All posts by draggle

Mawaru Penguindrum 04 — Let’s Destiny!

Mawaru Penguindrum,

This was my favorite episode so far, even without a survival strategy. We still have sufficient randomness (the entire episode was driven by a skunk spraying Ringo), a fast pace, interesting characters and the quirky humor. Shouma and Ringo somehow work really well together. She goes wild and he’s there to make sarcastic comments and pick up the pieces.

After this episode I’ve become completely sold on Ringo. And it speaks volumes that this show has made me like a crazy stalker who sneaks under the floorboards and almost drowns herself for the sake of her happy destiny of falling in love with a man at least ten years older than her. But the thing is she’s just so earnest: what she’s doing isn’t really a secret to anyone, except that teacher who is dense as a doorknob. And I can’t help but root for her when the fate she puts so much trust in is throwing so many obstacles in her path. In this episode alone, she got sprayed by a skunk (twice), was out-acted in fakery by her love rival, who turned out to be onto her and planning her defeat, nearly drowned, and had her first kiss stolen by someone else without even realizing it. (Oh, and I totally called Ringo and Shouma becoming an item.) It also helps that her delusions are hilarious, especially how she loses to her rival even in her imagination.

Then, at the end of the episode, after I have become convinced that Ringo is awesome… she goes and murders someone to fulfill her destiny. At least it appears so. I don’t believe it: the pants didn’t look like Ringo’s, and it doesn’t seem like something she would do, insane as she is, since it doesn’t have anything to do with getting closer to Tabuki. But whoever it was did put the destiny stamp in a diary with a picture of Prince Tabuki and the snake, mentioning the woman in red heels, so the evidence seems to be hinting in Ringo’s direction. I don’t believe it yet. We do appear to have a new villain hiding in the shadows and leading Kanba’s ex-girlfriends in opposition, so she seems the most likely culprit to me. But this is what I love about this show: just when you think you’ve got everything figured out, they throw you a curveball like this.

The other thing I like is that Penguindrum has an excellent balance of humour, plot and character development. They put the jokes in right along with the more serious moments, which makes the jokes even funnier and prevents you from getting bored. They have an excellent sense of timing. When Ringo was drowning, that penguin was swimming to save her… and then took the fish and ran off, I pretty much lost it. All the times Ringo accused Shouma of stinking were also great. And on top of everything else, they put the penguins doing random things in the background. There’s so much going on that it’s nearly impossible to lose interest. In terms of characters, Ringo is now awesome, we learned that Tabuki’s girlfriend is not as pure as she appears, and Kanba really is a womanizer. Plotwise, Shouma discovered the diary and the villain has made her debut.

I can’t wait for the next episode. Although there’s still plenty of time to screw things up (see: Star Driver), at this rate, Mawaru Penguindrum seems set for a place on my favorites list.

No. 6 04 — My Mother was a Dog

No. 6,

We’re exploring all kinds of family structures today, aren’t we?

My reaction to this episode. ^

The thing is, I generally enjoy No. 6 when Shion and Nezumi aren’t together. But when they are, it’s a complete disaster. It’s like they copy-pasted their personalities out of the frickin’ yaoi fangirl manual. They’re both handsome bishounen. Nezumi is the seme and the one who wears the pants. Shion is weak and emotional and all that.

My problem isn’t that they’re gay: two of my favorite shows are Hourou Musuko and Simoun, which explore issues of gender. No. 6 has more ridiculous and rigid conceptions of gender than the perceived 1950’s suburban America (just different genders). For crying out loud, they even had a scene where Shion is a stay at home wife, cooking and waiting for his husband to come home from work. Nezumi gets home, takes off his coat, and goes to bed, taking out his anger on his wife.

It gets even worse when combined with the corny acting. Nezumi’s favorite activity is grabbing Shion’s collar and pushing him against the wall. Shion is so naive he doesn’t realize the woman kissing him is a whore. Then Nezumi steals an indirect kiss from Shion using the same prositute. Later, Shion gasps upon hearing that Nezumi would have women lining up for him if he became a prostitute, and then attempts to murder the person who said it (jealousy?). He then starts crying because the guy “said all those mean things” and Nezumi isn’t angry. I just wanted to strangle Shion at this point. I honestly think that Rin from Usagi Drop has a higher level of maturity.

Let’s look at some other brilliant quotes from Shion. “I want to know more about you!” “I find myself drawn to you.” And describing Nezumi: “His voice carries away their souls / Like the wind carries away a flower’s petals.” Gah!!! Could this get any cornier? (don’t answer that: I’m sure it could)

This show can be good when it focuses on the sci-fi aspects and doesn’t have Shion and Nezumi together. The only scenes I enjoyed this episode were the ones with the dog renter. I did laugh at Shion naming the rats as well.

The preview for next week indicates that our semen-seeking friend will return, so perhaps we can dare to hope that the episode will resemble the first episode more than it resembles a yaoi doujinshi.

Usagi Drop 04 — My Father is my Grandfather

Usagi Drop,

The initial scene in the nursery school was just too cute. Rin saying that her father was her grandfather, and running away with the boy holding hands— *HNNNG*.

Now Daikichi has a love interest as well, and possibly a love triangle with Rin’s mother? But I can see why he is still single at age 30. Definitely not a ladies man. He’s old enough where he can use his daughter and single father status to pick up women.

The scene where Daikichi and the mother from the nursery walked home together would have been quite awkward if it weren’t for Rin’s presence. Rin makes everything about Usagi Drop shine. We had two events in this episode— the awkward walk home together and the drinking part— which would have been stereotypical and dull in any other show. But Rin’s presence makes these events much more interesting. She interrupts the conversation on the walk home, gets held by Daikichi’s coworkers, convinces the underling of the wisdom of Daikichi’s decision, and inspires Daikichi to resist the desires to get drunk and to lecture the gossips in the bathroom toilet. Most of the humor revolves around Rin as well— the childish things she will do (those pigtails- lol) and Daikichi’s desire to keep secrets from her.

Another thing I was reminded of from this episode is that the animation is superb. In particular, I can’t get enough of the colorful scenes, like the one with Rin playing at the nursery. Animation like in Stein’s; Gate is good too, particularly for that setting, but I just love things that are filled with color the most. Usagi Drop, Miyazaki movies, Hourou Musuko— hell, even Fractale— it’s simply such a pleasure to look at them.

I’d always thought Usagi Drop was great in terms of characters, but this episode has convinced me that it knows where it’s headed plot-wise as well. With Daikichi’s discovery of the will, his meeting at the daycare, and Rin’s pending enrollment in kindergarten, the wheels are starting to turn. I’m looking forward to see where things go— we may even get some good drama and / or romance.

Steins; Gate 17 — Feyris-nyan

Steins; Gate,

On one hand, Feyris has finally become a character who is something more than a nyan-nyan nekomimi girl. But overall I was disappointed by this episode.

They’ve introduced inconsistencies into the plot which I doubt will ever be addressed. Why is Feyris able to remember what happened in both timelines? I thought Okarin was the only one with the reading Steiner ability. Feyris’ ability is even better, actually: Feyris is able to remember both timelines, but Okarin can’t remember his past in the timelines he transfers to. This seems like a huge plot hole, if they don’t come up with some explanation, especially for a series which has been putting a significant amount of thought into its time travel.

Additionally, I didn’t really understand the story about the D-mail Feyris sent (perhaps this is just me, and someone can correct me?). What I got out of it was that Feyris’ father died in an accident. To prevent him from going to the place where he would die in the accident, Feyris sent a D-mail faking her kidnapping, told him to gather $1 million to pay her ransom and head away from the accident scene on the train. He didn’t have enough money, so he sold the IBN 5100 to a suspiciously willing buyer (CERN?). But wouldn’t the father have found out that her kidnapping was fake after he prepared the money? Or was she actually kidnapped, and she just told him to take the train instead of driving?

But regardless of what actually happened here, I’m surprised Okabe didn’t try for a less drastic change in the timeline that would allow both Mayushii and Feyris’ father to live. And it seems to me that Feyris’ D-mail could be a red herring anyway: that buyer knew about the IBN 5100 at such an opportune time. It seems reasonable to believe that this buyer and kidnapper are the same person, and that they may be affiliated with CERN. Which leads us to my speculation regarding the heart of Okabe’s problems: Moeka’s D-mail. I think that after it was after this message that we never saw the IBN 5100 again. And considering that no one except her even knew what the message was, she could have sent anything. My guess is that she told herself where the machine was in the past.

The last thing that bothered me about this episode was how Okabe suddenly became Feyris’ prince. Where did this come from? I thought she just liked to bully him. I hope we don’t have every female character fall in love with Okabe. Next week seems set to be Ruka’s turn, since her D-mail is next in line… I hope she doesn’t become a trap again…

Hanasaku Iroha 17 — We Shall Return!

Hanasaku Iroha,

Yuina is just too much. Hot pants, a spy and a zombie in one episode.

This episode was mainly devoted to Enishi and Takako. Takako began as the most annoying character in Hanasaku Iroha. In all honestly, she still is, but in combination with Enishi I do like her. She’s the type of person who takes charge, and Enishi is the kind of person who gets taken charge of.

In one scene, Enishi was about to hit Takako  for making fun of his sister, but she slapped him instead. And he liked it and begged her to lead them in their comeback. I think that in this way Takako is very similar to Ohana’s mother, and that’s probably why he likes her. Enishi’s unbelievably clumsy (see the pool scene) and a terrible businessman. But in spite of his unassuming appearance and his lazy-looking appearance, he certainly doesn’t lack in enthusiasm or effort. “WE SHALL RETURN!” Totally GAR. I actually thought it kind of made sense the way he said it too.

I’m still not entirely sure what to make of the grandmother’s role in all this. She wants to give him some freedom, sure, but you’d think she would give him freedom with something she didn’t know would turn out disastrously. There’s the possibility she didn’t know, of course, but she didn’t seem too surprised when the director skipped town. The manager also tried to play a motherly role in this episode. And we discovered (or already knew) that Enishi is a momma’s boy. The pool scene was cute too. (not sure what the planes had to do with anything though) Any bets on whether the manager will ever tell Ohana to call her grandma?