Foreign bystanders startled as otaku bypass waifus for mama.

With the new TV season underway in Japan, there’s a new batch of anime making their broadcast premiers, and each dreams of becoming summer’s breakout hit. So to help drum up attention for their series, the marketing minds behind one franchise staged a unique fan event on the streets of Tokyo’s Akihabara neighborhood.

First, they set up a few cardboard standees of the series’ most heavily promoted female character. Next, they laid out some thin rubber pads on the sidewalk pavement, which was cold and damp from the rains that have been falling on Tokyo just about every day for the past week, plus a knee-shaped pillow right where the anime lady’s legs would be.

And finally, they waited for fans and passerby otaku to lay down in front of the character, as though she was cradling their head in her lap.

▼ As seen in the top left photo her

If that sounds like an oddly maternal gesture, it’s entirely be design, since the anime being promoted was Do You Love Your Mom and Her Two-Hit Multi-Target Attacks? Based on a light novel series of the same name, official protagonist Masato is a typical Japanese teen who gets transported to another world, but his mom, who’s even named Mamako, is along for the adventure, and it turns out that she’s an incredibly powerful warrior after crossing over into the fantasy realm.

▼ Trailer for Do You Love Your Mom and Her Two-Hit Multi-Target Attacks?

▼ One fan shared a photo snapped from his vantage point at the knees of his beloved anime mom.

While exuberantly eccentric displays of otaku passion aren’t entirely unusual in Akihabara, this one was pretty eye-catching even by local standards, and also attracted some startled attention from group of foreigners.

▼ “At the moment I took this picture in Akihabara, I though, ‘To the rest of the world: THIS is Japan,’” tweeted Japanese Twitter user @kanchi_mgc.

But while some commenters expressed tongue-in-cheek embarrassment at their country’s anime marketing methods, others felt that with Akihabara being world-famous as a mecca of otaku culture, some foreign visitors would be understanding of, and perhaps even amenable, to the atmosphere, prompting at least one simulated look at their thought processes.

▼ Woman: “What the heck is that guy doing?”
Man: (“I soooo want to go lay down there too.”)

In addition to the lay-your-head-in-Mamako’s-lap stations, Do You Love Your Mom and Her Two-Hit Multi-Target Attacks? producers also employed more conventional promotional tactics, like giant banners…

…and a cosplay spokesmodel.

▼ The franchise has also offered discounts to customers who are accompanied by their mom when buying one of the series’ novels.

With just one episode having aired, it’s too early to tell whether thes series will become a hit or not, but the fact that fans were happy to lay down on the sidewalk with Mamako bodes well for the franchise’s popularity going forward.

Source: Twitter/@kanchi_mgc via Jin
Top image: YouTube/アニプレックス
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