Based off of a manga that ran from April 2000 to October 2004, Mouse tells the story of Muon Sorata, a young & mild-mannered college art teacher by day, but by night takes on the persona of the master thief Mouse (See, sometimes title names do mean something). Assisted by 3 incredibly lovely ladies (Mei, Yayoi, Kakio), Mouse steals highly valuable objects, from a golden skull, to a giant tower floating on the water, but as to why he goes for high value targets, no-one knows. The police believe that Mouse steals for profit, while Mouse himself commits these crimes for the thrill, as well as to take back items that were originally stolen himself. Over the course of this series, he and the ladies go around town, looking for the next big score, all the while enjoying each other’s company (I’ll get to this in a bit).
Speaking of story, that is Mouse’s first positive. Despite the fact that there isn’t necessarily a lot of depth to it (More on that in a bit), it’s very easy to understand and get into. Unlike DNAngel, which plays to the slice-of-life/action/fantasy thief story, Mouse is more of a comedy/action/fan-service thief story, complete with a trio of babes to complement the main character. Speaking of characters...
That’s Mouse’s second positive. There’s a relatively good selection of characters, both primary & secondary. Each and every single one of them serve a purpose, whether it’s to advance the story of the episode, or to simply move a scene along. Muon is a example of a pervert with a heart: he gets a definite rise out of seeing the trio naked or in incredibly akward situations, yet he’s surprisingly noble, and won’t leave anyone behind, even if it means he might get caught.
The three girls are also important to Mouse. Mei is the first of the trio: it’s apparent that she has more experience than Yayoi & Kakio, and it’s also apparent that she been through more than the other two (We see her get whipped as part of her training, her ankle getting twisted during a heist, and her leg grazed by a bullet during another). Yayoi is a little different from Mai. When we see her during the two flashback episodes that focus on her, we discover that she has a fear of men, enough so that she goes into panic attacks when she sees one. After getting a kiss from Mouse, her fear somehow was removed, and has become a big flirt when she’s near Muon. Kakio, at least for me, seems to be a mix of the previous two girls: she has some experience like Mei, but she’s a little shy like Yayoi. On top of that, she seems to have multiple personalities, but not in a damaged mind kind of way. Because of these personalities, she’s more spontaneous than Mei & Yayoi, whether during a job, or when she’s with Muon.
The secondary characters aren’t that bad either. Chief among them are Machiko Tsukioka (A female student that also has the hots for him), Mr. Fuyuharu (Mei’s grandfather, and the only known male servant to Muon), Captain Onizuka Heitaro & Masatoshi Minami (Two cops that try to catch Mouse, and fail constantly), and finally 4S (An organization that has been corrupted from it’s original purpose, and is now dedicated to the black market & assassins). Although they don’t get as much screen time (Especially 4S), their presence still move things along.
The third positive to Mouse is the animation quality. For the most part, it’s actually not that bad. There’s a small hiccup or two once in a while, but in the end everything looks nice & smooth. Characters move at a fluid pace, and the action doesn’t slow down in the slightest, except when characters speak with one another, but that’s not animation quality, is it? Speaking of, well, speaking...
The voice acting in Mouse is the show’s 4th positive. Like the animation quality, it’s not bad. A voice might croak once in a while, but nothing that won’t really cause you to nail your ears shut. When a character speak for the first time, you won’t forget them anytime soon, whether they’re on-screen, or doing something off-screen.
Mouse’s fifth positive is the length of the series. Coming in at 12 episodes, Mouse is a series that will entertain you in a short amount of time. I say short because...well, let me do another first for you, and talk about a negative during the positives.
Although there’s twelve episodes (A standard in the anime world), they’re only 15 minutes each, whereas most episodes of a series last about 22 to 24 minutes. Given that there’s twelve episodes, Mouse can be watched in approximately 3 hours, give or take a minute or two. The structure of Mouse is also a problem, but I’ll get to that in a little bit.
The final positives of Mouse are availability & pricing. Despite being about a decade old, it can still be found in many places, especially Amazon. On Amazon, individual volumes (There’s 2 of them) start at $10.78 for a new first volume, and $7.90 for a new second volume. Used copes are far lower: used copies of the first volume start at $2.94, while used copies of the second volume start at $3.86. Despite being cheaper, there’s plenty of copies across both spectrums, and the pricing for new DVDs isn’t too terrible. Although there aren’t that many new complete editions (At the time of this writing, there are only 3 available, and the first costs $98.55), there’s a small amount of used ones, starting at $18.20. My suggestion is to buy the volumes separately, regardless of whether they’re used or not.
Okay, now it’s time for the negatives. As I talked about before, this show goes by quick. If you’re hardcore, you could theoretically watch Mouse in one sitting. I watched it in two: first 6 episodes on one day, and the other 6 episodes on the second day. In that little bit, I also said that the structure of the show was a problem, so what do I mean by that?
I mean that Mouse is an incredibly rigid show. Unlike shows such as Comic Party Revolution (minus the last two episodes) or Excel Saga, Mouse is meant to be watched in precisely the order it was meant to be, which is ironic, given how easy & free-flowing the story is. If you watch even one episode out of order, you completely disrupt the show’s flow, and ruin the experience.
Mouse gets a 6.9 to 7.2 out of 10. The story is easy to follow, the characters are fun to watch, the animation quality is great, the voice acting is equally great, there’s a standard amount of 12 episodes, and it’s not to hard to find & buy, but the show goes by quickly, and is structured very tightly.
See you all next week, when I’ll review the game that brought life back into the Modern Warfare series. Until then, stay Otaku!
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