There are two things that Riichi Ueshiba makes me think of: intricately detailed occultly fantastic arc and offputting often perverted narratives. Somehow Ookumochan Flashback managed to be his best work despite lacking the former and only having a little of the latter. Relatively little that is. The perverted side of the story is at its core as the protagonist Minoru is introduced as being horny for his mothers ass. Its easy to imagine the exact kind of raunchy offensive incestuous comedy anime this sounds like the kind that exists to be horny bait for a relationship it will constantly tease while never quite showing. Its not one of those. Its definitely not a romance the driving force of the narrative is anything but a desire to see them get together. Its more of a character study along with an exploration of other relationships. If the premise puts you off enough to keep you from reading it fair enough but if you give it a chance it wont hit you with very many degenerate moments and will give you a lot more. Minoru is portrayed realistically and genuinely. Its simply a matter of fact that he feels that way about his mother. He knows never to act on it but he cant control the way he reacts. He shakes his head at himself when he catches himself thinking about it too much and he never lets his mother find out sparing the readers an extremely awkward scene. It affects more than just how he looks at his mother Aya but seeps into how he interacts with his peers how he conducts himself socially. After all he doesnt need them or a relationship when he has her. He feels that way due to the one fantastical element Minoru experiences random visions of the past where he sees through his fathers eyes when he was in high school crushing on flirting with dating his mother. The way he stammered watched her spoke to her and stared at her ass. Those feelings of love rubbed off onto Minoru mixing with his familial attachment. Its weird but a lot less weird than some of Ueshibas past work. His career began with his breakout hit Discommunication with incredible surreal artwork and an amateurish yet charming story that felt like it was entirely improvised yet never bullshits you. That manga was about love how it is both simple and incomprehensible despite the surreal and occult events of the narrative. After a couple of Discommunication sequels Ueshiba wrote Yume Tsukai. That was some of the worst and weirdest shit Ive ever read jumping between reprehensibly taboo and utterly ridiculous. You probably wouldnt believe me that its second half was actually good. After that he wrote Mysterious Girlfriend X a manga I did not finish and cannot say much about. But I will mention that Ueshiba wrote it to exemplify pure sexfree relationships between high schoolers. At the same time he couldnt stop himself from constantly incorporating a spit fetish. That should give you a picture of the strange kind of artist he is. Ideas no normal person would come up with sometimes intriguingly so and sometimes upsettingly so. But love is a common theme. Thats why when he wrote Ookumochan Flashback about a boy horny for his mother it wasnt just a raunchy comedy but a heartfelt look at just how love develops. Discommunication was a question just what is love but Ookumochan Flashback isnt the answer. Because its already been figured out. Ookumochan is a victory lap so fluent in its understanding of human behavior and relationships that it can portray love without the fantastical metaphors Ueshiba needed before. Rather than a descent into the mindscape of the universe Ookumochan delivers its message through its portrayal of natural ordinary life. Rest assured the love isnt between Minoru and his mother. Rather its between Minoru and his classmate Ninomae. From their first introduction youll be rooting for them to get together and the manga knows it. But there isnt one moment where they fall in love no beautiful moment of passion where feelings are realized and exchanged under the stars as angels sing. There are beautiful moments but people move on from them dont change immediately all while love slowly builds from the littlest things. Ninomae is a great character boisterous and outgoing to complement Minorus reservedness. But he can keep up with her isnt fazed or intimidated. Theres also the secret of how Minorus mother is actually the manga author behind Ninomaes favorite series something Minoru wants to keep under wraps to avoid the attention. It lends tension and anticipation to something that otherwise could have been a little too slice of life. But the use of slice of life is also what grounds this manga and makes it so relatable. It rides the perfect line between drama and daily living. Theres always a point to a chapter always some slight progression of Minoru and Ninomaes relationship never extending it unnecessarily. But that drama is typically something you could experience in your own life. The best sliceoflife understands that ordinary life is interesting if you know the right way to look at it. Its often tied together with a vision of the past at the perfect moment giving parallels between the present and past that are not always between the same characters. Ueshibas writing has matured over his long career. The heightened realities of his earlier work were at times jawdropping but now he can provide an engaging story simply with the relationships alone. Neither approach is inherently better but for him the latter has the advantage of experience behind it and is what makes this manga so good. His artwork has also matured. The linework is a little bit more loose than in his past work and it lacks the insane splash panels and immersive magical environments. At his best he fills pages with details yet never lets them be distracting. But here he proves he doesnt need those things because he understands composition panel flow and how to use the little aspects of visual storytelling to add that extra punch. His faces used to be some of the simplest youd see in manga now he conveys nuanced emotion through facial expressions. The characters now stretch and bend dynamically posed like human beings and not dolls. Poses themselves are sometimes used for subtle parallels one of my favorite moments has two character in the exact same position telling us theres a connection between them but the panels occur pages apart. So instead of shoving it in the readers face its more like a moment of deja vu that hits you the same way it hits the character seeing them. Hes always been an expert at drawing but now hes an expert at drawing for a manga. I think the feeling I felt most while reading it was Im surprised at how much Im enjoying this. This was partially from the context of the authors past work the improvement from what he had done. But it was also the way it took a pervertedsounding premise and turned it into something heartfelt. The way it took something that could have been plain and made it stick with me. Its my favorite of Ueshibas works because by the end you realize theres a purpose even to the horny premise. Most of us someday have to learn to leave behind the love we feel for our parents and find something new. They will keep being important to us but someone else can become the most important to you. It heightens that extreme to romantic love to make its point but at its core it is perhaps the most human thing Ueshiba has written.