MYTHCOMICS: MONSTER MARRIAGE SHOP (2021-2023)

 I said at the end of HARUM SCARUM that I'd be analyzing a harem comedy that didn't conform to the predominant pattern of the subgenre. MONSTER MARRIAGE SHOP does include a male protagonist surrounded by comely females. many occupying the same domicile, but all the females are yokai, "monsters," after the fashion of the still-ongoing 2012 manga MONSTER MUSUME. Like the influential LOVE HINA, SHOP telegraphs the inevitability of a particular "till death do us part" joining of the male lead with one of the resident females, though SHOP concludes within a mere twenty episodes. I've read enough translated manga that I feel I have the sense of what it looks like when a given manga has been structured for a long run, only to be wrapped up arbitrarily when some editor/publisher cancels the feature. I can't prove SHOP was not subjected to some similar circumstances. But to me it seems that female mangaka Kaworu Watashiya arranged everything in SHOP to come to an ending that she executes to deliver her specific take on the harem comedy-- one in which the "harem" functions a lot like a feminine support group.

At roughly age 9 male lead Yuto Nikao loses his father (about whom the reader never learns anything). At the funeral, his mother Mrs. Nikao (no first name given) comments that at least she still has her only child Yuto to console her-- except that in the wings a half dozen guys are waiting to date a hot widow. Throughout Yuto's adolescence his mother seeks to find a new father for Yuto, but she has terrible judgment, resulting in a stream of users and losers. Freud theorized that every male child would be conflicted once he was old enough to perceive Mommy having relations with Daddy. But though Yuto never thinks he ought to be the man in his mother's life a la Norman Bates, hearing Mommy Nikao have sex with assorted men has a bad effect on his male ego. Freud assumed that the Oedipal male would resolve his mother-complex indirectly, by seeking a mate reminiscent of his mother. Adult Yuto's solution to his complex takes a new wrinkle: he becomes a "marriage advisor," whose mission in life is to do well what his mother did poorly, facilitating good marriages. However, he also declines to seek a mate for himself, deeming himself an incurable "mama's boy" devoted to niche pornography.              

Then one night Yuto gets off his bus in the wrong place, wanders into a forest, and meets his leading lady, werewolf-girl Ururu di Bianca. She guides him into her hidden "monster town," where every resident is a yokai of some sort. Yuto takes his discovery in stride, and perhaps because nothing but his job defines the young fellow, he starts giving the relatively civilized monsters matrimonial advice.

 This state of affairs irritates the love-god Cupid (apparently all sorts of myth-beings occupy Monster Town). Feeling like Yuto's infringing on his territory, Cupid shoots Ururu with a love-arrow. Ururu comes close to de-virginating Yuto, but she's interrupted by a bevy of monster-girls who want the human's marital counsels. Yuto shakes off his near-rape and decides to open a matchmaking service in Yokai-ville. He doesn't realize, despite many subsequent hints, that Ururu has fallen in love with him now, so she and other monster girls start aiding Yuto in his new business.

I won't spend much time on the ancillary monster-girls. Watashiya seems to be following the example of MONSTER MUSUME, but with an important difference. Though two or three of the other beast-babes-- a succubus, a vampire, etc.-- seem inclined to sex up the human, none are really "into" him as Ururu is. Most of the time, the monster girls just hang around the agency waiting to see what happens, alternating between bonding and sniping at each other-- hence, my "support group" characterization. Almost none of them or the short-term customers actually get married, because in Monster Town, Yuto has to overcome his "mama's boy" fixation, and that means that his deflection into work must be invalidated. Not too many of the individual monster-girl stories are symbolically complex, except as they bear on breaking down Yuto's defenses. 

Not until Episode 14 does Watashiya introduce a ticking clock: Yuto's situation loosely parallels that of folklore-hero Urashima Taro, who was (according to the author) unable to leave Fairyland until he had sex-- which is. of course, what Yuto's been avoiding in the real world, to maintain his connection to the mother he still loves. 

Meisa the Gorgon, the intellectual of the group, expands on Yuto's psychology with the concept of the "frog prince syndrome." Frog princes, rather than importuning princesses for kisses, are deeply conscious of being undesirable. Thus their poor self-image justifies pushing away anyone trying to get close.  

Harnis the Succubus comes up with her own theory of building up Yuto: enter his dreams and have dream-sex with him. However, the attempt triggers Yuto's defenses: even in his mind, Yuto thinks his mother is always watching. Yet at the same time, he resents his mother's control and transforms into a gorilla flinging poo at Mom.

Harnis, perceiving that Yuto has shifted his fixation to Ururu, convinces the dreamer to summon the wolf-girl. But here too the punishing mother intrudes, and Yuto conjures up a lupine dominatrix.       

However, Yuto's dream may have some effect in the human world, for no sooner has Yuto awakened and dressed than a giant version of Mommy Nikao intrudes on Monster Town and snatches up Yuto like he's Fay Wray. The monster-girls theorize that the giant is a psychic projection of the human Mrs. Nikao, and if so, this is the only time the character appears in the narrative's "real time." Both Yuto and Ururu try to reason with the giant, but when Mrs. Nikao tries to eliminate the competition, the monster-girls take her down, though Yuto shows his respect to the "mother" before she vanishes.

With the vanquishing of "Queen Kong," Yuto can at last express his feeling for Ururu-- and though she knows he may disappear, she can't stop herself from "wolfing out" and having sex with him-- though this time, he doesn't want abuse but trusts her not to harm him. Yuto does return to the human world, but with a twist: he, unlike Urashima Taro, returns to a time slightly before he departed. So now he has the chance to return to normal life, so will he do so?

Of course not: within one day he's back in the forest, looking for Monster Town. And though he finds his Fairyland, it's a reversal on the trope of the human who returns to a future-world that's forgotten him. This time. the denizens of Fairyland forget that their human visitor ever existed, even though Ururu (possibly) carries his seed. And this comprises Yuto's last hurdle: the guy who had no confidence in himself must tell all the monsters who've forgot him that he knows them all inside-out. And to judge from the last pages, Yuto succeeds in making his lupine lady love him again. The reader doesn't know how much time has passed: only that Camilla the Vampire and a wolf-boy are regarding a bridal picture of Yuto and Ururu, and speaking of Yuto in the past tense. It's a bittersweet touch to the overall happy ending, implying that a mortal can't endure in Yokai-ville as if he was one of them. But if Yuto pays a penalty for love, most readers would consider that a better fate than expiating his trauma in a devotion to the happiness of strangers.     

NEAR-MYTHS: JUSTICE LEAGUE VS. GODZILLA VS. KONG (2023-24)

 

Now THIS is what JLA cluster-crossovers should be: valiant superheroes battling colossal monsters, and monsters battling other monsters, and villains trying to control the monsters before being taken down by the heroes. 

One thing I like about JL/G/K is that even though the DC-verse depicted here is not entirely congruent with the mainstream one-- for one thing, three regular villains and two regular heroes take the dirty nap-- there's no pretense by writer Brian Bucccelato that this is some amalgam universe where the Justice League and the Legion of Doom occupies the same world as the cinematic "Monsterverse." Buccelato possibly realized that it provided more opportunities for exposition if the Legion stumbled into the Monsterverse and brought back its progeny to menace this version of DC-Earth. 

The only icons directly imported from the Monsterverse are Godzilla, Kong, Mechagodzilla, and the Skull-Crawlers, though some new ones are invented to take the place of various Toho-titans. There were no such restrictions on the use of DC characters, so this is not a story for noobs, who really won't be able to tell the players without a scorecard. There's even a scene with some heroes breaking up a supervillain jailbreak in which I, expert though I usually am, strained to figure out some of the obscurities given a few panels here and there.

Characterization is understandably simple since the primary story is about stopping giant monsters, but Buccellato works in some pleasant dialogue nonetheless, and Christian Duce does a fine job of imparting the sense of monolithic hugeness to the big beasts. Sometimes there are continuity goofs because everything's so rushed. When in the story did someone bring the Teen Titans into the mix, and why is the Big S almost killed by Godzilla's atomic fire? If the Legion contacts Deathstroke to employ the League of Assassins, why does Ra's Al Ghul get into the thick of things? But since it's a one-off universe, the blips don't get in the way of all the looney hero/monster/villain fun.          

THRILLS WITH THROUGH-LINES

 This post is largely just a terminological update, exploring the subject of what makes it possible for the launch of a spinoff character to qualify as a "proto-crossover." In the 2022 essay STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS ON STATURE, I explained my view as to why the early appearances of certain comics-spinoffs, such as The Black Panther, qualified as proto-crossovers while others, such as Adam Warlock, did not.

The logic set forth in STATUTE remains intact, but I came across the word "through-line" that serves to describe the difference in the two types of spinoffs. The Merriam Webster definition is as follows:

a common or consistent element or theme shared by items in a series or by parts of a whole

The relevant "element" is that of intentionality: whether or not one can show a probable intention of the creator(s) plan to use a character again in either a Prime or Sub role. In the case of the two heroes mentioned, there are numerous textual clues as to editor Stan Lee's plans to use the Panther again in a superordinate role, and those textual elements comprise a 'through-line" linking his early subordinate appearances to his slightly later superordinate status. In contrast, there are no such clues linking Warlock's subordinate appearances to his later starring status, so the former Sub appearances have no through-line and so do not have the status of proto-crossovers.

The same principle applies to the essay example of the Green Goblin. The Goblin is introduced as a new Sub in the cosmos of Spider-Man, while his partners, the Enforcers, are an ensemble-team who collectievly make up an "old" and established Sub. Thus, the initial story possesses a through-line to all of the Goblin's future appearances. However, he's an "old" villain by the time he encounters the "new Sub" Crime Master. But Crime Master will not make future appearances in the Spider-cosmos, so there is no through-line and his appearance alongside the Goblin may be called a villain-mashup but not a villain-crossover.   

In STATUTE I used Frasier Crane as an example of a character who was selected to be a spinoff character from CHEERS. Frasier made regular appearances in his Sub status on CHEERS, as opposed to the brief and scattershot appearances of Warlock in two separate Marvel features. Nevertheless, there's no suggestion of a through-line in episodes of CHEERS that Frasier was going to be launched in his own series.

The spinoff of the show ANGEL from that of the BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER program is arguably a little more complex. The character of Angel is introduced as a mystery-man who comes into Buffy Summers' life in the first episode of her eponymous TV show, and he functions, like Buffy's other confidantes, as part of her bonded ensemble. (In an earlier essay, I argued that Buffy was a Prime and that her confidantes were Subs, but since reviewing all of the BUFFY episodes I've reversed myself on that statement.) So Angel became a Prime in that first episode, as much as characters like Willow, Xander and Giles, and there's no need to see him as any sort of crossover, proto or otherwise, when he branches off into his own program. However, after he gets his own show, any appearance he or one of his ensemble-mates made on BUFFY became a crossover, and vice versa with respect to BUFFY characters on ANGEL.  

The BUFFY Sub character Spike is even more involved. He's introduced as a pure Sub in the show's second season and continues in that status. The character's enormous popularity led to his becoming a regular member of the ensemble in the fourth season, though he was in the nature of a "opposed ensemble-character" after the nature of those described here. The transformation of Spike to said status is first set up in the 1999 episode "Wild at Heart." This episode, loosely inducting Spike into the ensemble, is the only one to qualify as a crossover due to a new "through-line" that affects all of Spike's future appearances. But only the first such episode that changes Spike's status gains a crossover-vibe, since only the first "phase shift" foregrounds Spike's acquisition of collective stature, as described in INDIVIDUAL AND COLLECTIVE STATURE. 

CROSSOVERS VS. MASHUPS

 In this essay I wrote:

MONSTERS VS. ALIENS does not qualify as any kind of crossover, though it is a "mashup," in which diverse characters with some similar aspects but also with different backgrounds are jammed together in one narrative. It might be fairly argued that all crossovers may be called mashups, but that all mashups are not crossovers.

I'm not going to advance a "theory of mashups" to go with the crossover-theory advanced in the CONVOCATION series. But for the purpose of this essay, I'll formulate a rough definition: that, unlike crossovers, mashups don't always have to feature at least one character with some established story-history. For instance, the cited example, MONSTERS VS. ALIENS, is a monster-mashup even though all four of the starring monsters appear for the first time in the movie. But it's not a monster-crossover because none of the featured characters had any established history in a previous narrative.

I reviewed the two WAXWORK films back in December 2014, but that was long before I was thinking much about crossover-theory. Whereas the heroes of MONSTERS VS. ALIENS only indirectly reference the movie-characters on which they're based, both WAXWORK films provide various incarnations of "famous monsters of filmland." What's interesting is that some of the incarnations are very generic, and would hardly count in a mashup except for the sheer diversity of their types, while a comparative few are specific enough in their references that they could be considered at least high-charisma crossovers.

In the first WAXWORK, the protagonists are menaced by assorted doppelgangers of evil entities. Two segments are devoted to generic versions of a werewolf and a mummy, and there's a climactic fight-scene in which the good guys contend with a small army of freaks, also mostly generic like zombies and vampires, though there are some very loose visual references to figures like The Invisible Man and Audrey II of LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS. Yet there are two extended sequences devoted to the protagonists contending with both the canonical Dracula and a very fictionalized version of the Marquis de Sade-- both of whom count as "monsters" in my system. So by the terms I've used earlier, WAXWORK qualifies as a "high-charisma" crossover, even though none of the evil entities are "real."

The second WAXWORK, which includes a markedly different origin for the doppelgangers, also includes lots of generic types: more zombies (with an obvious hat-tip to DAWN OF THE DEAD), a disembodied hand, various aliens (including The Aliens), and a "ghost girl" possibly patterned on the spirit from THE HAUNTING. However, this time the "high-charisma" entities include versions of Doctor Frankenstein and his Monster, Mister Hyde, Jack the Ripper, Godzilla, Nosferatu, and a sorcerer based on the villain from Roger Corman's 1965 film THE RAVEN. To be sure, the sorcerer fits the persona of a "villain" rather than a "monster," but the others all register as monstrous presences, even though all of them, except for Frankenstein and his creation, only appear for a minute or so. 

Still, it's not hard to imagine the WAXWORK concept being done with no strong references to any established characters. Had this been done, the movies would not be crossovers, only mashups, like the one seen in the Mexican kiddie-film TOM THUMB AND LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD-- though that film is a "hero-crossover" because of the teamup of the titular fairy-tale protagonists.