There was a happy and frankly unexpected piece of news in MuuMuu world this week. The manga was licensed in the U.S., something I suppose only happened because of the anime. Even if an adaptation appears to have very little following in English, anime is still a difference-maker in this ecosystem. For a relatively obscure title like Uchuujin MuuMuu it probably doesn’t take a whole lot to meaningfully move the needle. I would imagine the licensed manga will likewise be anything but a big commercial hit, but it’s nice to know a few people at least will find it.
This week was a pretty classic Yin-Yang episode. Half of it paid no attention to the actual plot at all and the other half wound up leaning into it pretty hard. As has been noted this really isn’t a sci-fi series with a home appliance fetish – it’s the other way around, the gadgets and their history are really the point. The alien invasion stuff is just a spine to give the story direction, but the detours are more important than the journey itself.
Retro appliances are definitely a thing, in Japan and elsewhere. But for all Tenkubashi’s love of old junk, he doesn’t really get “retro”. Sakurako (who has a really good eye for this stuff) definitely does. She sees the cuteness and cool factor in Showa relics that look retro and futuristic at the same time, like that old PC. Or a TV with legs that a cat can sleep on top of (nekozuki of a certain age will certainly attest to that). Naturally the Human Regeneration Society – whose “warehouse” the student body has basically turned into an unlicensed dump – are sitting on a platinum mine. But only Sakurako really know where to dig.
Prez, for his part, thinks retro is all about stuff with big historical importance (like the “national socket” from Panasonic and the human washing machine from “A Clockwork Orange”). I must say I found his lecture on the historical strengths of Japan’s various tech giants very interesting, but it doesn’t translate into much on Wahoo Auctions. Sakurako’s (who’s teamed up with Miwa and Akihiro) floral rice cooker and handheld pet-raising game and cool tiny TV, OTOH, are all winners. It looks like a sweep for Team Sakuurako until Tenkubashi peddles an old fridge (it is adorable) for ¥92,000. But it’s school property, and Sonoko shames him into cancelling the sale.
Next up Sakurako – who’s become a God-like figure to the local seniors at the park – winds up helping an old lady whose candy shop is suddenly deserted. She thinks it’s because of mice – and indeed mice at a candy shop is a major turn-off. But boy, Sakurako’s inaka remedies are hard-core and terrifying, even for Decimaru with his smitten heart. She agrees to help the old gal out and her investigation turns up not just a ton of mice, but a cat-repellent sound generator. It certainly works on Maru and MuuMuu, but apparently not on mice.
I have a bit of experience with those things (there are YouTube videos which fill the same function) and yes, they do work on cats. I also know that they’re largely inaudible to me, but that our ability to hear sounds in that part of the frequency spectrum diminishes with age. Sakurako can just about hear something, the obaa-san nothing at all. But the local schoolchildren hate it almost as much as Muu-Muu and Decimaru, which admirably explains their sudden absence from the shop. Fixing that problem (and adding WiFi) not only brings back the kids but the local cat population, which in trun draws the social media influencer crowd looking for cat pics.
All this draws us back into the recurring plot in a couple of ways. MuuMuu muses on what a luxury nostalgia is – when you have no culture to be nostalgic about, retro isn’t even a thing. We finally get a Siberia appearance – it’s been way too long – and MuuMuu continues to use his time amongst humans to fill in the blanks in his cultural legacy. But the arrival of Octal (Takagi Wataru) changes all that. He’s that kuroneko scientist who’s popped up here and there a few times, but now he finally enters the narrative proper with a promise to destroy the planet and everyone (all three cats) in the apartment. We’ve seen a few feints towards serious plot go a-begging before, but with only two eps left, maybe it’s finally time?
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