The Fall 2019 Manga Guide

Do You Love Your Mom And Her Two-Hit Multi-Target Attacks?

What's It About? 

When Masato fills out a survey at school asking about his relationship with his mother, he doesn't really think too hard about it. Imagine his surprise (and horror) when a few days later he comes home to find that he's being sent into his favorite video game on an adventure with his mom! Not only is it a nightmare for the teenage boy, but his super-clingy mother also turns out to be much, much more powerful than him, even though she has no idea either what that means or even how to play a game in the first place. If anything could suck the joy out of being brought to a game world, this would be it…

Do You Love Your Mom and Her Two-Hit Multi-Target Attacks? is based on the light novels of the same name by Dachima Inaka. The manga is drawn by Meicha and was released by Yen Press in September. It's available in paperback ($13) and digitally ($6.99).

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Is It Worth Reading?

Rebecca Silverman

Rating:

I wasn't thrilled with this book in either the light novel or anime forms, so it's not really surprising that the manga version would leave me cold too. That's largely (in all cases) because of Mamako, the too-aptly named mother of the title. It's a shame, because as premises go, the idea of some poor kid being transported away to another world with his mom in tow is pretty good; I can even guess just how my own mother would react. But Mamako isn't just Masato's mom – she's his almost inappropriately clingy, totally clueless, and annoyingly innocent (in a highly selective way) mom, and that puts an unduly high burden on the poor kid. While the bits that most turned me off the novels aren't present in this volume (such as Mamako being offended that Masato didn't want to look up her skirt), there's still enough of her that what's supposed to be funny comes off as at least a little cruel, and that's definite problem in a purported comedy.

Basically if there's a mistake the mother of a teenager can make, Mamako is going to make it. She looks at finding party members as choosing her son a bride, she's too physically attached to a child for whom physical contact is embarrassing and uncomfortable, and she takes pretty much everything at face value, which leads to oh-so-wacky misunderstandings, like why Masato isn't thrilled that she's more powerful than he is. Simply put, she's treating him like a five-year-old (an age she expresses nostalgia for early on) when he's definitely not, and that gets old very fast.

There are some good moments, fortunately, such as Mamako not realizing that “thief” is a legitimate job in a swords-and-sorcery game world, but they feel few and far between. Meicha's art is better for the female characters than the male (there is something seriously amiss with Masato's legs and crotch) and does a good job with the fantasy backgrounds, so this isn't terrible to look at. But unless “mother repeatedly annoys and embarrasses her son” is your specific comedy niche, this one may be safest to leave by the wayside.