Mayonaka Punch

Episode 8

What do you call a group of unaffiliated YouTubers meeting together?

An impending lawsuit!

I'm only partially joking there. Throughout the years of YouTube/New Media-centric conventions, fan meetups, and collaborations, I can scarcely think of an assemblage of YouTubers that didn't result in at least a minor scandal. So it stands to reason that MayoPan's first foray into public appearances would go haywire. The twist is that this time, our girls only provide about 40% of the chaos, while the rest is brought by their equally outlandish and unprofessional co-stars.

That's a fun twist on expectations. But more than anything, I love how this episode demonstrates the wacky, wild, only slightly exaggerated world of YouTube celebrities. You've got some folks who are basically just traditional TV personalities operating on a different platform, mixing with unprofessional doofuses who show up late for the sake of stealing attention, and all varying levels of reliability in between. TSUMA-shi is essentially a talent organizer and producer for the festival but he only made it to that level by being massively popular—and you can chalk up some of the disastrous energy of the event to his questionable organizing. The Outside Kids have one braincell among them, leading to total confusion whether they're on or off the stage. Most of all I love the inclusion of bizarre yet wholesome gimmick creators like Plumb Wrong Logic—who charmed his way into my heart only to break it when it was revealed he'd cheated on his spouse. It's not every day you get Milkshake Duck'd by a cartoon character but that's part of the Youtuber life too.

All those new, suitably obnoxious personalities provide a solid basis for wacky gags but also a vital balancing act against our leading ladies. The most obvious joke for introducing the MayoPan crew to “regular” YouTubers would be to contrast how these vampires clash with regular humans but what this episode goes with is a lot funnier. Sure, MayoPan is a mixture of volatile personalities with a penchant for dysfunction who can be rude, scandalous, and deeply embarrassing. The thing is, that describes 95% of people who make a living on YouTube, so these girls' brand of screwing up fights right in with everyone else. If anything, they have a relatively respectable showing despite Fu disassociating on-stage and Ichiko not being able to read. The larger world of YouTubers is just as batshit as our bat sisters, right down to the crazy fans committing industrial sabotage over their faves and getting into scraps in parking garages.

All that together makes this arguably the show's funniest episode—or at the very least the one with the most back-to-back great gags, but it's at the verrrrrrry end that we get just a little wrinkle to all the fun. There are many ways you could take Masaki's “Huh?” as she watched Live bask in the applause. Maybe she feels left out, having missed the big moment that presumably will raise MayoPan stocks from here. Perhaps she just suddenly realized that Live is really hot and is taken aback by her own thirst. Personally, I suspect she's getting pangs of envy—that no matter how much she's convinced herself she's good at staying behind the camera, Masaki does want to be out in front of the public with the others. Either way, it's an intriguing hook that perfectly leads us into the last third.

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Mayonaka Punch is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.