The day has finally arrived. More than the first Esper Mami episode has been subbed! It's too bad it's just a side project for when the subber gets bored with Doraemon, but at least it's happening.

Esper Mami is one of the more odd titles in the genre. The least obvious reason is that the manga was printed in a shounen comic, meaning its for young boys mostly. 

The second is that the show lacks many of the conventions typical of the genre. No transformations, not colorful costumes, no dramatic speeches, no magical villains or powers of darkness to combat. In fact Mami herself can be considered to not really be magical, so much as she has psychic powers. She can teleport, levitate and fly, and it's all very mundane, clearly not filled with the kind of sparkly fluff you come to expect from a show like Minky Momo or Mary Bell.

Though her identity isn't really secret, Mami does keep her powers a secret, all the while going about using them to solve other people's problems and such.

And of course there's the elephant in the room, the thing everyone thinks of when this series comes to mind. For those who aren't familiar with this series, Mami's father is a painter. He has a particular favorite subject, namely his daughter. And always nude portraits. 

The portraits themselves are always done in a very unique style compared to the animation of the show. Nipples are visible dots but not really detailed. Mami herself seems to have no concept of a nudity taboo and doesn't mind others seeing these portraits. In the first episode she actually expresses annoyance with the idea that someone would be uncomfortable with such a thing.

Being an old 80s show there was little qualms about having children depicted naked at the time, something often used in the creator's other show, the aforementioned Doraemon. Now we live in a time where anything and everything is sexualized and the media watchdogs are cracking down on that sort of thing.

I always thought it was odd that the opening theme has lyrics like "My boyfriend" and "Love letter" when Mami seems to have zero interest in having a boyfriend. Go Figure.

Oooh, thanks for sharing! It makes me happy to see older series getting attention.

I remember reading about this show but thinking I probably wouldn't get to watch it since I didn't see that it was fansubbed. The premise did intrigue me since I haven't seen an anime where a character had psychic powers before.  It does seem to differ from the usual eyecatching sparkling razzle dazzle of most mahou shoujo, but it's nice to break away sometimes. ^^

Woop! They've updated with three more episodes!

I gotta say though, I thought the nudity thing wouldn't bother me, but it's kind of awkward watching those scenes. Definitely one to watch on the tablet, not on my laptop which is facing the door behind me. > >

Five episodes in and this is a surprisingly fun show regardless of the above. All of the main characters are pretty lovable. I like how they presented some very believable reasons for why Mami shouldn't expose her identity, something different from what you'd expect from Precure and such.

According to the subbers they're gonna try to get at least one episode a month going. Bummer, but at least it's gonna keep happening maybe.

Finally got around to watching this (I had it downloaded for a few months) and really is pretty interesting.

I like that it's very...mundane. There's no villain, no collecting magic shards or cards or whatever, no transformations. But it's still very much a magical girl show. The most fantastical things in it (so far anyway) are Mami's dream sequences.

It's just...Mami going through her life having to learn and adapt to her mysterious new abilities and helping people along the way. I think that's what makes it kind of special.

I also really like her relationship with Takahata.

So the people subbing this show have been on a hiatus. Fine by me since it gives me time to catch up. I watched episodes 11-13 last night and I have two major thoughts.

This is the only magical girl show I have seen that has the protagonist dealing with normal human criminals. At first I was expecting more of this quirky dream sequences, but nope, she's stopping real criminals now. Very interesting and kinda distressing watching her get smacked around and whatnot.

And second. Mami is a walking disaster. That cooking episode. Good lord. XD Aside from that she's definitely not a very sensible or responsible person. I like that, Takahata being the straight man to her nonsense. Usually it's the other way around, with the guy being an arrogant screw-up and the girl being portrayed as perfect at everything and really smug about it. In this case it's not only reversed, but also much more tame.

And as said above, their relationship is very nice. I like how the show isn't shipping these two together. Even when she wants to cook for him, nobody goes "Oooooh, do you like him?". Their friendship in general is just really genuine without all of that "Does he/she like me?" drama making everything confusing.

Also I really like when Mami just kinda pops into places and acts like she's supposed to be there. (like with the kidnapping incident) and then when she leaves people are like "...Who was that?"

Welp. I guess the subbing group for this one died. Last update was June of last year. It's a shame too cause this was one of the few shows I was genuinely interested in watching. Lately I haven't been watching anime entirely, so I can't complain too much.

I still have a few episodes waiting to be watched, but I have a weird thing where I dislike hitting the ceiling when watching non-weekly airing anime, so I was holding off on those. At least if I ever feel like watching it again, I'll have something new.