A fetish is an unnatural desire towards a want or need, whether it be black underwear or leather straps or Hello Kitty. I bring this up, as “Ojisan to Marshmallow” (“Ojisan to Mashumaro”) is a caliber of fetish show, except our hero, Habahiro Hige, is drawn to marshmallows, and it is more than drawn, it is a compulsion.

For a short-pull show, they manage to pack in a lot of strangeness, especially when he and her go into a back room and…and…and…wolf down a bag of marshmallows, but not any marshmallows. He has a thing for Tabekko marshmallows, and since they have a factory in town, he spends his free time going there for the tours and the samples. You like the smell of baking bread? He likes the smell of fresh marshmallows. And the fantasies he has about marshmallows. Talk about kinky…………

Co-worker Iori Wakabayashi is in love with Hige, and will sometimes use marshmallows as a bait or lure to get him to love her back, but unless you are small, white and squishy, it is a lost cause. We do inject in a caliber of rivalry with other co-worker MIO5 (yes, that’s how she is presented). She was saved by Hige from a subway groper and her attempts to win Hige’s heart are equally comical and equally doomed to failure.

This series is just like a marshmallow, soft and fluffy. The worst thing that happens is when he can’t get his favorite brand of marshmallows. You never really see these people work, as though the job they have (they work for a web-related group) are not that critical and the whole thing functions just fine without their help or assistance, leaving them free to chase their predilections as they see fit. Still, it is a good-natured, kindly weird show about a different caliber of desire. And all in 3½ minutes. I almost forgot: the fan service shows up in the last two episodes, when, for some reason, we go to a hot springs (yeah, like we NEED a reason to go to the hot springs).

On a scale of 1 to 10:

Artwork           7 (Very exaggerated)
Plot                  5 (Not really, but that’s OK)
Pacing              7 (Moves along briskly)
Effectiveness   8 (For what it wants to achieve)
Conclusion       7 (It reaches a ‘coupler’, but hasn’t ended)
Fan Service      2 (A similar show would be “Okamisan”)

Overall            7 (Could have used a bit more bite)

And remember, it’s first run until you’ve seen it. Silly fairy.