Mahoromatic I’m Home TV Specials Review
Studio: GAINAX
Publisher: Madman
Format: DVD
Release Date: Out Now!
Price: $25.98 (Buy Here)
Overview
Mahoromatic I’m Home TV Specials are the extra OVA episodes of the Mahoromatic Anime series released by Madman and Animated by GAINAX. The original series ran for 24 episodes and featured the robotic maid Mahoro as she looked after the wellbeing of her new master Suguru. We have reviewed the series previously, so be sure to check out our review for that here.
The OVA series is pretty entertaining, but does it manage to bring along the feel of the original series? Or does it feel like a cheap fill in product to milk the franchise? This may be covered in the rest of the review below.
Story
The Mahoromatic I’m Home TV Specials follow a storyline told just after the second story arc begins in the main story. The story told in these two special episodes is to do with the opening of a special maid themed cafe for some kind of town festival. As you can probably guess, the main group of characters quickly turn to Mahoro for assistance in running the maid cafe and in training each of them into maids themselves.
The story itself is quite basic and only seems to exist to act as a minor story in the Mahoromatic universe. Really, it doesn’t add anything major to the Mahoromatic story line and exists mainly as a fan service or additional content for only the bigger fans of the series. There’s not much in these episodes for viewers that have yet to see the main series and for those who have, it only adds a few hilarious scenes and a little bit of progression for Mahoro and Suguru’s relationship.
Of course, it wouldn’t be a story without some kind of opposing force added to the mix. In this set of specials, this would be the antagonists from the second half of the storyline looking to either capture Minawa, or do something more sinister with her. This causes Mahoro to act to not only save Minawa, but also to try her best to to make sure the maid cafe runs as smoothly as possible.
The fight scene in this special is incredibly well animated but I’m not sure if it really added anything to the story. Also if you get the chronology of viewing wrong with these specials and are trying to match it up with the series, you may accidentally spoil yourself big time. Definitely watch this after you’ve seen the main series.
Visuals
Mahoromatic I’m Home TV Specials animation quality is very similar to that of the TV series animation quality. It’s very hard to complain about as the animation is quite fluid and the visual style is quite impressive. I actually really enjoyed the amount of detail that the staff had put into this series, it is quite impressive.
One thing that I really, really liked about this specials visuals is the amount of detail put into the action sequences. Sure there is only one or two action sequences in the special, but they are incredibly well done. I just loved the way they use multiple angles and the way that they somehow made an apparent amount of depth to each action, even if this is a flat medium.
Each of the characters look just like they did in the main series, which is always important for specials to have. This means that fans can expect the detail and visuals to follow suit. And they really have, Mahoromatic I’m Home TV Specials follow the main shows look and feel quite well. It’s not as visually comedic, but it’s still Mahoromatic.
Audio
Mahoromatic I’m Home TV Specials has two audio tracks. One in Japanese and the other in English. Both of these audio tracks come in 2.0 stereo mixes and sound quite good. Personally I prefer the English dub for this series as I find the Japanese audio a little grating when it comes to character voices, but other than that, listen to whichever audio track you prefer. If you choose the Japanese track, you also get a full set of subtitles to go along with what is being said.
All of the sound effects are pretty cool and really exemplify the audio quality of the series. The one thing I’m disappointed in is the lack of 5.1ch recording, however, this series was made when 2.0 was standard, so it’s really not that big of a deal.
Extras
Mahoromatic I’m Home TV Specials is very lite on extras. It only comes with textless opening and ending themes as well as the usual Madman trailers. However, you could consider the cover itself as an extra as it reverses into something with some pretty pretty looking artwork.
However, I’m on the camp that this entire disc itself is more of an extra, as opposed to be being a full stand alone release. I mean, it is only two episodes and it is incredibly lite. Why could this not have been included in the main release?
If you’re someone looking to purchase an anime series with a plethora of extras, this release will not satisfy you in that regard. However, if you consider this as an extra to the main series, then you will be quite pleased.
Overall
Overall Mahoromatic I’m Home TV Specials is a purchase that only a Mahoromatic fan should be making. It carries the original series’ look and feel pretty well, but it’s not something that you should use to introduce new fans with. It’s an entertaining watch, but the comedy is toned a little from the original run just a bit.
As someone who is a massive fan of Mahoromatic, I’d heartily recommend this to other fans. However, if you only liked the original series or if you’re just looking to get into the series, you’d be better off starting with the original series and going from there.
