MAO ‒ Episode 7

A constant thought I've been having every week with this show now is, “Wow, things are moving along a lot faster than I expected from a Takahashi show.” And as we've had a lot of our questions answered this week, since our protagonists (and in particular, MAO himself) are recovering from the Byoki's destructive visit, is exemplary in that. To put things into perspective, the seventh episode of Inu Yasha is the titular half-demon's (first) fight with Sesshomaru over the Tetsuaiga. And in Ranma, it's the introduction of Ryoga. Things are moving so much faster in MAO that if you listen closely enough, you might hear the muffled sounds of “Live and Learn.”

More impressive, this show is obviously moving much faster than we're used to a Takahashi show being, and the pacing of the show itself doesn't feel particularly rushed. Yes, it obviously feels fast, but not rushed per se—not as though it's moving too fast for its own good, letting details fall by the wayside. Case in point, this week's episode, again, was more about answering questions and getting Nanoka (and the viewers) up to speed with the situation at hand. In other words, it's a slower episode than most of the others we've had up until now, and yet it's still managing to maintain the overall rapid speed it's had up until now, which is quite a feat!

Speaking of those answers, though, obviously the big things we learned this week are that the grandpa has had his life extended by the Byoki, and that the housekeeper is one of MAO's shikigami. Starting with the former, well, there's still a lot with this one that neither the characters nor we the audience yet understand the details of. We know that his life has been extended, but when Nanoka's not around, he goes into a deep sleep as he waits for her to come back. The characters theorize that the Byoki did this to him so that someone would be around to raise his vessel. I, meanwhile, think there has to be something else to that—some wrinkle that we're not yet fully aware of. Even if he only sees Nanoka as his vessel, the idea that he'd be knowledgeable and generous enough to keep her grandfather alive to raise her without a catch just feels too convenient.

And then there's the housekeeper—and of course, her smoothies. Something was very obviously always up with the freaky smoothies, so learning that she's the shikigami and the smoothies are what's keeping Nanoka's powers in check isn't even remotely surprising. If anything, it'd be more surprising if she were just a normal housekeeper who was wholly uninvolved with any of these supernatural goings-on. Still, I must admit, that would be a bit funny in and of itself.

Being an episode that's mostly about answering some questions, this definitely wasn't the most exciting one we've seen thus far, but I'm glad episodes like this are being sprinkled around a bit anyways. They're a big part of how the plot can move so fast without feeling too fast, and also what helps to affirm that the overarching story of the whole thing hasn't been totally forgotten about, even as more immediate issues come into view. Even so, the episode has ended on the equal parts hilarious and intriguing note of a circus that, wouldn't you know it, has lost its flaming-heads-guy. Why? Silly goose, because he has lost his trained flaming heads. Obviously. For what other reason do flaming-heads-guys leave the circus? So, needless to say, I'm very excited to see what we got in store for next week.

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MAO is currently streaming on Hulu.