If you’re a fine-toothed comb sort of reader of this site, you’ll know that I’m quite a fan of the Grateful Dead. For a few years when I was a kid and they were near the end of the line, I used to see a bunch of shows every summer. Every show, during the second set (the Dead always took a break between sets, given that their shows ran 3-4 hours on average) there was a segment universally known as “drums/space” – anywhere from 15-30 minutes of, well- drumming and spacey synth stuff. If you were tripping balls (as many of course were, though I was not a fan of that side of the experience) I’m sure those sessions were great. For the rest of us, it was a bathroom break.
My point here is that, whenever one of Ikuhara’s trademark animation loops come on, I immediately now think “drums/space”. Frankly they’re a bore, especially the musical numbers with the killer cops – though TBH, pretty much everything about them has been a bore so far. Ikuhara has always reused animation of course, but since this is a return to the mahou shoujou form for him (Sarazanmai is really a classic mahou shounen except with more anuses) he has an excuse to abuse the privilege. I’ve never been that huge a mahou shounen/shoujo fan (there are exceptions of course), and while the endlessly repeating transformations sequences aren’t the main reason why not, they don’t exactly help.
In fact, I’m starting to see quite a dichotomy with Sarazanmai in that the show is working quite well for me on the micro level, and not much on the macro. Setting aside the visuals (which are consistently gorgeous but could do without the unrelenting anal fixation) there’s a clear divide here. The storylines of all three of the boys are quite engaging and shockingly coherent by Ikuhara standards. But the overall picture – what the hell is happening in this bizarro Asakusa and why – is mired in quicksand.
Take these two cops who work for an alien (or aliens) who kill petty pervs every week to make kappa zombies – what are we supposed to feel here? Are we supposed to believe the pervs deserved to be murdered because of their fetishes? It’s just kind of depressing altogether, to be honest. And so far, frankly, all of it seems quite unnecessary to the story – nothing happening with Kazuki, Enta or Toi’s arcs requires any of the external bullshit apart from Keppi enabling their secret desires to leak out. I’m sure Ikuhara has a plan to tie it all together in the end, but he’s got an uphill battle to sell it to me when he implements it.
Fortunately the kids’ arcs are working just fine on their own, and exposition is being handled very effectively there. This week is was Kazuki’s turn back in the spotlight, and we certainly learned quite a lot. His family is not his real family, Haruka not his real brother – though it’s certainly possible they’re related. His “grandfather” may in fact be his father (I got the sense Kazuki’s mother was his mistress) but in any event, when he finds out the truth Kazuki unsurprisingly struggles with it. Any kid in puberty who found out something like that would likely have some anger and resentment issues – though Haruka’s relentless attachment to him does seem to keep Kazuki tethered to his adoptive family (who seem perfectly nice, for the record).
The arrival of his real mother – he asks her to keep it a secret, though I don’t think she planned to tell the family anyway – probably makes things worse, though Kazuki certainly welcomed the opportunity to be with her. It just confuses him that much more, and makes him more uncertain about his adoptive parents and Haruka – which leads directly to the accident which leaves Haruka in a wheelchair (“for life”, Kazuki says). No one blames him, including Haruka, but that just makes it worse – Kazuki blames himself, and because no one else will join him he feels like he has to blame himself that much more.
I’m still not 100% sold that all this logically leads to the whole Sara thing, and there are plenty of mysteries remaining – like what Kazuki means when he talks about not wanting to “dress like” his family. But this is Ikuni, it’s not like you expect it all to make sense. The whole kidnap subplot is as ludicrous and disastrous as expected (the real Sara appears to be a magical beast) and leads to Kazuki being “outed” – which as traumatic as it is for his 14 year-old psyche, I think is probably for the best. And unlike with Toi, everyone knows Kazuki’s secret now – so at the very least he has to rebuild his relationship with Haruka from scratch (which I suspect he will). For now though, the boys are stuck in kappa form after not being able to defeat the sachet zombie (yeah, like most of his trope, Keppi is turning out to be a douchebag).
Beato
May 11, 2019 at 1:22 amThe “dressing like his family” part refers to the matching striped shirts Kazuki and his family are wearing.
animealex
May 11, 2019 at 2:30 amAh, I was to late with my explanation. Curse my slow typing.
Guardian Enzo
May 11, 2019 at 8:39 amThat occurred to me, but I somehow convinced myself there had to be more to it than that. Maybe not.
animealex
May 11, 2019 at 2:03 amI share your sentiment regarding the stock footage and the b-part with the cops, who so far are the least interesting part of the show for me. Lets hope, it gets us somewhere.
For today’s episode:
-The fact that Sara seems to be a kappa is a game changer imo. She will either be an antagonist or maybe an ally. (If Keppi doesn’t want to turn them back, why not approach Sara and ask for help? She seems friendly enough despite the attempted kidnapping. Just offer her some cucumbers.)
-Regarding Keppi: After the first traumatic transformation, the boys always gave their consent, but here he acted without that. Perhaps that is a hint as to why the Sarazanmai didn’t work. Or this weeks zombie “scent bag-motive” was just too much of a trigger for Kazuki. Probably the latter, but food for thought nonetheless. The boys were not happy with Keppi.
-The part with Kazuki not dressing like the rest of them confused me too, but in a discussion someone pointed out that his adopted family has/had a clothing pattern with cross stripes on their tops, which Kazuki didn’t want to wear anymore after he found out the truth about his family. You can see it in your flashback picture when Kazuki met his little brother for the first time.
-Speaking of Kazuki. Poor boy! And what a douche of a grandfather, whatever the relationship may be. I mean, who says to a young boy with his dying breath (essentially) that his mother was a slut???
-I know it would rob us of a lot of drama, but why are there never any therapists around when they are clearly needed? I don’t know what the general feeling about something like this is in Japan, but Kazuki needs heavy counseling (Toi too!).
-The whole “unmasking scene” and the lead up gave me more second-hand embarrassment than anything else I watched in a long time.
-All in all the second best episode so far. The first one still wins because of the whole unforeseen wtf?-ness. 😛
Guardian Enzo
May 11, 2019 at 8:43 amI agree, premiere was the best so far.
This discussion about therapy in Japan has come up before here (with Orange and Watamote, for example). Therapy certainly exists – schools have counselors, etc.. But there’s more social stigma attached to it than in America (where there is too, but less so) by far. In Japan the concept of “Gaman” (Google it if you don’t know – it doesn’t literally translate well) is huge, especially as it applies to adolescents. All that suffering builds strength of character as an excuse not to help kids bullshit, basically.
animealex
May 11, 2019 at 3:59 pmThanks for the info. I’ll look it up.
TheYepMan
May 11, 2019 at 8:45 amI had to pause the episode for a few minutes after that “outing” scene. That was harsh.
As for Mabu and Leo, it’d be very nice to be able to read their Twitter account because that might give us a few hints as to where this is actually going. Considering this is Ikuhara, and considering how the first antagonists we tend to see in his works tend to end up being sympathetic and maybe even switching sides (well, from what I remember of his work, which is Utena and Penguindrum) – and also considering that tiny bit of foreshadowing in the op where the 3 boys are shown side by side with the person they’re struggling to connect with followed by Leo posing like the boys and having the image of Mabu at the side – I have a feeling their role in the story is gonna expand soon, just like what happened with Yuri and Tabuki-sensei.
Guardian Enzo
May 11, 2019 at 9:47 amMy only comment on that is that if you have to read a character’s twitter account to figure out their role in the story, the series is being too clever by half.
TheYepMan
May 11, 2019 at 8:50 pmSo someone on RC posted a translation of the tweets, so I gave it a go. Apparently it’s all been just Mabu and Leo goofing around in Asakusa and hinting that the “higher ups” are giving them increasingly bigger amounts of work, right until they show that they had received an envelope with the “a” mark (too lazy to bring up the character map for the actual symbol) and Mabu reassuring Leo that “it isn’t that hard of a job” and ut had been “settled ages ago”.
Which I can only think is a reference to the zombie making, and off-universe a sign that the anime was Coming Soon.
Rasu
May 13, 2019 at 12:29 pmAlso in the prequel manga they appear as Sara’s adoptive fathers whom found her on a dish and in the final chapter, a silhouette that appears to be a kappa prince appears to come to retrieve her alongside a citizen they just helped that day.
It’s a mistery if they’re stil or not with her, and that could be the motive behind their actions, maybe they want to recover their daughter.