Content Warning: Blood
What’s it about? In a world where the Five Great Families hold sway, deadly killing arts are protected and perfected by only those who are worthy. Enter Hikaru Hero, an elite assassin who is no stranger to the dark underbelly of society. Only when the more mundane pressures of being part of a family start to close in, he decides to do one thing that might be harder than taking a life: settling down for marriage.
Our story begins with Hikaru Geto and a man SMOKING A BUNDLE OF TEN CIGARETTES before he puts them out on a piece of living furniture. What’s immediately clear is that the life Hikaru leads is no game: poison abounds, life is forfeit, and even a taste-tested glass can be the bloody end of your life. But that’s the lot of an assassin, and once Hikaru skillfully poisons his victim, it’s back to living in mundane society.
That is until he consults with the uniquely skilled Bug Master and decides to consider marriage as an actual option in his life of killing. So when a would-be target–a.k.a. Mei Kinosaki–reaches the limits of her marriage swindling, Hikaru doesn’t see another job but a sudden opportunity that will allow his sister to live the way she deserves while also finding an unexpected companion who might be able to match his freak…
MARRIAGETOXIN hits immediately. I love the setup of who Hikaru is: he’s a a ruthlessly skilled killer who does his craft with no mistakes, but he also likes the DIY candy kits where you mix things up from powders and water. He’s also keenly aware that he doesn’t want to get married and definitely doesn’t want to pressure his lesbian (openly!) sister to do the same. But duty calls and the pressure is on. So what’s an assassin to do?
Well, get married and provide the best plotline for a dynamic premiere. Or at least lay the plans to get married, because Hikaru isn’t your usual dating app catch in soooooo many ways.
I liked how transparent this premiere is about its protagonists. Hikaru is never going to be able to have a “normal” relationship. He’s never going to be able to go home to a partner who he can sit across the table from and eat a normal dinner with. The life he’s been raised to live is so far from average that there’s not even real hope for a love match. But when contrasted against Mei, you get someone who might understand him: a person who’s lived in the underbelly of society as well, though her targets have been contained to matchmaking and home wrecking. Together, they stumble though a situation that makes assassinating targets and swindling partners across the gender spectrum seem easy: opening up and showing who they are with the aim of marrying.
It results in a really funny scenario where Hikaru, unused to showing who he is, reveals that he’s an absolute goober, much to Mei’s dismay. But it also means that Mei becomes even more determined to find him a match, though it seems pretty clear that the only one who might be able to tolerate Hikaru’s idiosyncrasies might just be Mei herself. That, as a foundation, makes me immediately invested.
If you’re not already anxiously awaiting more MARRIAGETOXIN, you should be: it’s a fantastic start to an oddball assassin comedy that features a main character couple who are both AMAB, though I would say most will call Mei genderqueer. I’m going to keep using “she” because that’s how we meet Mei, and for what it’s worth, it feels like the right pronoun at this time.
Overall, though, the revelation that our damsel in distress has a layered gender presentation adds a neat and complicated understanding to the story because Hikaru’s behavior toward Mei isn’t out of any jokey transphobia: instead, he’s just not comfortable around anyone in a romantic situation, which means that Mei’s attempts to get him to be a normal guy so he’ll appeal to someone else are immediately comedic without harm.
Plus, I’ll admit: this is a flashy show that deserves its flowers. I knew I’d love it, but damn, I can’t wait for the next episode. Hikaru and Mei are fantastic foils to each other, the fight scenes are intensely sick, and I genuinely can’t wait to see these two nerds fall in love because yeah, this is gonna be one hell of a fun ride and I’m very, very invested.
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