Uron Mirage – 01

You gotta give it up for Witch Watch – this adaptation is pulling no punches. It’s been superb from day one, getting every possible bit of juice out of the source material and then some. But this was a hell of a thing. We got a complete “Uron Mirage” episode (the entire A-part), complete with a full OP and ED and a cast of famous seiyuu. And not a thrown-together one, either – these were the full boat and pretty good at that. This is a show that’s fully committed to the joke, no exceptions.

As for “Uron Mirage” itself, I don’t know exactly what Shinohara is spoofing here – that’s a game we can also play with the likes of Bakuman and Oshi no Ko. I think it’s more just a general send-up up WSJ kaijuu battle shounen, especially the ones with a strong shounen-ai undercurrent (which is what draws its Witch Watch fans to it). The random lines of goofy dialogue were on-point, like the Yoshhino Hiryuki character (Oboro) reading the faded “Research Facility” sign and saying “seems like it was a facility that was used to research something”. And the lion dude’s random pearls of nonsensical wisdom made me laugh every time.

Of course, this is really about satirizing the fans of such series more than the series themselves. And with WW that means Makuwa-sensei and Kukumi-san. That’s always a bit of a danger zone for a mangaka, even if Shinohara Kenta’s series don’t resemble this sort of thing much, but he manages to strike a good balance between affectionate and ruthless observation. Seems like the gag with “Uron Mirage” is how insanely its fans analyze every detail of it, which is not remotely unrealistic. These two have one important difference – Makuwa is a closeted otaku (“Dengeki Melon“) while Kuku proudly wears her otakudom on her sleeve. Their respective ages certainly have something to do with that.

Kuku is great (most of the side cast here is great) but it’s really Makuwa’s inner monologues (as delivered by Komatsu Mikako) that drive the humor in this plot niche. With Kuku deciding to move up to doujins and turning to Makuwa for help, it’s inevitable that Dengeki Melon is going to be outed at some point. Sensei actually goes about this very well – she’s encouraging while nudging Kuku towards seeking online feedback, knowing that will give her a chance to deliver said feedback (and she has a lot of it) constructively. The two of them teaming up as a mangaka pair is loaded with comic potential. but it’s going to have to get in line. Could we maybe get more of the junior high English textbook pair soon, pretty please?