Category: Finished Series: Mystery/Suspense

Well, I definitely didn’t see all this coming. Sarazanmai comes back in a big way, at least for me, now that every plot thread starts to go in the same direction. We have Kazuki, Toi and Leo are all losing someone dear to them and trying to get a Dish of Hope so they can revive that person. Before I get into the details, I consider both the prologue and epilogue this week as Sarazanmai’s highlights, as each segment showcases different side of this show that tell you a lot about its identity. The prologue is the most playful (read: bizarre) segment except maybe for “getting the shards out of zombie’s butt” part, where Sara slips the freeze-Kappi out to the street and he literally gets broken in pieces. It’s bizarre and it’s wonderful. The epilogue goes in opposite direction and serves as Sarazanmai’s most tender moments. Not only the sad piano tune does its job, the use of montage the constantly swifts between their memory together and their current situation pretty much brings the emotions forward.

The rest of the episode is no slouch either. While I’m one of those who lament the fact that Ikuhara’s ambition is too great for a 1-cour series, one of the strength of having only 11 episodes is that the plot is much tighter and has more purpose than his longer series. This week, for example, not only one, but three characters, are having someone close slipping away from them, although it’s hard for me to draw more parallel regarding their relationships. While Reo & Mabu and Toi & Chikai relationships go in dark places, the way Kazuki feels about Enta is in totally different light. It would make much more sense if Entai was the one saving Kazuki. By no mean, what I just said meant to be a criticism, more like an observation, given Kazuki is a MAIN main character. With Enta is in his (death)bed, it’s time for him to re-examine how much Enta meant to him and comes to learn Enta’s affection. At the same time, Keppi is revived (or more like, reanimated) and he also revives Enta (in a way) in his kappa form, although the clock is literally ticking here. Kazuki also has a chance to truly talks to his brother for the first time. Those are nice developments, albeit predictable moves to get Kazuki into the centre of conflicts.

Because the other threads aren’t that straight-forward. I must say that even now I don’t really buy the Otter vs Kappa war and I’m glad that it isn’t really the focus of Sarazanmai. In fact, this episode gives some reasons for me to care about Mabu and Reo. Reo has been struggling with the feeling he has for  the new Mabu (love or desire), one who has similar appearances yet behaves like a stranger. But the interesting twist happens when the red-eye otter intimating himself as Reo to suck out the “desire” from Mabu. The fake-Reo inserts that he’s the “desire” inside Reo, more as an implication that Reo’s love for Mabu is all about desire and obsession. The other interesting angle is that Reo keeps rejecting the current-Mabu. What if it wasn’t Mabu but Reo’s own perspective change? In any case this thread weaves tightly the the “connection” theme and to the main overarching narrative. And speaking of that, the fact that both Otter King and Keppi have the same red eyes strike me as odd. Maybe they are more similar than you would think.

Lastly, the title of this week could apply to any character in Sazaranmai, but it fits best to Chikai. The one big lesson we learn this week about him: he’s an bad egg all the way and he’s incapable of loving someone, save maybe for Toi. It’s this dark and tormented relationship between Toi and Chikai is where Sarazanmai shines the brightest. From Chikai’s point of view, he knows that he’s using Toi, but he does it anyway. “You’re a little too good to be my little brother!” pretty much sums up their chemistry. Toi is desperately following him around and even protecting him, while it becomes clearer and clearer that Toi is walking down the dark path. Sarazanmai raises a red flag right there where Chikai shoots his subordinate to cover his track. Would he do the same to Toi, when Toi is not needed anymore? Maybe. While the flashback and his final remark “Connection is just a pain” and his cash might appear that he was intended to get out for good with Toi, his resentful delivery tells me otherwise. For Chikai, only the bad survives and my take is that with Toi’s unshaken devotion to him, it’s only a matter of time before he self-destructs and kills Toi instead. That’s all beside the point now, though. With the final Dish of Hope that served as the new MacGuffin, the last two episodes are going to be thrilling, and I would expect – unpredictable.

In a way, this is an episode where Sarazanmai breaks many of its formula: it’s the first episode where it doesn’t feature any dance routine, it’s the episode when finally the cops meet our leads for the first time (with disastrous results), but for me these last two episodes is where Sarazanmai loses its steams a little. It brings many characters together for the bigger plots, with two main developments: Toi decided to part way in order to follow his brother, and Enta gets shot and presumably dead. Before going to details for each of them, I will address the details that I’m not fond of at the moment: the miçanga. Ikuhara loves to reveal the intriguing past his characters have for each other. This episode he uses the same trick as we eventually learn that Toi and Kazuki already met in the past – right where Toi decides to give up what he treasures the most at the time – soccer – in order to follow his brother. The issue I have with that is that it frames their chemistry as “fate”, and that somewhat negates the “connection’ theme Sarazanmai aims for.

But the miçanga thread also does one thing right: it brings Enta’s jealousy into forefront and jealousy is a “shade” I want to see more from this series. All he did last episode was out of jealousy with the amount of attention Kazuki has for Toi. Interesting, Enta spends the entirety of this episode with Toi’s brother Chikai, who doesn’t aware that Enta knows his brother. Chikai’s attitude towards Toi is unhealthy, to say the least, as he realizes Toi giving up his precious for him, yet kind of expect him to. Toi gave up his soccer path once, and now just when he makes friends, he’s forced to give them up. With Enta – Chikai scenes, we get to see more of Toi’s hidden emotions side.

But those scenes work for another purpose, in the name of Reo and Mabu and they go full-villain mode: Killing people on the street and brainwashing witnesses, which I’m not sure if I like it or not. Speaking of which, I’m not to sure how Reo’s “extracting” gun work. Why do some of them become a zombie kappa, other just die from the gunshot? That brings me to the cliffhanger where Enta was shot as he saves Kazuki. There’s subtle hint in the ED where we only see 2 shadows that could imply that Enta stays dead. I would definitely prefer it that way, although I won’t be surprised if it’s just a cop out. Fake death is something anime medium isn’t shy of, sadly. Speaking of positive, I quite like how Kazuki goes through some sort of a mood-swing regarding Entai. At this very stage he doesn’t really know how to feel about his friend’s betrayal, and hopefully he will learn a thing or two about Entai’s affection after this turn of event.

Well, I’m back. After 2 weeks of summer breeze and rain like crazy in Cannes, along with films frenzy (I managed to watch 37 movies while I was there), now I’m back in the Down under with severed cold (and rain), jetlag and lots of anime to catch up. But enough of my vacation dairy, let’s get back to where Sarazanmai left off. While previous weeks I said that I felt Kazuki’s characteristic to be inconsistent, episode 5 does a magnificent job on exploring the complex chemistry he has towards his little brother Haruka. The tricky part of it is that it’s not merely one dominant feeling he has for his brother, but a whirlwind of conflicting emotions that tear him apart and that he still tries to make sense. First off, despite claiming at the end of episode 4 that he hates Haruka, the well runs much deeper than that. It starts with a realization that he isn’t blood-related to any member of his current family, thus lead to him feeling “the odd one out”. In Sarazanmai, the underlying theme is the thrive to connect to one another, and placing him as the “perfect stranger” makes sense.

Continue reading “Sarazanmai – 05-07” →

Despite the staff mentioned in early weeks that episode was gonna be a game-changer, nothing happens out of ordinary this week (except maybe for the after-credits reveal, which has become Sarazanmai tradition now). Prior to what Kazuki said (which kinda negate what I’m about to say), I’d single out the similarities in these main characters’ relationships. It’s true that the main theme regarding the trio is their “connections” to the ones they love, but this episode makes it quite clear that they’re in for destructive relationships themselves. A good analogy is that they’re charging their heads into the thick wall. “I’ve decided I’d live by nii-san’s side for his sake, I don’t care what anyone says about me”, Toi said so in the episode. The issue with all that is, the other person doesn’t ask for it. Whether it’s Toi’s brother Chikai, Kazuki’s bedridden brother Haruka, or Haruki himself don’t really want to receive that connection, not that way anyway. For Toi, Ikuhara has planted many symbolic objects that inform his relationship to others, and they are udon, gun, lollipop. For example, the motif of this week, udon, tells us about his relationship to his family. Gun represents his leap to this dark, violent upbringing and serves as the loss of innocence for him. Finally, lollipop represents what maybe his devotion to his brother. But on that last point I’m not going into details because the imagery of Lolita messed me up.

I’d regard this episode a success, if not for the fact that it brings up the conflict of Kazuki asked Toi to help him kidnapping the idol girl Sara Azuma, and then completely abandons that plot thread. So did Haruka be able to meet the real Sara Azuma? The way Kazuki seems to be oblivious of a lot of things (last week’s Enta’s crush and this week Toi’s problem) start to get on my nerve. His character is very inconsistent for me so far and I don’t think I am fond of it. Not because of the cliffhanger by all mean. Actually I believe the reveal that he doesn’t cosplay for his brother’s sake make their relationship more intriguing. As for now I suppose it’s a mixture between love/hate relationship, like he might be jealous with all the attention his brother has, but we won’t know for sure until we see more of his motive. That reveal makes me wonder, then, that maybe Haruka knows about Kazuki impersonating after all?

The flashback of Toi, on the other hand, is quite solid overall. One important detail from his backstory is that he was the one who pulled the trigger, and that his brother shot the poor man down so that Toi doesn’t carry the guilt. On the visual side the flashback goes for more simple, soft art-styles, which works wonderfully for me. Sarazanmai also ties up his past with the case of this week, soba Man and his crime of stealing a freaking bathwater because he wanted it as a soba broth. Now that the trio all have their turns in the spotlight, and now that the Cops promise to be more active, it’s time for Sarazanmai to shake off this current formula and take a new direction. Well, it better be given more than one third of its length is already gone.

Sarazanmai weekly lottery: what crazy object is going to float around next week? 4 episodes and Ikuhara hasn’t disappointed once. My random 3-take for next week: lollipop (Toiiii), dress (since Kazuki crossdresses), and elephant (I don’t fucking know why but now that idea won’t leave my head)