The Morose Mononokean

• Alt Title: Fukigen na Mononokean
• Episodes: 13
• Genre: Supernatural, School life
• Studio: Pierrot+

What it is – After accidentally stepping on a plushie, suspiciously nice high school everystudent, Hanae Ashiya ,starts seeing yokai and takes a part time job exorcising them because he loves them so so much.

What I thought – The Morose Mononokean is, well, ok… The story has potential and a few good ideas but doesn’t really develop anything much. The art is pretty but forgettable and the animation is uneven. It’s too bad because I really should have loved this but I don’t. If I understood japanese I could consider it a decent background noise option but if you’re going to be actually devoting your time to it, there are much better options.

Basically this show very much feels like a first season of something. The story beats us over the head with how mysterious the two leads are cause they have -pasts-, but it never gets around to actually telling us anything about those pasts which is too bad cause their presents are just a series of forgettable exorcisms of the week. Most of the supporting players are reduced to one or two quirks pasted onto your most standard anime archetypes.

If you can’t say anything nice… I did like Hanae’s mom. The running gag of expressing her emotions through flowers was new to me and I enjoyed it! I also liked the mononokean itself, I’m not too sure what it is but if it’s actually a room type yokai, I’m impressed by how chill everyone is about just going into it. I’m impressed by th forethought the designers showed by making all the yokai so easy to make into plushies.

What this show reminded me of – Norogami, The Flying Witch, Blue Exorcist (they both mention exorcists a lot – my mind is a mystery wrapped in saran wrap…)

What this show taught me about myself – I am willing to accept and relate to characters that show instant and undying devotion to anything that is mildly puppy like.

Here’s to alcohol, the cause of, and solution to, all life’s problems

• Take a drink every time Hanae accidentally stumbles onto a yokai
• Take a drink every time someone hint’s at Abeno’s dark or mysterious past
• Take a sip every time Hanae is embarrassed
• Take a drink every time Abeno is tired
• Take a drink every time we see the door to the underworld
• Look outside every time flowers are mentioned
• Take a drink every time the Mononokean *talks*
• Take a drink of water every time a new yokai is introduced
• Hug your cat, dog, significant other, favorite pillow, every time fuzzy is cute…