Series Review - Mary Tachibana Cinematic Universe - Part 2

Hey guys, Oppaira here with part 2 of my series for the Mary Cinematic Universe. If you haven’t read part 1 you can find it here. In part 1 I go over each episode and rank them. In part 2 here I’m going to talk more in depth about the way the series was designed and what I did and didn’t like about it, as well as where I would change it. So let’s jump into it and see what did and didn’t work.

I wasn’t super keen on just how episodic each of the entries felt. There was a missing connection in my mind to make it feel like a real series. They could have just as easily made them individual episodes without a series attached and you wouldn’t have been the wiser. In fact, all of them have “What If…” on the covers and it honestly made me think it was a different series at first (because I’ve totally seen that before). To some degree I kind of accept that this is also the best way to do a concept like this if you’re pitching this as the director. It’s like, let me do something a little unorthodox but it’s designed in a way where the other entries ultimately don’t matter. If you picked up near the end with the Hibiki episode or watched just the nurse one you’d have enjoyed it more or less the same. As someone who has watched all of One Piece I’d far rather the lengthy, connected series, but hey, I’ll take this over nothing.

I think if they were doing this properly they’d let all the episodes flow into each other. The hostess episode showed her working in a kobini after, so maybe you could have had a konbini job episode after that flowed from the previous one. Is that really too much to do? “My name is Mary, I used to be a hostess, but I gave up that life for love. Or I thought I did because it turns out it wasn’t real, and now I work a menial job at a konbini wondering if this is what life has to offer”. Great, perfect, very little done and now you get that feeling of things being connected.

One thing I really liked was when they utilized flashbacks in the videos. You saw this at the start of DASS-566 (episode 5.5) where she woke up after dreaming about her other careers. If you’ve ever seen my director Oppaira series, you know that I’ve mentioned utilizing flashbacks like this. Or maybe you’ve seen DBZ where they go “last time on Dragonball Z”. That flashback is really important for setting the context for the current video, especially in something like this that’s so episodic. I don’t know if it’s too much for this given they’re trying to pitch things as solo episodes but I do feel like they could have gotten away with it. Like yes, I’d have loved there to be way more, more flashbacks, more nods to her previous occupations, but honestly I’m just happy they did it at all. You got more in the final video but it felt like they kind of scapegoated the final one to be the tie in as opposed to tying in things throughout the series.

I also really liked the final episode showing behind the scenes content. They really made it feel interconnected when they showed you them doing the takes and the camera crew and all. In my director series I talked about doing the exact same thing, making a point to actually capture this as I film content. Yeah, maybe it will take an extra 30 minutes to film it all, but it’ll pay off later on when I can intersperse content from other releases to show how it’s all connected. You get opportunities to create entries that riff off others, like in this case where all of the entries ended up being porn shoots instead.

One of my favourite parts of the series was how willing they were to let videos run their full conclusions. A lot of videos fade to black a little early, not showing you what happens in the end. Not this series. The hostess episode was particularly good at it where they show her married to the dude two years later in a loveless marriage, her now working the dead-end konbini job. Even in the nurse video they showed them getting caught and then having stuff afterward as well. I complain a lot that videos don’t put in the extra effort, and I always appreciate when they do.

One thing I strongly disliked was how poor some of the choices were for her occupations. I’m sorry but what the heck am I supposed to do with her being an influencer or being a call girl? Sure yeah, give me some other narrative, but you can do that with any theme. In the influencer episode the narrative was her being cheated on and then cheating back on him. Okay sure, you can do that with literally any job. So instead of giving me a bunch of scenes in an apartment, give me something with stronger visual appeal. Give me office lady, give me teacher, give me konbini worker. The hostess episode literally ended with her working at a konbini, and why they never let that become the next occupation is beyond me. Was Jo trying to be hip with the influencer one? I don’t know, seems dumb to me. Maybe have her work at an izakaya to do that. Hell, I would have even preferred if one episode she showed up as a college student again.

I think Mary Tachibana herself was a really good choice for this series. The series had a lot of different acting requirements as she played vastly different roles throughout. Sometimes she had to be a dominant secret agent only to be deepthroated later on or go full ahegao as she writhed in pleasure. In another she was a bored mistress who found love and then later was punished for it. The way she could be sweet, get roughed up, and everything in between was fantastic. The fact she not only had wildly different roles but had to do different performing styles during even the same episode really stood out to me.

Even just the acting itself required a lot. Let me set the stage for you here in this clip. Mary comes home from her job as a pornstar doing a shoot as a nurse. She’s super excited because they just made an onahole of her and she wants nothing more than to relax, let loose, and please her man with it. She has a wonderful time having sex with him, all seems well. Then he straight up tells her that he fell for someone in his class, her being a pornstar is too much for him, and it’s over.

I also quite liked how the series ended, particularly when each of them started asking her if she had a good life. Voices echoing thoughts to her if this is what life was supposed to be. As ZENRA himself said “this is way too deep for a Das movie, what the hell” and I’m actually all for it. Why can’t porn be deep? Especially for something as deep and complex as this series, it makes perfect sense to me for them to do this. You’ve got this series where every entry has something going wrong for one reason or another and her life turning upside down. And actually in this one the guy she loved had started to scorn her. It had that classic “I don’t like that you do porn” sentiment that I’d bet she’s felt in real life, so it probably hit home extra hard for her. Honestly, I think it hit home extra hard because of her upcoming retirement. Like reflecting on her life in this video made her reflect on her real life as a pornstar. Honestly it just felt super deep to me too, and again, I absolutely loved it all.

I hope you’ve enjoyed a deep dive into this series. I know I had a lot to say, both good and bad. Regardless of whether I was critical of some parts I really do like the series quite a bit. It’s simply a concept they don’t do in JAV, they’re always just doing single episodes of things and never doing this kind of stuff. Or at least I should say no mainstream studio is, otherwise ZENRA will come in and tell me Gogos has been doing it the entire time. It’s not just the novelty of it but that I think it’s a great idea to connect episodes together. If you watch JAV here and there, fine, but when you’ve seen thousands you find yourself wanting something a little different and this is it.

It’s not even that much work to do at this level and I feel like something studios ought to try out more. Find some actress you want to sell more videos of and try it out, or pick a shared exclusive that’s been on your roster so long that people are getting tired of it. Like why not put Nao Jinguji in this at Madonna or Moodyz, she’s been there so long that there’s nothing new for her to do. I mean, these could have just as easily been her in different connected episodes and I wouldn’t have batted an eye.

Either way I think this has been a really enjoyable series and I hope you've enjoyed me musing about where it went right, wrong, and what I would have changed. Have you seen this series? Do you share the same sentiments? Want to see more of it? Let us know in the comments. Until next time!