Category: Mawaru Penguin Drum

That was… just insane. No, seriously: this episode was completely mind-blowing. Even Utena wasn’t THIS good after just five episodes. And I know that Utena had more episodes and the strength of that series was how well it developed its characters and all, this is still something I did not see coming. This episode took the already amazing cast, and made it even better than it already was.

What especially baffles me is how the transformation scene trope is getting completely redesigned here: normally they’re the kinds of scenes that can’t be interfered. They have this formula and this formula can’t be broken. And here Ringo bloody comes and not only takes Kanba’s place, she also manages to completely turn the scene upside-down by clinging out of the hole she dropped out of and hitting Himari back by taking the penguin hat.

Which all lead to the bloody amazing chase scene of the truck and Kanba. Holy crap, this guy got some extra depth here. The direction was just amazing in how it showed how far he’s willing to go for Himari, right after the creators also brought in the fact that a) he indirectly injured his father when Himari got sick as a kid and b) the house they’re living in could be sold if they don’t have enough money. What the hell kind of a character is he anyways? On one hand he keeps flirting around with women to the most extreme degree, and yet he’s also able to get heaps of cash from mysterious sources and for some reason has grown up to be much more mature than his other brother.

The direction of the rest of the episode was also just amazing: it just kept toying around with your expectations and was full of these subtle mood-switches. The symbolism also really helped here.

And the subway messages of the previous were right again: something got stolen in this episode. I did not expect it to be the penguin hat though, and especially not the way in which it happened. The hint for the next episode… yeah. Kanba definitely borrowed his money from shady sources. Something tells me that this is really going to bite him back.

Speaking of symbolism: the cockroaches that the penguins have been exterminating up till now all died. This time they didn’t though.

And how the hell is this happening this early on in the series? The creators must either have some amazing plans, or are playing their biggest trumps first. Ah well, if this series does dull in, there’ll be enough time to rant about it later. For now I’m just enjoying what is by far the best new show of the summer season.
Rating: **** (Fantastic)

Okay. That was awesome!

This really sends back memories to the episode in Utena, where Nanami tried out various plans to get rid of Himemiya. It was really bizarre and hilarious from start to finish, not to mention the hilariously over the top delusions that Ringo had. Finally there’s another series who does them right!

A date going wrong is nothing new, but this episode knew that and just went with trying to create the most bizarre and over the top ways for things to fail, playing around with things like “destiny” at the same time. Now THIS is what I consider to be a good romantic comedy: one with creative jokes that doesn’t just try to regurgitate the same things over and over again with characters who are basically just morons. The direction once again was just wonderful in this episode which made it all the more fun to watch.

The chemistry between these characters is also just amazing, and even when the characters aren’t doing anything there’s the penguins who fill in to keep things interesting; because of that there’s always something going on, and then this episode also brought in that skunk. With so many penguin references throughout this series it’s hard to guess whether it’s actually important or not.

Because that’s the great thing of the symbolism in this series: this series doesn’t just list a bunch of references; it actively plays with them, like the advertisement of the opera that sparked Ringo’s fantasies turning out to be related to her love rival, the penguin pictures, or how apples and trains keep returning in the actual narrative without any kind of forced plot device. Or take the train advertisements: the previous episode pointed to being smelly, and guess what? This episode has a skunk on the loose. Logically that must mean that the next episode will feature something getting stolen. The diary, perhaps?

What’s more, I’m also impressed that this show is already building up arcs, even though the current arc isn’t over yet. This episode suddenly revealed that Kanba has made quite a number of enemies through the girls he dated, and the creators are actually planning to turn this into a major plot point. I’m still really impressed at how good the writing in this series is!
Rating: *** (Awesome)

Okay, Penguin Drum has definitely made the best first impression of the entire season. There are just so many details stuffed into it that do an amazing job at fleshing the story out. The creators really nailed the dialogue of the stalker girl. Combined with the background music they did really well in portraying a young girl in love. The stalker part is there, but subtle enough to not take over her entire character. You don’t see that often with crazy characters.

This series also does a ton of things that play around with known tropes. I mean, at first sight it’ll look like this series will be moving around from side-character to side-character, and yet the OP and ED are full of apple symbolism. Much more than what you would expect if the character was just going to disappear once her arc is over.

I also really want to praise the creative symbolism here. The apples are of course the obvious ones (not just in terms of all the images, but also in Ringo’s apple curry for example), but that cat with that fish, or that cow suit also were great, or take the ads in the train that just keep changing with every episode. And the creators just continue to stuff details into that. I really feel like no moment of this show is wasted.

On top of that though, this series has also plenty of deep points. It’s like Kanba said: how far are they willing to go in order to protect Himari? There are 21 episodes left. I really suspect that this line will come to bite him back in time. At this point the Penguin Drum is still pretty much of a McGuffin, but will it remain like that?
Rating: ** (Excellent)

The second series I’m blogging this season is another obvious one. Even during this season full of excellent series, this one stands at the top with its imagination, execution, style, elegance, characters and delivery. Again, it may not have the most realistic acting (that award is undoubtedly going to Usagi Drop), but the dialogue, the pacing, the writing: just about everything here hits the spot.

Now in a way it is awesome to have one series by Utena’s writer, and another by Utena’s director within the same year. Star Driver was already excellent as a fun action mecha series, based on weird concepts and all, but when just looking at the first two episodes, Penguin Drum really has it beaten. Whereas Star Driver was less serious than it actually seemed at first, Penguin Drum is more serious than it actually seems. On one hand you have these crazy and fun antics between the brothers and the penguins, and on the other hand this does deal about death quite easily, it features a stalker who somehow is related to everything, and even beyond that everything seems to be connected somehow.

There are a ton of hints and counter-references that I’m only noticing now on this second playthrough, like the girl losing her shoe, the train groper warnings, the hints at underwear. As for the latter, it also has the good kind of fanservice: it makes sense within the story, it’s whimsical and doesn’t bog the rest of the episode down. And it’s actually quite hilarious. The penguin’s quirks in this episode really were… unashamed.

Then there is the symbolism, with the huge amount of train references (I can already see numerous other railways coming up on that eye catch map as well), the penguin signs that are actually everywhere on the street (part of the story, or just a nice quirk?). Oh, and yeah: when Heartcatch Precure aired, I mentioned how it had the best transformation scenes since Utena. So yeah: the penguin transformation scene was awesome. Finally like Utena, we have another series that turns them into more than just the main character powering up.It’s still not as good as Utena of course, which had repetitions like, everywhere (it really was one of the select series out there who actually knew how to use repetition correctly), but it’s actually good that this series has similarities, but not too many. This will allow this series to stand on its own, and not in Utena’s shadow. Now all that’s left is to wait and enjoy whether or not this series lived up to the hype it built up.
Rating: *** (Awesome)