Sometimes the keepers do come out of nowhere. It’s not as though Uchuujin MuuMuu was completely off my radar – I did preview it. But it wasn’t a series I claimed to have a big sleeper vibe on going in. From my perspective it was such an obscure title – I’d never heard anyone talk about the manga and I don’t even remember seeing it in bookstores (where I spend a lot of time, believe me). But it was cats, aliens, and spaceships. And it had enough of an 80’s vibe that I did note that there was some potential there.
Given all that, it’s fair to say Uchuujin MuuMuu exceeded my expectations comfortably. In hindsight I don’t know that it had an 80’s vibe so much, though it is pretty old-school. But it just had a goofy charm and fearless disregard for convention that won me over from the start. Plus a slappin’ OP and ED and a Kuricorder Quartet soundtrack that I didn’t even notice going in. I don’t even feel so bad writing that title line, though this is one of those times I’m pretty confident it really is the series finale. It got two cours out of nowhere, hit it out of the park, and went out in a manner true to itself. Really, we’re playing with house money at that point.
As I discussed last week, a quirky absurdist show like this one has to bear a certain burden when wrapping up its run, the expectation of plot. It’s tough for these series to maintain their identities when trying to deliver plot service, but overall I think this worked quite well. I don’t know how much of this was anime-original, for starters – the manga is ongoing and while it was just licensed in English, it has no current translations official or unofficial. And while this episode certainly didn’t feel like most of the prior 23 for most of it, it still felt like Uchuujun MuuMuu by the end.
The moon plan definitely falls under that absurdist category. Dr. Octal – or rather, the simulation of him – declares that the first thing he did was cripple Earth’s communication infrastructure, reasoning that if humans weren’t being directly harmed by something or told directly to fear it, they wouldn’t really give a toss. And he’s basically right, which makes Tenkubashi’s eventual (admittedly pretty ridiculous) plan to save the Earth rather ironic. Stopping the Earth in it’s orbit to effectively dodge the moon is pretty out there – but even if you buy into that, how the hell are you going to do it?
The Prez’ plan? Have everybody on Earth walk in the same direction, using a gigantic Neko Quest promotion* (the ultra-rare male calico) to herd them (you know what they say about herding cats). Of course he’d need government help to pull that off, and Anamori-san’s boss is hardly in the mood to OK such a thing without highest approval. But I’d forgotten that Akihiro was as highly-placed as he was. And a quick call to “Uncle Prime Minister” greases the wheels and gets the promo machine going. Now as to way sea creatures and bison were also playing along and dogs were taking targeted dumps, I have no idea.
Meanwhile the cat trio is going at it with the Octal haptic projection. The highlight here is definitely Siberia (easily the most underused character in the show for me) going full berserker on Octalbot. MuuMuu takes a direct hit to triangulate the source of the haptic projections, but Octal has plenty of tricks up his sleeve. But MuuMuu has faced off with Octal many times (the real one) and knows how he thinks. Eventually the biological cat wins out over the AI one, and it turns out that it wasn’t just Octal that was a hologram – it was the giant moon. And the whole thing was designed as a kind of test for the Earth and its earthlings – prompted by Octal’s despair at the competing messages from Earth’s nations that were sent into space.
So did we pass? I guess I would say “kind of”. This was actually my favorite angle of the whole ridiculous plot – it made a lot more sense than that actually being the moon, and Octalbot’s thinking was actually kind of understandable. But MuuMuu has the last say – there was never really any need to choosing sides at all, because cats are effectively running the show here. “Because there’s no one who wouldn’t save a cat”. As he proves when everyone jumps to his rescue after the fight, taking a tumble in the process. Sakurako lands squarely on top of Akihiro, but truth is I don’t think he minded very much.
In the aftermath most of the comic headlines fall to Akihiro and Maron-chan (also known as Decimaru). The cats attempt to wipe the memories of everyone except Sakurako for their own protection, but Akihiro is wearing noise-cancelling earbuds and misses out. And just maybe Decimaru’s real reason for wiping memories was the whole “Maron-chan” thing, which Akihiro is quite attached to and MuuMuu will never let him forget. Tenkubashi seems to be fully on-boarded with Sonoko, Miwa-chan is still eternally frustrated, and Sakurako has finally gotten a bit of financial recompense for all the hard work she’s done saving the Earth.
Summer has been notable for having two incredibly underappeaciated shows airing, this one and Dekin no Mogura (although that’s very popular in Japan). Those are the ones that are the most fun to cover, in a way, because that’s where I might actually introduce a series to someone who wouldn’t otherwise have given it a chance (and I know that’s been the case with Uchuujin MuuMuu). I love everything about this show – the appliance geekery, the music, the derpy cat faces, the cats in general, and the people too. Anime keeps right on delivering stuff we’re just not going to get anywhere else, and that’s one of the biggest reasons why I love it – and Uchuujin MuuMuu – as much as I do.
*I’ve had the pleasure of cat-sitting a male calico the last two New Year’s vacations.
