Summer Anime 2010: Mitsudomoe

As someone who has spent the last three years studying psychology in college, it's always fun when I can apply what I'm learning to my hobbies. For better or worse, Mitsudomoe allowed me just such an opportunity.

There's a state of mind called cognitive dissonance where the individual has conflicting thoughts and emotions. Let's say you're trying to quit smoking, but the other day you had a cigarette on your lunch break. That guilt you feel is cognitive dissonance. Since cognitive dissonance is annoying, and often times painful, people will rationalize what they're doing to mitigate the feeling. Sure, you smoked that cigarette, but you haven't had one in three weeks, and it's not like you smoked a whole pack.

Now lets apply this to Mitsudomoe. When I saw the opening credits of this show, the cognitive dissonance hit me like a train. I've seen a lot of bad anime since I started this site two years ago--The Dark Myth, Spectral Force, Munto--but never before has it psychically hurt to watch a show.

It's a general rule that you should avoid shows with the word "moe" in the title. Mitsudomoe is no exception. The first thing that struck me were the awful character designs. The manga-ka, Norio Sakurai, had this brilliant idea to make all the characters look like Alvin and the fucking Chipmunks. The people making the anime must have realized how stupid that was, because there's a redeeming moment in the opening (1:12) where an obese man drawn in a different--better--style is dragged off by police (Look, I'm already rationalizing).

From what I  can tell, Mitsudomoe is about how to be to the worst teacher in the history of the world. I didn't catch what grade they were in, but it doesn't matter. The teacher, whatever his name was, let his students walk all over him; in fact, he gets so caught up in groveling before ten year olds that he forgot to teach them anything.

However, the most offensive thing about Mitsudomoe is that it's hilarious, and no amount of rationalization made me feel better for laughing. The humor in this show is so crude that it makes Whiskey Thursday tame by comparison. Half of this introductory episode was devoted to three students trying to kick their teacher in the balls for the sake of love. Their logic was that when the sexy school nurse treats his injury, she would be so overtaken  by his wang that she would screw him.

Mitsudomoe is technically well made--the writing isn't awkward, the animation flows well, and it's actually funny. It would not surprise me if it ends up being a hit this season. Despite this fact, I can not bring myself to call it a good show, which is a damn shames considering this is an anime where someone tries to Shoryuken the teacher in the junk. Dirty jokes are my bread and butter, but the context they're being told in is too inappropriate even by my jaded standards.