MM! 1/2/3



here's just a big wrap up to start the ball rolling for MM!

the series is set with our main protagonist, Taro Sado, who has a problematic fetish for assaults from women, masochism for short. Apparently, Taro is having trouble keeping such fetish of his as a secret and there was also a girl whom he likes at his workplace, and he gets to see her from time to time. In hope of curing such a problem, Taro heads for the "Second Volunteer Club", who assists students in need of help. In the club, he meets Mio Isurugi, who was the head of the club and tends to him nicely. However, just as he was about to talk about his problem, he sees Arashiko Yuno, a cute classmate of his class, coming in to the club as well. Not wanting to embarrass himself, he attempts to leave but is grabbed back by a now-pissed-off Mio. When being hit by her, Taro's problem took effect and he was now feeling bliss, while being attacked by Mio. She then tells him that she'll try her best to cure him of his problem. Leaving the school with his best friend, Tatsukichi Hayama, he talks about the girl whom he sees at work and have a certain feelings for her. During work, Taro sees the girl again but this time, she was afraid to start a conversation with Taro and walks away. Next day in school, the "masochism-removal" plan comes into play and Taro is being targeted by Mio and her violent baseballs. Taro was then sent to the infirmary with his injuries and after accidentally touching his classmate, Arashiko Yuno, he nearly lost his life after getting beat up by her. After all the fuss, all Taro could feel was true happiness and curing his problem would take a rather long time indeed. At work again, this time Taro confronts the girl he likes and follows her out. When he tries to stop her from running away, the moment he grabs her hand, she turned over and hit him on his head. Surprised at how his masochism did not take effect, the girl in front of him revealed himself to be actually Tatsukichi Hayama, his best friend who has a problem of loving cross-dressing. He had previously went to look for Mio as well to seek help on how to reveal his identity to Taro and had decided to do so after receiving suggestions from Mio and indirectly from Taro as well. And with that, Taro realises that his first love was actually with a guy. Meeting Mio later, Taro thanks her for helping both him and his friend from overcoming his difficulty and Mio is pleased to have been able to help.

The next big plan for Taro was to place him in boiling water in hope of removing his masochism by making him feel more intense pain from external sources. It didn't turn out rather well and was hit by Yuno when he leaped out from his cauldron. In the train station after school, Taro sees Yuno waiting for the train as well but was reluctant to step into the same train as her after being hit so many times when they encounter each other. Surprisingly, Yuno wasn't entering the train as well, after seeing how packed it was with all the passengers and headed to sit down while waiting for more trains to pull into the station. Taro heads to the seats as well and starts a conversation with Yuno. She apparently doesn't want Taro to sit close to her and then decided to talk from the distance. Yuno reveals to Taro that she has androphobia and is afraid of men. She would literally "retaliate" when a man touches her, which was exactly what had happened to Taro in the past. After alighting, Yuno starts to link Taro with a dog, called Taro as well, and became less afraid of Taro after that and conversations starts to become more natural between them. Before Yuno enters her home, she asks Taro if he could help her study on the upcoming tests and he agreed, and brought his friend, Tatsukichi Hayama, cross-dressed, to aid her in her studies and to prevent her androphobia from taking effect again. Mio does see potential in the cross-dressing quality of Hayama and after praising her, Hayama's personality took a drastic change and became all high up and belittled Mio, and thus rewarded with a direct punch in the face. After the test's been done, Mio tells everyone that they're all heading for the zoo with the tickets she have and as Yuno loves animals, they decided to meet up the next day to have fun in the zoo. When Taro woke up late do to his family members (who have a fetish for him...), he sees that he was the first to have arrived and Yuno soon came along. The both of them then receives a call each from the other members of the club, telling them that they were the only two going into the zoo and with their two different problems, it would be interesting and good to see how they can complement each other since they're rather similar. After having all the fun in the zoo and resting afterwards, Taro, while holding his drink in his hand, asks Yuno what exactly had caused her androphobia. He had decided to ask her directly as Mio suggested and Yuno slowly reveals about its origin. When she was in middle school, she had many boys going after her and she had rejected all of them, until a well-known senpai came looking for her and after going out together, he tries to force himself on her, causing Yuno to scratch his face while trying to protect herself which then caused him to take revenge on retaliating, and ultimately, causing her to develop androphobia. After hearing all these, Taro felt angered and crushed the cup that he was holding immediately. After heading home together, the duo meets Yuno's best friend, Mamiya Yumi.

Mamiya Yumi, a girl who have a slight fetish for cute gal's bod, decided that Yuno would be transferring with her to an all girls school to avoid her androphobia. After school the next day, Taro begins to ponder over the time they spent in the zoo and the secrets that Yuno had, speculating around her androphobia. The following day, the excited Yumi decides to follow Yuno to school to see what kind of person Mio was actually and her symptoms started again after seeing how cute she was and started her deadly massaging skill. An embarrassed Mio asks Taro to help her but was immediately taken out by Yumi and he, at that moment, felt total bliss again. Yumi then had a formal talk with Mio about Yuno transferring school but Mio asks Yumi if she thinks of it as a solution to Yuno's androphobia and adds on that they're some things that can only be done in the second volunteering club. Returning home that day, Yuno is confronted by her old senpai, Yoshioka. At that moment, Hayama did spot Yuno as well but was unaware of her situation. The next day, Yuno didn't appear in school and everyone was worried about her. Further phone calls were still unable to reach her and after realising the fact that she could have met with Yoshioka, Taro calls Hayama to reaffirm his suspicion and heads to Yuno's home. He sees her all covered up in her bed and her room as in a mess. After persuading her that it was Taro in front of her, Yuno shed light that Yoshioka had repeatedly threatened her with calls to stop her from spreading what happened in junior high. After hearing what Yoshioka had did again, Taro this time, rushes out of the house and goes off to confront Yoshioka. He tells Yoshioka that he had heard of what he had did to Yuno and is pissed off by that. The conversation soon broke into a fight but as Yoshioka is in the boxing club, Taro didn't even have the opportunity to return his blows and was acting as a boxing bag for him. Fortunately for Taro's masochism, he's able to withstand much more damage then he normally receives and with a final blow that he could throw, he lands a hit flat in Yoshioka's face with a baseball bat thrown at his leg, forcing him to lower his body and landing a hit. Yoshioka lay unconscious on the floor and with the baseball bat, he realises that Mio had helped in and had not stepped in earlier after seeing how serious he was. Yumi arrived at the scene as well and gave Yoshioka a hell massage. Taro returns to Yuno's home, with his face all bandaged up, and hands a photo of a embarrassingly stripped and beaten up Yoshioka. Yuno discovers the origins of his injury and thanks Taro for everything that he has done for her. The next day, Yumi had apparently transferred into their school as well so as to get closer to Yuno and also to prevent Taro from getting too close with her.

MM! is definitely a promising series and had an interesting start and setting with the different characters having their own personal problems. Other than the leading role of the club, i begin to wonder what significant role could Mio play near the end of the series. Moving this series to romance would be interesting but that would depend on how things turn out. Taro X Yuno pairing would be highly possible, but a Taro X Mio pairing would be interesting. Their 3rd episode did bear much resemblance to Ookami-san. The setting is similar with a bad senpai boyfriend screwing the maiden's life up. And a hero with a personal problem starts going all cool and defeats the bad boy. Similar ain't it? Interesting interesting series... would definitely continue with this :)