Episode 5 – Mechanical Marie

I don’t know if it’s because I like cute pink haired anime girls so much, but this cute episode Mechanical Mary Hits all the right buttons for me. Mary realized that it was not only her eyes that were now bewildered in her master Arthur, but her whole body. To her, he radiated such pure energy as the sun that she could barely see him without her corneas burning. Poor Mary can’t even give him a lap pillow now like she once did, and the thought of admitting out loud to his face that she loves him is enough to send her non-existent diodes crashing.

Marie 2 has become an essential hilarious character in the cast, especially now that she’s gotten a few upgrades; she’s Marie’s indispensable winged robot, downloading love secrets for her via an old-school dial-up internet connection. This episode is full of such delightful little throwaway jokes. I love the silly little windows that appear on the screen in Marie 2 to reveal Marie’s true emotions, except she’s still as expressionless as ever and just makes funny little noises to guide us into her thought process. I love how they go from potential rivals to close friends, and Mary 2 captures Arthur’s obtuseness in lying to him about Mary’s fake android nature.

The “DJ Mode” skit was the kind of unhinged silliness I love, with Mary “out of commission” when Arthur takes off her silly sunglasses, and then gets a little too close for comfort. The laughter continues into the second half, with Mary jealous that Arthur clearly prefers Mary 2 to her. Now I know he’s obviously as stupid as a box of rocks, but even he doesn’t seem to express any attraction to the zany robot Mary 2. Thankfully, it all turns out to be a cross-wire situation, as Arthur takes the advice of his confused neutral aunt Charlotte to…well…”upgrade” the Mary 2 with heat-seeking missiles. I hope he thinks Mary is powerful enough without a rocket launcher; otherwise, I’m worried he might try to physically upgrade her hardware at some point.

Jealous Mary is adorable, and with no one else to turn to, she finally confides in her nemesis (and self-proclaimed love rival) Noah, who gives some pretty bad advice. While Mary isn’t quite as good as Bogie in terms of comedic facial transformations, some of her more exaggerated expressions in this episode are pretty funny. This poor girl leads such a weird life and I really hope she and her man finally settle down – he’s definitely planning on changing the law so he can marry a robot. He may not have considered the broader social changes that may result from a redefinition of the concept of marriage…

While the animation is still very crude, the director and his team did the best they could with obviously very limited resources. The show looks simple but is always colorful and funny, with its goofy slapstick elevated by great comedic timing. Even better, the last few episodes seem to have dispensed with those weird, possibly AI-generated screens that had everyone on edge early in the season. I certainly won’t miss them. if Mechanical Mary If it can continue to entertain me with such a strong combination of goofy humor and endearingly crazy romance, then it might just be one of my top shows of the season, Damn Uncertain Animation.

grade:

Mechanical Mary Currently live broadcast
crunchy.