Boku no Tsuma wa Kanjou ga Nai

Takuma Kosugi is an office worker who does not have enough time to take care of everything at home. To make his daily life easier, he purchases a secondhand housekeeping robot named Mina, who quickly proves her worth. One day, after returning from work and having one too many beers, Takuma somewhat jokingly blurts out that she should become his wife! Much to his surprise, Mina takes his words seriously, and the two gradually begin living as if they are married.

As the days go by, Takuma and Mina grow closer and start doing more activities together, like going on a picnic and spending a day at the beach. However, much of society still considers human-robot relationships unusual. The couple must figure out if their arrangement can succeed and how to convince the people around them of their sincerity.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Mina Main

Inagaki, Konomi Japanese

Kosugi, Takuma Main

Toyonaga, Toshiyuki Japanese

Mamoru Supporting

Wakai, Yuuki Japanese

Kosugi, Emi Supporting

Hiramatsu, Akiko Japanese

Super Mina Supporting

Serizawa, Yuu Japanese

Ootani, Tomikazu Supporting

Umeda, Shuuichirou Japanese

Kosugi, Akari Supporting

Aoyama, Yoshino Japanese

Aikawa Supporting

Hori, Soushirou Japanese

Minegishi, Koushirou Supporting

Takase, Akimitsu Japanese

John Supporting

Kawamoto, Kunihiro Japanese

Tsutsui, Kazuo Producer

Kishida, Takuma Producer

Konishi, Yuuki Producer

Yoshimura, Fumihiro Director

Reviews

Nov 30, 2024

Almus

Recommended

Super cute and wholesome! I had a low expectation for the show going in, but I was quickly swept away by the story. Solid 8/10 for this romantic slice of life anime. This is definitely worth the watch.

Also, I'm usually the type to watch the intro/outro for a show just once and then skip them afterwards in later episodes. But the outro song for this show was so good and catchy that I just had to listen to it every time.

I highly recommend this anime to watch. I binge watched all 12 episodes because I just couldn't stop once I had started.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Sep 15, 2024

literaturenerd

Mixed Feelings

Well-written

My Wife has No Emotion is a series that I watched at the behest of an offline buddy who has always fancied himself as somewhat of a contrarian. He goes out of his way to avoid watching anything popular or anything that anyone in his social group recommends to him. Instead, he searches for hidden gems that aren’t well liked but that he can try find his own value in as opposed to trying to appreciate masterpieces based on what other people have said about them. “An ounce of my own wit is worth more to me than a ton of knowledge that comes from ... others”. This quote actually comes from the narrator’s father in the novel Tristram Shandy but could easily be something my longtime friend would say. Anyways, this anime is much like the man who recommended it to me in that it’s difficult to easily categorize and also really frustrating at times.

My Wife has no Emotion is the story of a 24-year-old virgin male who slaves away at a shitty office job and doesn’t have the time to really bother with dating. Even if he tried to make time, he’s socially awkward and in the bottom 20% of the social pecking order. He’s completely given up that he will ever find anyone. So, he decides to alleviate his crippling loneliness by ordering a gynoid robot that is programmed to cook, clean, and obey his every command. However, something odd happens with her programming and she begins to show signs that she cares for him, which causes him to fall madly in love with her and marry her. The immediate assumption that one might have based on this description is that this series is a shameless fantasy for Japanese incels in their 20s. To this I would have to respond with the cliché answer of “Yes…but also no.” In a traditional fantasy for lonely guys, the robot girl Mina would be heavily sexualized, and this would lead to a lot of spicy moments. This anime really doesn’t have a sexual element. This is entirely about some form of companionship to battle against lifelong loneliness. Mina looks like a robot, talks like a robot, and acts like a robot. She is incapable of performing sexual acts and nobody would even want her to. This is a fantasy aimed at extremely lonely guys, but nobody is going to point fingers at it and call it “gross” or “sexist”. Instead, the first half of the series is best described as just…sad. Really sad. This is a fantasy in which the answer is just to completely give up and buy yourself a ChatGPT with a vaguely female shaped body and live with a mediocre imitation of other men’s fulfilling relationships rather than having nothing. We’re not that far off from having the technology where this could be entirely feasible, and this series is here celebrating it. I don’t know how to feel about that.

This is an anime that will keep you guessing, by which I mean that it never really goes the way you think it will go. There are a number of directions that the story could take with its premise. You could have a slapstick comedy with jokes coming from the fact that she’s just a robot and it leads to hilarious misunderstandings. You could have a wholesome romance that wishes to defend non-traditional relationships by teaching the audience that not every couple needs to have kids to have meaning and value. You could create a dystopian satire that skewers Japan’s work culture and the modern dating scene in the internet age. You could create a psychological drama in which the guy sees his robot as his beautiful wife, but it’s clear to the audience and everyone else in the series that the guy is completely insane. My Wife decides to go with an odd mixture of option 1 and 2. However, it doesn’t really accomplish either very well. It doesn’t succeed as a comedy because it’s not funny. It’s never funny, even on accident. It doesn’t really accomplish the second because Mina is a robot that acts like a robot. Chobits works because Hideki and Chii have chemistry. They’re actually really cute together. Chii is an actual AI that doesn’t act like a stereotypical robot. Chobits doesn’t give a shit about the 3 Laws of Robotics or the legal ramifications of owning a robot or any of the stuff that My Wife goes into detail with. That’s because Chobits is largely using human x robot relations as a metaphor for something else. Something that would have been a little controversial to outright celebrate in a 2002 anime airing on Japanese television. Japan was culturally at different place in 2002, where even the Utena manga had the cut down on the gayness since one of the illustrators was deeply disgusted by homosexuality and threatened to leave the project if Ikuhara insisted on making Utena lesbian. I went WAY off topic, where was I? Ah yes, back to My wife. My Wife really does want to be about human x robot relations, and make it wholesome, and celebrate it as an alternative to being a forever alone loser. I honestly don’t think it succeeds very well in this.

In the second half of the series, Mina buys a medical robot to take Takuma’s temperature and keep him healthy while she’s getting some upgrades at the factory. Due to a plot convenient programming error, his factory set personality is deleted and his AI learning picks up habits and characteristics of both Takuma and Mina, making this weird little bird robot their “son”. The little bastard looks and sounds like this toy called “Gotta Go Flamingo”…and yet he’s the best part of this show. Mina’s jealousy and resentment towards her “son” Mamoru offers the first bits of character drama and development in this mess. This was a show entirely without conflict or drama of any kind, so this is very welcome. The little shit is also pretty cute, which allows My Wife to actually hit some of those wholesome scenes that it’s been wildly missing up to this point. In the climax of the series, Takuma presents his wife and son to his parents. You would think that they’d be deeply disappointed which leads to a big confrontation for the finale. Nope! They are maybe just a little disappointed, but they had no hopes for the lad anyways and this is better than nothing. Um…cool? There is actually a pretty well-done scene where Takuma is talking to his father and his dad tells him that not everyone needs to have biological children to be loved and accepted. He tells Takuma that he needs to stop worrying so much about what others think and focus on living his own best life. I must give credit where it’s due to My Wife for the fact that its last episode was easily its best. It went out swinging and I have to respect that! It was sadly too little too late to save the series from a 4 rating, but it actually tried when I thought it was just going to rest on its haunches.

My Wife Has no Emotion is one of the odder entries of the season. It’s not a great anime I would recommend to people, but it’s not just pure trash. It’s certainly wish fulfillment for lonely men, but not like you would expect. It made me think and question things, but this is far from being an artsy or philosophical series. This was made by Tezuka Productions and some talented people worked on this, but most of the time it doesn’t really live up to its pedigree in the visuals department. Both the OP and ED are quite catchy as if someone really had faith in this production, but based on its visuals I don’t think it was a high budget project for Tezuka Productions. The manga this series is based on isn’t very popular or critically acclaimed on either side of the Pacific, so I’m not entirely sure how this even got made. Not only did it get made, but it aired on Japanese television on the same mainstream channel that aired all the JoJo anime and Attack on Titan! It’s puzzling, it’s bizarre, it’s…kind of meh. I’d probably just skip this one if I were you.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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Jan 2, 2025

Kyou_Ryuu

Not Recommended

THE GOOD:
This series touches a number of interesting themes related to artificial intelligence. What are the rights of AIs? How should they be treated? When does a robot with complex behaviour stop being a mere electric appliance and start becoming a sentient being?
Most of these themes are already touched in a number of other series, Chobits being the closer one in terms of plot. But while there the focus was mostly on the "feelings" between man and machine, here it's wider and goes from bureaucracy to practical day-to-day living challenges (maintenance, etc.), which is definitely something new.
The show production value is just average, but OP ... and ED are catchy and nice to listen to, and voice acting by Toyonaga (Tokuma) stands out.

THE MEH:
As anticipated, production value isn't exactly stellar. It's your run-of-the-mill seasonal anime, with the usual average animation, visuals and direction. Sound production is on the same level, with voice actors beside Toyonaga doing a decent job but nothing worth mentioning.
In terms of writing, the show goes nowhere. There is no clear goal or arc, and in terms of character development Tokuma's and Mina's ones are underwhelming. It wouldn't be a problem if this was an episodic series, but that's not the case, here: the story progresses, the MCs not so much. Their personalities and relationship at the end of the show are almost the same they had at the beginning, with just minor/cosmetic changes.

THE BAD:
The series has 2 main defects in my opinion.
The first one is related to visuals: character design for the MCs falls into "uncanny valley" territory.
Mina's lack of expressiveness and robotic appearance with just her moe face make her hard to watch. And while this might have been the original intention, it's still a bit creepy.
Takuma's main design issue is related to his "snake face". It's a weird choice for a protagonist, and while it gives him a unique feel and sets him apart from your usual MCs, it's also a bit uncomfortable. There's a reason if that eye style is more common for villains and antagonists.
The second defect is the show's shallowness. As mentioned at the beginning, the series touches a great number of themes, but it almost never delves deeply into them. They are just used as plot devices for some minutes and then dropped. The story won't come back on them unless they are needed later for progression purposes, but even then they won't be investigated further.
The end result is that the show feels like nothing meaningful really happens most of the times.

FINAL THOUGHTS:
A wasted opportunity. This series had all the chances to become a milestone in its specific sci-fi subgenre, but it wasn't able to take advantage of the potential of its premise.
Not recommended, unless you feel nostalgic for Chobits... in which case you'd better watch Chobits instead.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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