his end. He’s a teenager, after all. That said, the game that we’ve been watching has not been entirely for children to mature and learn to get along better with their mothers, it’s also been showing us some pretty awful mothers. From Wise’s selfish mom to Mehdi’s education mom to Porta’s workaholic mom, each of these mothers has shown us that equal work needs to be done on both ends to repair the relationship. As such, it should not be too much of a surprise that we get to the final volume, which is supposedly about Masato facing off against his father the Demon Lord, only to realize that Mamako has been the real final boss all along.

The reason for the appearance of Masato’s dad (who works for the government) is that the beta is over, and it’s time to stop playing the game and go back to the real world. But first, there are a few hurdles to be overcome. The game ‘resets’ itself somewhat, first by having to get everyone to re-register their roles (fortunately for Masato, no one else really wants to be the Hero); then by erasing the memories of most of the supporting cast, in order to make Masato’s task harder. But he’s matured, something he shows off quite well in the first half of this book. A little too well – not only are Wise and Mehdi disturbed that a Masato who’s not pathetic might actually be… attractive to them, but Mamako is realizing that she’ll soon be unable to be a mom for him 24-7… and she hates that, however much she might pretend otherwise.

So yes, Mamako *is* one of the mom stereotypes we mentioned before. She’s the smothering mom. We’ve seen this throughout the series – the gag is that the game revolves around her and that he’s unable to do anything himself. But slowly, as the books have gone on, he’s managed to take more of a role in deciding what to do and how to solve things. He’s growing up. High school and college are around the corner. And then he’ll move out, marry Wise/Mehdi/whoever (Porta, thankfully, is left in the little sister role), and Mamako won’t have her baby boy around. The finale makes sense in a conceptual way – given the entire game has revolved around Mamako to date, she ends up literally becoming the game writ large… very large. But finally they are able to get through to her, and we end up with an epilogue that has everyone in reality dealing with the Mom game going into wide release.

Ignoring the joke ending that is basically “and the adventure continues…”, this was far more solid than it had any right to be. The series should have ended several volumes ago, but at least it mostly stuck the landing.

By Dachima Inaka and Iida Pochi. Released in Japan as “Tsujo Kogeki ga Zentai Kogeki de Ni-kai Kogeki no Okasan wa Suki desu ka?” by Fujimi Fantasia Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Andrew Cunningham.

For some reason, I had it in my head that most of the last five books were short-story volumes. This isn’t actually the case, it just seems like it, but even the other short story volumes added a plot that coheres more than this one, a volume that is the very definition of “we need you to end with Vol 11 instead of 10, so can you just busk for 200 pages?”. There is a plotline introduced here, one that seems to promise that the final volume will at least not consist of stories from Dragon Magazine, but unfortunately we only see that plot in a brief prologue and in the final story. For most of this, it’s generic adventures. And, because they’re meant to slot in anywhere for readers as they’re magazine stories, that means Masato is more annoying than usual, and also more put-upon than usual, a dangerous double combination. Basically, this was hard to push through.

We open with a prologue where Shirase (in the real world, so without extra letters) is explaining to the government that they’re ready to actually launch the game – but the identity of the beta testers comes as a surprise to one of the people in the room. After this, our heroes try to stop a restaurant feud between mother and daughter, which mostly involves paying high bills and a lot of curry; the appearance of a MOD that allows a body modification leads to one of the few cliches the series had not done yet, a bodyswap between mother and son; the monsters are all getting a holiday, leaving our heroes at loose ends… well, just Masato really; our heroes team up with an overly florid grocer to try to stop a shoplifter; and our heroes film a commercial for the game, and all try to show their best sides. We know how that works out.

The final story is the best… OK, let’s be honest, the only one that did not make me want to skim the book, though the shoplifting story has its clever moments. A new beta tester, named “Hawk” arrives, led by Shiraaase. He looks 15, but his real identity is obvious to… well, Mamako and the reader, and even Masato is coming up with a good guess. Yes, it’s his dad, and he seems to be just as much of a dad stereotype as Mamako is the mom stereotype. Despite the cliffhanger, he does not actually seem to be evil or misguided here, and clearly loves his family. He’s also impressed with the growth Masato has shown, which I’d likely have appreciated more if I hadn’t just plowed through those short stories where he was more generic dipshit guy. It does serve to remind you that the game it meant to serve a purpose beyond “make Mamako an OP goddess”.

So yes, the next volume is the final one, and I’m hoping that it will not have more short stories. It will also probably bring back the rest of the cast like Hahako and the 3 evil minion kids, etc. Heck, we might even see Wise and Mehdi’s mothers again. Till then, though, the best part of the book was seeing that dad is just as big of a dork as his wife and child.

By Dachima Inaka and Iida Pochi. Released in Japan as “Tsujo Kogeki ga Zentai Kogeki de Ni-kai Kogeki no Okasan wa Suki desu ka?” by Fujimi Fantasia Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Andrew Cunningham.

I can see what this volume was trying to do – well, aside from make an entire volume about Christmas and how it applies to moms and children. Because the main cast are all in their teens (even Porta), we haven’t really had much excuse to delve into the way that moms have to deal with infants and small children, and this volume gives us an excuse to do that. In addition, because Mamako is that sort of mother, we haven’t really gone into what it means to be spoiled or not spoiled in great detail since the (rather comedic) story of Mone and her mother, and combining Masato’s inherent issues, Mone’s unresolved plot and the ongoing travails of Hahako and the Kings is thematically sound. Unfortunately, the need for comedy and fanservice actually serves to turn me a bit against the book this time. I can appreciate the thought behind the plot, but didn’t enjoy reading it.

The main problem with Hahako and the Three Kings is that they’re NPCs literally written to be anti-mom, so changing their minds and accepting Hahako as their parent is well-nigh impossible. Towards that end, Shiraaase and Mamako come up with a Christmas-themed event that will hopefully help things along… especially since a mischievous Shiraaase has made it so Masato and the three Kings are infants. As the events go on, they become toddlers, then young kinds, but unfortunately there’s still a wall that can’t really be broken down between the Kings and Hahako. Unfortunately, the whole situation has to be put on hold when Mone, who’s been quiet and withdrawn through this whole event, suddenly gains a massive hole in her chest that sucks up half the cast. There’s gonna be a whole lotta spoiling going on unless Masato and company can stop it.

There are, I think, two big problems I had with this book. The first is that I’d honestly forgotten about Mone and her “spoil me” tendencies, and so having her as the mini-boss of this volume came somewhat out of left field. The other is that, for once, the parody and humor aspects of Do You Love Your Mom? work against it. There’s a few exceptions – mind-controlled Wise, Mehdi and Porta were amusing, I grant you, as was Shiraaase’s verbal disparaging of Porta’s mother throughout – but everything about Masato as a baby made me want to simply stop reading the series right there and fly to Japan to berate the writer. It’s a small part of the book, only a few pages, but I kept simmering about it through to the end. The books have nudged their way closer to a vaguely serious ending over the ppast few, and this felt like backsliding.

We have two volumes to go, and there’s a hint that the final volumes may be a two-parter, as a “demon lord” who is the final boss is mentioned. (I can guess who this is, but we’ll see.) Those who’ve been reading the series will still want to pick this up, but I was tired reading it.

By Dachima Inaka and Iida Pochi. Released in Japan as “Tsujo Kogeki ga Zentai Kogeki de Ni-kai Kogeki no Okasan wa Suki desu ka?” by Fujimi Fantasia Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Andrew Cunningham.

As I look back through previous volumes of this series, I keep having to remind myself “this is a parody” more and more often, for two reasons. First, because as the series goes on the serious plotline of what the proper amount of love and distance should be between mother and child is taken more and more seriously, and that holds here as well. The other reason, of course, is that due to the nature of the plot and the over the top parody aspects, we see some really toxic abusive relationships between mothers and daughters. I mention this in passing because Wise and Mehdi’s mothers show up again in this volume to team up with Mamako, and for the most part they’re being greatly softened. I should not have expected much else – even if “sometimes you need to cut off an abusive parent” was a thing that happened very often in media like this, it’s certainly not going to happen in this specific title with the opposite message.

The book leads off with the moment we’ve been waiting for – finally, we get Porta’s mom. As was hinted last volume, she is the final of the anti-mom generals – and also one of the main developers of the game itself. She and Porta have a strained relationship that manages to be different from our other three mom-child teams. Mamako is the smothering type, Wise’s mother the ignoring type, and Mehdi gets the education mama, but Porta and her mother both compete to see who can hate themselves the most, and let me tell you, it’s neck and neck. What’s more, the latest plot to break up the game seems to work quite well – planting pins on the kids of the world so that they all try to act super independent, leading their mothers to get depressed that they aren’t needed any more. This goes double for Mamako, who knows that she doesn’t even need to have a pin to get those feelings – her baby is growing up, and pretty soon she’ll have to let him to at least a little.

If you worried the humor was gone, no fear. Shiraaase is still around to make everything hilarious, this time by making Mamako and her other mom companions idol singers, something that humiliated all the children, and all the moms who are not named Mamako, who is of course delighted. Shiraaase has also managed to find a way to weaponize her own coffin demises, which is impressive. There’s also some amusing schtick in the middle of the book, as Masato and company have to play Porta’s life-sizes board game in order to advance, a board game filled with annoying yet amusing pitstops. It’s also quite nice that, even after 8 volumes (out of 11 total), there is very little to no romance in this still. Sometimes, once or twice a book, Wise and Medhi briefly show they might like Masato, but they’re far more comfortable emasculating him instead.

So yes, as long as you don’t take this too seriously, it’s still good enough, and it was nice to see the guilty workaholic mom added to the pile. (Honestly, I thought that might be filled by Shiraaase, but her kid is only 5, so unlikely to show up in this game.) Next time around… (Noddy Holder scream) IT’S CHRIIIIIISTMAAAAAAS!!!!

By Dachima Inaka and Iida Pochi. Released in Japan as “Tsujo Kogeki ga Zentai Kogeki de Ni-kai Kogeki no Okasan wa Suki desu ka?” by Fujimi Fantasia Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Andrew Cunningham.

This series (which has now ended in Japan at Vol. 11) has, as its primary goal, humor and fanservice, as with many other series of its type – this one just involves moms. But there is a secondary goal that the series occasionally reaches toward, which is “make Masato a mature, self-sufficient young man”. As the author admits, you can’t really take this TOO far or you’d ruin the series’ main running gag of his being useless in the face of his overpowered mom. But this volume comes closest to giving him actual character development, and I can distantly see an endgame in site. That’s not so say this book is not also very silly, as we get stranded on a desert island, a beach volleyball game that seems to mostly involve hitting the girls’ asses with the ball, and the third of the Four Heavenly Kings, who seems to bond with Masato right away. And then there’s Porta… so close, but not yet.

This volume begins with a new area opening, which features Beastmen, including the Beastman Mom we saw in the tournament arc. Our party wins a gatcha lottery, with Mamako winning the grand prize, a trip to a resort for three days. Unfortunately, the airship they’re taking to the resort ends up in the midst of a party fight, and they end up crash landing on a seemingly deserted island. Still, they have the infinitely overpowered Mamako, so they can do things like create a beach, an entire resort town, etc. just by her calling on Mother Earth and willing it to happen. And Masato runs into a kindred spirit, someone who might finally be able to teach him how to get stronger. The question is… stronger for what? And also… is Mamako wearing herself out? REALLY?!

Yes, we’re finally getting a situation engineered where Mamako can’t use her full powers, and in fact is exhausting herself just trying to do what she normally does. This dovetails nicely with the ending, where Masato confronts her about lying to him about being fine, which she finally, grudgingly admits to because she didn’t want to worry him. This is, frankly, a situation that a parent has likely had to deal with before. As for Masato himself, after seeing the varieties of Mom-hating that the Four Heavenly Kings offer, he realizes, in the typical shonen protagonist way, that he wants to get stronger so that he can protect others, not just so that he can beat his mom at something. Which is good, as the ending trap requires him to use power that ONLY works if he says it’s to protect his mom. Even the other girls have to admit that he was almost cool there for a moment.

There’s lots of silliness here as well, usually involving our two pathetic villainesses, or Wise and Medhi, our two somewhat pathetic heroines. But this is Masato’s book, and he holds up pretty well, despite spending the first three quarters of it or so moping around thinking about how weak he is. Next time will we finally confront the mystery that is Porta? Maybe, maybe not. But for fans of the series, this is a very good volume.

By Dachima Inaka and Iida Pochi. Released in Japan as “Tsujo Kogeki ga Zentai Kogeki de Ni-kai Kogeki no Okasan wa Suki desu ka?” by Fujimi Fantasia Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Andrew Cunningham.

Just as the grandfather in The Princess Bride has to reassure us that “she does not get eaten by the sharks at this time” (or eels, I was always more a book person), I feel a need to reassure those people seeing the cover and emitting screeches of rage and horror that “he does not marry his mother at this time”. This is not to say there isn’t teasing to that effect – remember what series you’re reading. But it always walks up to the line but never crosses it, and that’s the case here as well. What this volume is is a short story collection, with several stories written for Dragon Magazine as well as a larger story written for this book. As with most short story volumes where this is the case, the original content is much better than the magazine imports. That said, the short story nature of the book does also add a new interesting wrinkle: Mamako really doesn’t do much in this book.

The first story takes place prior to Medhi joining the group (with a “let’s have a flashback” section so awkward I winced) and is mostly about goblins, which leads to an amusing pun that is also very Japanese. The second story is the worst, taking us back to the classroom full of NPCs, this time with Mamako as the teacher. This is a story for you if you love fanservice and Masato at his most immature. The main story is a two-parter, the first of which involves our party helping a mother whose daughter is a little TOO spoiled… and it turns out that’s the only thing stopping her from destroying the world. After that we meet the character designer for the game, along with her mother (of course), who has entered the game as she’s in love with the Prince that she created and wants to marry him. This is treated more seriously than I expected.

As always, the book rises and falls depending on how tolerable Masato is. When he’s showing he’s learned from his prior experiences and is actually being a normal teenage boy, the book is quite entertaining. When he’s doing nothing but whining and moaning, I once again ask myself why the hell I am reading this. Fortunately, most of the bad stuff is front loaded. Mone, the girl who needs to be spoiled, is a type that we didn’t quite have in the series yet – a love interest for Masato who actually admits she likes him. This does not sit well with our two reluctant mages. The most interesting part was at the end (it’s also the most amusing part – I won’t spoil why, but it involves Medhi and embarrassment, and it’s possibly the funniest the book has ever been) when Rika, the character designer, has to defend falling in love with a character in a game. There’s discussion of the fact that, since games are THIS interactive now, it’s not the same as, say, marrying a body pillow, as well as discussion of when to let your child go (something Mamako struggles with, obviously).

There’s also a bit more plot tease – by now it’s very obvious Porta’s mother is being held back till near the end of the series (assuming this ever ends) and we once again see a fantastic opportunity for Mamako to mention her husband… which she does not do at ALL. This is not Do You Love Your Dad?, and – more to the point – Mamako is the heroine, and the author knows Japanese readers won’t want to see her obviously paired up with anyone. (She’s both virgin AND mother!) In any case, after a rough start, this was a decent book, provided of course that you’ve gotten over the basic premise.

By Dachima Inaka and Iida Pochi. Released in Japan as “Tsujo Kogeki ga Zentai Kogeki de Ni-kai Kogeki no Okasan wa Suki desu ka?” by Fujimi Fantasia Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Andrew Cunningham.

This is a slightly stronger volume than the previous one, if only as the author has hit upon a very solid plotline for this book: a tournament arc. Do You Love Your Mom? is not exactly a Shonen Jump series, but certainly mom is overpowered enough to be a last boss in the sort of tournaments you see there. Here she fights against 15 other mothers who are all basically variants on the position. There’s elf mom, giant mom, robot mom, devil mom, angel mom, ninja mom… etcetcetc. There’s also our two minor comedy villains, who disguise themselves as “one girl on another’s shoulders wearing a coat” but get away with it because LOL. The most interesting competitor, though, is “Hahako”, who at first appears to be Mamako’s dark mirror or evil doppelganger. That’s not QUITE true, but it’s certainly playing on those ideas until we get to the reveal. As for Mamako, well, she even has a few points here where she struggles. Briefly.

The rest of the cast exist basically to a) get humiliated, and b) show that they have grown as well, if only slightly. Given the nature of the series, Masato gets humiliated a bit more and also has to wait longer to prove he’s not pathetic. He has at least gotten better at identifying the “powers” that his mom has and differentiating hers from, say, the other fifteen moms who all seem to love him and want him to be their son as well. (For one thing, he’s not attracted to his real mom. I appreciate that a series which at times seems entirely to have been released because of the incestual premise refuses to go down that road.) He also trusts her to do the right thing even when it might require a leap of faith, which helps to defeat Hahako, who “feels” almost exactly like Mamako. But isn’t.

I won’t go into Hahako’s actual identity, but I will say that I liked the attention devoted to “what is it that makes a mother?”. Mamako’s speech was actually good, and reminded us that the relationship need not be biological either. The rest of the book, well, is a lot of gags, some funny, some not very funny. The sports commentary stuff was great. I could have done without Mamako being changed into various different fetishes… erm, sorry, types of character. Even if the last one dies actually make her struggle for perhaps the only time in this series to date. There are also a few hints for future books… it’s now really obvious that Porta’s mom is one of the main villain group, and Shiraaase is also not infooorming nearly as much as she could be. There’s a lot of secrets going on here.

The next book, which features Mamako in a wedding kimono on the cover, fills me with dread, but oh well, it likely won’t go there. This remains rather silly, but not as bad as you’d expect.

By Dachima Inaka and Iida Pochi. Released in Japan as “Tsujo Kogeki ga Zentai Kogeki de Ni-kai Kogeki no Okasan wa Suki desu ka?” by Fujimi Fantasia Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Andrew Cunningham.

There is a certain weariness to this volume of Do You Love Your Mom?. The author implies at the afterword that they had not expected this series to run quite as long as this, and taking that one gag and making it go over and over is hard. It shows in this volume’s villain, who manages to make the villain of Book 3 look competent. She has one trick, and when it doesn’t work she essentially whines and moans. There’s also a pile of mothers who are lured into the plot because, well, they’re not all that good at being mothers. It’s meant to set up the final moral, which is that it doesn’t matter if you’re bad at cooking and sewing as long as you have feelings for your children, but I do wonder: are there any dads in this world at all? Why can’t they do the housework? It likely won’t come up, as the premise is moms and children, but I am curious.

Our heroes wind up in Casino Town, and the goal is immediately to get rich so they can buy items and not have Mamako steal all the glory and level ups. Naturally, this goes badly. Masato and his mom end up going on a day-long date where Mamako dotes on him to a hideous degree (the entire “let me wash your back” scene can just go away), while the other three try to cheat at the casino and are immediately captured and converted into bunny girls. Yes, even Porta. Now Mamako and her son must invade the casino to win back the others, and also find out about a sinister plot that involves the mothers of this town disappearing, and their children imprisoned. Fortunately, Mamako has had an entire day of spoiling her son, so her mom powers are higher than they’ve ever been…

I am, as always, most pleased by the appearance of Shiraaase, a one-gag character whose gag never gets old to me. (Oddly, her gag seems stunted in this book, possibly as the villain talks in looooong, draaaaawn-out vowels and thus Shiraaase holds back to avoid confusing the two of them.) She even manages to achieve things before getting thrown back in her coffin. Speaking of which, the most satisfying scene of all may be one where Masato has to get through an army of skeletons to get at the big bad. He’s alone, and the fact that he actually has to rely on his own strength and weapon makes him so happy that he simply mows them down like they’re weeds. Now, this is undercut by the Big Boss essentially letting up on him because of a mom thing, but hey! He briefly did a thing!

The series is 9 volumes and counting in Japan, so any danger of the main plot wrapping up is nil. And the fanservice aspect of the series is, to be blunt, really irritating. If you really like Shiraaase or enjoy the main conceit, it’s still worth reading, but if you’re looking for a series to drop as it’s not good enough anymore, this one works fine.

By Dachima Inaka and Iida Pochi. Released in Japan as “Tsujo Kogeki ga Zentai Kogeki de Ni-kai Kogeki no Okasan wa Suki desu ka?” by Fujimi Shobo. Released in North America digitally by Yen On. Translated by Andrew Cunningham.

Since the last volume of this series came out in North America, the anime has started, and as such the series is even more well-known than it was before. Unlike some other Summer 2019 debuts I could mention (coughArifuretacough), the anime of Do You Love Your Mom? does not seem to have annoyed anyone who’s not already annoyed with the premise in the first place. I have been seeing a lot more criticism of Masato, though, and this isn’t a surprise. Indeed, it’s called out by the villain in this book. Shouldn’t he be the hero? Shouldn’t he get to do a cool thing once in a while? Shouldn’t Wise and Medhi be falling for him/competing for him? The answer, of course, is no, becausde the whole point of the series is that it isn’t that. This is a series where the mom takes over. That’s the PLOT. Masato’s journey, if anything, is to get on with him mom.

It’s a journey that may take a while – the entire series, in fact. Now, compared to everyone else in the series, Masato and his mother have a warm, loving relationship. But it’s clear that “my mom is embarrassing” is combining with “my mom is stealing my spotlight” to make for a very frustrated young man. In this book, he and his party reach a 100-floor tower with lots of monsters. A standard dungeon crawl. But there’s not much of that. Instead they take over an inn and fix it up, try to stop a bunch of thugs from blowing up the town, and (of course) deal with a whole bunch of NPC moms and their overly mom traits. The author in the afterword has to spell out that while these are stereotypical moms in every way, they’re not meant to be MEAN characterizations. The book is on Team Mom. Which is why the villain, a clumsy and rather airheaded women who wants to abolish all mothers, is as lame as she is. Well, that plus it’s funny.

As for the core cast, they’re much the same. Wise and Medhi sniping at each other can be funny, and I’m somewhat relieved that the sniping is not as one-sided as I feared it would be. As for Porta… yeah, there’s that implication towards the end. Porta being a sleeper agent for the bad guys is pretty much my number one theory right now, and the villain in this book does nothing to dissuade it. After all, we still know absolutely nothing about her own situation (is she even a PC?), and it would not surprise me if she winds up evil. That said, you know Mamako will just hug the evil out of her. Suspense is not the name of the game here, nor is adventuring and fantasy. The name of the game is watching Mom smother her boy with love while being ludicrously over the top – be it in killing monsters or in washing clothes.

I suspect the anime will end with this volume, and it’s a decent ending place given each book is mostly self-contained. Fans of Mamako will enjoy her being more Mamako than ever, and there’s lots of silly fun to be had here.

By Dachima Inaka and Iida Pochi. Released in Japan as “Tsujo Kogeki ga Zentai Kogeki de Ni-kai Kogeki no Okasan wa Suki desu ka?” by Fujimi Shobo. Released in North America digitally by Yen On. Translated by Andrew Cunningham.

Here we are with the second volume of everyone’s favorite parody. Last time, I was very pleased with the over the top humor and the fact that, desp[ite “lol incest subtext” being the premise, the book did not lean overheavily on any actual incest subtext. That’s still the case with the second book, which is not QUITE as funny but still has lots of amusing moments. Now that it’s an ongoing series, the author has to figure out how much it can rely on “this is a parody” and how much it actually has to take its plot seriously. Sometimes it doesn’t succeed – there’s a couple of stock fanservice moments in the middle of the book that are meant to be funny but made me cringe. Fortunately it fares better with its ongoing plot, which is comparing and contrasting Mamako to other moms in this game and realizing that she is, in fact, pretty awesome.

As the cover might have warned you, this second volume gets Mamako into a sailor suit school uniform. Our heroes find their next quest involves taking a week of school at a stock high school with NPC Teacher guy and a class so generic that their faces are literally ASCII art. Technically it’s kids-only. In reality, Mamako is there as an “observer”, and of course can’t resist taking up the spotlight and embarrassing her son. Also there is a pretty newcomer, Medhi, and her own mother (who is named “Medhimama” throughout the book, but I’m assuming that’s shorthand, as opposed to Mamako’s blatant actual name). Medhi is saddled with a classic “Education Mama” to the nth degree, who insists she be number one in everything. And while Medhi seems to be taking this with grace and patience, in reality she’s a seething cauldron of resentment waiting to go off.

Let’s get this out of the way immediately: the middle of the book has Mamako briefly molested by a tentacle monster, though it doesn’t get very far. There’s also a scene where Mamako has to apologize to customers for something (school festival booth), and her bouncing breasts are leered at quite a bit. These two tropes are not particularly part of what Mom Isekai is parodying, and so I am less inclined to give them a pass. They’re bad. Also, and possibly running the risk of taking this series too seriously, the relationship between Medhi and her mother is pretty abusive and toxic, a fact explicitly spelled out. As a result, I was a bit annoyed that Medhimama was possessed by some sort of illegal “dark item” (it came up last time as well, if I recall) that made her much worse. This makes it sound like the abuse was not her fault, which isn’t what the author wanted to say, I suspect. On the brighter side, the relationship between Mamako and her son is much better in this volume. He’s a good kid, and she’s a good, if overly affectionate, mom.

I still enjoyed this volume in general, even with my carps above. Those who like wacky parodies will still enjoy it, those looking for hot hot mom-son love will probably be frustrated. And it definitely needed more of Mrs. Shiraaase, who appeared far less this time around.

By Dachima Inaka and Iida Pochi. Released in Japan as “Tsujo Kogeki ga Zentai Kogeki de Ni-kai Kogeki no Okasan wa Suki desu ka?” by Fujimi Shobo. Released in North America digitally by Yen On. Translated by Andrew Cunningham.

This book is straight up ridiculous. I realize that may be the most obvious thing to say, but I want to say it up front because I went into it thinking that the ridiculous content would take a back seat to sketchy mom-son sex humor. And there is a bit of that, but mostly the comedy is first and foremost the important thing here. This series is not trying to titillate its reader, it’s going for fun. And it pretty much succeeds. We get a lot of amusing riffs on the standard “adventure game” tropes, the characters are all obvious cliches but fairly likeable. Best of all, despite the occasional lewd joke or ogling, there’s absolutely no sense that Mamako (yes, really, that’s her name) and Masato view themselves as anything other than mother and son. This allows the reader to relax and focus on what’s important: Mamako is hilarious.

Masato is our hero, a 15-year-old boy who is dealing with a mom who a) looks about seventeen and is gorgeous; and b) doesn’t seem to realize that he’s not six years old anymore, so is overly doting and smothering. One day he comes home to find a government worker there who tells him that he has been chosen to play in an ‘MMMMMORPG’. He’s not sure why there are so many M’s, but he agrees… and finds himself in a virtual game world. He’s a hero! He gets an awesome sword! He has party members who are an adorable and trusting 12-year-old girl and a tsundere but clearly future love interest mage! There’s just one problem. His mother has come along with him into the game. And she has TWO swords (the two he didn’t pick when given a choice) that do so much damage that he never has a chance to shine. She may not know anything about adventure games, but she certainly knows how to make him feel awkward and embarrassed.

As you can see, we’re not going for subtle here. In fact, the overtness is part of the point – the series works better for it. The game that Masato and company are in is a beta release, and they’re meant to be testing it. This leads to many of the NPCs simply reciting the guidebook, or speaking in actual gamer talk rather than having it filtered through a fantasy world. Wise, the tsundere girl (she spends most of the book in a state of fury, but there are good reasons for it) is amusing, and you get the feeling she’d be nice if she ever calmed down. Porta, the girl, is a parody of the ‘little girl party member’, and this about as deep as a small puddle, but her pureness is almost endearing. As for Masato and Mamako, they start off exaggerated types, and by the end are slightly less so. Believe it or not, there is a bit of plot and character development in this, and by the end of the book Masato has learned not to take his mother’s actions as a personal attack, and Mamako has (possibly) learned to allow her boy to grow up. (I say possibly as, well, there’s more books in the series, and the premise is that Mama is more powerful and steals the spotlight.)

I also need to mention the main reason to read this series, which is Ms. Shirase, the government agent who starts this entire mess. She is amazingly funny in a deadpan sort of way, and I was delighted at her appearances throughout, as well as her constant fourth-wall breaking. I really hope we get more of her. The series reminds me a lot of KonoSuba in terms of its style and laughs, and I think fans will enjoy it. Yes, there’s some incest parody – that’s the premise! – but I feel safe that it won’t go anywhere and isn’t serious. Recommended for fans of comedies and mothers.