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.

This cow segment was hilarious. How do they come up with this stuff? I can’t believe that the emperor penguin hat thought that Himari drinking milk would convince the brothers, even if all the crazy space ships and whatnot haven’t. What’s even funnier though is that the two brothers still don’t believe in the penguin hat and thought everything was an illusion created by Himari. They’re rather dense.

This whole penguin hat transformation sequence gives off Utena and Star Driver vibes for me- the ritualistic feel to Himari’s shout of “Survival Strategy!”, the music and the rocket ship, and Himari descending the steps. Then we have one part that isn’t always the same, followed by the opening of the trap door and the return to the normal world. I find rituals like these to be quite powerful.

The penguins continue to be amusing, as does the brothers’ stalking. It looks like they may continue to take things further and further to save Himari. I’m still not sold on Ringo though, but it’s getting there. I’m not entirely sure where everything is headed yet (which is probably a good thing). Ringo becoming friends with Himari will definitely spice things up though. I’m curious to see what the penguin hat will have to say about this development in the next episode.

This is stretching things a lot based on no evidence whatsoever, but I’m kind of wondering if we might see some romantic development between Ringo and Shouma. Largely because he wanted to eat her curry and refused to enter her room. Again, this is a huge stretch though. Another thing: why did Kanba hide the family pictures from Ringo? I wonder if there is some secret about their parents.

Giving the teacher a girlfriend was a nice twist as well. Poor Ringo. I suppose her fate did come true, but it’s remarkable that she can still be pleased with how things turned out and happily put a stamp in her diary. The face full of curry (although well deserved) shouldn’t have helped to brighten her day either.

Mawaru Penguindrum is going to be the third show I pick up this season. It has the best artwork of the season, with a great eye for detail, is ridiculously trippy (that penguin hat transformation sequence… wow, just wow), a great sense of humor, and also a plot that looks like it should have some depth. This means, unfortunately, that I’m blogging three shows on Thursday again, but they all look too promising to pass up. Don’t be surprised if (like today) some get pushed back to Friday.

In this episode, the emeperor penguin hat orders the two brothers to stalk a high school girl and recover the “penguin drum”. It turns out that the girl they’re stalking is also stalking their homeroom teacher. I was getting Onii-chan no Koto vibes of infinite chains of stalkers all over again, but here it remained entertaining. Those penguins are so cute! With the addition of taping walkie talkies and webcams to them, and getting squished between legs, stepped on and caught in bags… it’s just too adorable.

Once again, the animators have a great eye for detail, and the sense of humor is spot-on. They do an excellent job of interleaving the jokes with the story, so that the whole stalking routine doesn’t become monotonous, but also so that the plot and characters progress. Take as an example the part where Shouma is accused of groping, and Kanba covers for him by making the girl fall in love with him. This scene was hilarious, but we also get to see more facets of both brothers through their reactions, and we discover the target they are stalking through an offhand comment. Later, this is used for more of a comedic effect and development of their target as the one girl relates the story. Through this one scene, the creators managed to communicate so much.

I’m also hopeful that this show’s beauty isn’t just skin deep, and we’re in for a treat story-wise as well. The show has already dealt with some pretty heavy themes such as death, and now that the penguin drum appears to be a diary which predicts the future, I see a ton of interesting directions they could bring this in.