Okay, sorry to drag Dandadan again (I’ve been doing that a lot recently, I know, I don’t particularly relish roasting this series) but I wanted to address this in light of “Spider-Man: Brand New Day”. After seeing how that movie addressed MJ’s memory loss, it actually made me go back to the past chapters to compare how Dandadan handled Momo’s amnesia. And the contrast just pissed me off.
BND actually forced Peter to face the harsh reality that MJ literally has no connection to him anymore. She reads his letter, and then admits she feels nothing for him. But Peter acknowledges this and accepts what happened because that’s just the reality of the situation. And it’s sad, it’s fucking sad. The movie doesn’t sugarcoat this, it’s an incredibly traumatic moment for everyone involved.
Dandadan keeps either trying to act like amnesiac!Momo is part of the gang or downplay the seriousness of the amnesia. The story tries to play it off as comedic (Aira saying Momo is her “slave”, Kinta lying about them being a couple). And then this dude Okarun seriously tries to ask her out on a date, knowing full well she has no memories. I initially accepted this, but now, I’m lowkey baffled by the fact this was even a thing. She literally lost the established connection she had to Okarun, all of their past experiences is GONE FROM HER MEMORY. What are we even doing here, she literally can’t respond like how the typical Momo would respond.
(Also, Jiji deserves some flack here since he knows she lost her memories and she can’t respond the way she would typically respond)
Also, think about MJ’s importance in BND. Was she still important? Yes. But because of the memory loss, a reduction in importance was inevitable since she literally lost the reason why she’d partner up with Spider-Man. So instead of BND being about Peter, MJ, and Ned as a trio, it’s mostly Peter on his own working with his superhero friends in order to deal with Jean Grey. And that makes sense, MJ and Ned lost their place by his side.
That’s why it feels like Momo lost a lot of her co-lead significance after the memory loss. A lot of her chapters are her going, “Why am I hanging out with these freaks, I don’t know them?” And since she doesn’t know how to use her powers, her other chapters are her running away, playing second fiddle to Okarun and Aira, and then mainly acting like a human battery for Okarun’s spirit sword. So instead of Momo and Okarun going into battle as equals, it’s Okarun with Momo as his support/battery.
And before anyone comments this, that’s not me being like, “I like Okarun and Aira more, therefore I will downplay Momo’s significance in the story”. The story literally did that! And Tatsu wrote himself into a corner because how else are you going to address amnesia? That’s why I bring up Spider-Man Brand New Day, that movie shows just how damaging an amnesia storyline could be to the importance of a character. Are you seriously going to tell me Momo’s stock as a main character didn’t get hit because of the amnesia storyline?
Anyways, rant over.
