Mawaru Penguindrum – 22 Review

Episode 22 – The Beautiful Casket

After having seen this episode, one thing is for sure, we are not going to be getting any happy endings filled with sunshine and flowers out of this series.

I have this sinking feeling at the pit of my stomach that the show is not going to “blow” my mind with an epic ending, but would instead end in an acceptable, yet dissapointing manner for the way the series has build itself up since the start.

Review

Do you guys also think that by the end of the series, everyone is going to either end up dead or horribly depressed?

Circle of Death

As usual, what an appropriately named episode this is.

In this episode, we have Himari who is basically asking to be killed in order to save Kanba. Then we have Tabuki who is lying injured in the hospital due to him protecting Yuri from the crazed theatre co-star with big puppy-dog eyes. The end of the episode had Masako sacrificing her life to protect Kanba, and this had happened only after Kanba had sacrificed his to protect her. With the way everything is going around in circles, I can just imagine Ringo obtaining the diary after everyone is either dead or mentally broken, and the show would either end with the diary being useless or Ringo having sacrificed herself to turn back time in order to save everyone. =/

The show has essentially been reduced to Kanba being foolish in his actions, which then in turn results in everyone else around him getting hurt due to their undying need to protect one another and ensure the happiness of others above their own. It is almost like a classic case of a person hurting the ones they are trying to protect through their lack of self-love/appreciation. Moral of the story? Making a sacrifice will only come back and bite you in your ass when it is due to the person’s ability to treasure their own existence.

Full Circle

It is nice to see that this show never leaves anything out – be it a location (like the statue of the 2 people forming a circle) or a side character that had seemed unimportant.

What was a nice surprise it was to see the appearance of Double H. Although their appearance seems to be quite redundant as there’s only 2 episodes left in this series, and I am not sure how their late appearance is meant to impact anything except for them simply being there to say that “hey, we did matter”, it was still nice to see them “in the flesh” as oppose to merely through the media channels.

What I really like about this show is how everything is connected and no character is useless. In the end, even Yuri’s female co-star had played a somewhat vital role in allowing Tabuki and Yuri to get the closure that they needed. It really does seem that this episode might be the end of Tabuki’s and Yuri’s stories in this series. Although I feel pretty let down by the somewhat expected outcome, I did like the fact that the characters had finally grown to understand that all Momoka had provided them with was some love, and that it was time to move on from their past.

Then we have the teddies in this episode. I guess this finally explains what the teddies were in the OP of the series. If these teddies were a representation of terrorism, then what would the white teddy be a representation of? I had always thought that the colour coding of everything in this series was pretty much black = evil, whilst the “white” = good. But since Masako’s character had turned out to be somewhat positive instead of an evil being, whereas Kanba has turned out to be a crazed killer, does this mean that everything is actually the opposite? Whatever the case, all I am curious about at this point in time is what Mario is meant to be and the the significance of his part in the show. I really have to pity Mario since this dying kid has been pretty much forgotten and left in the shadows. He barely knows his own brother and his sister is so trapped in the past, and her love for her older brother, that she ends up sacrificing herself, which then means that she is inadvertently sacrificing his life as well. =/

Circle of Curse

Another thing that I really like about this episode is the way the show viewed everything that is happening as being a “curse”. Be it Sanetoshi, the PinGroup, human’s greediness, or the lack of love that all children suffer from. It is really nice to see how everything is made to connect with one another through the concept an inescapable curse.

The scene with Kanba and Sanetoshi had really given me a bad feeling that everything in this show was going to turn out to be some sick, twisted and distorted reality that Kanba had dreamt up in his mind. But the fact that Himari and Shouma had seen some sort of version of Sanetoshi does make me feel a tad better that that wouldn’t turn out that way. The lack of a follow up on the Sanetoshi situation after last episode’s revelation was also disappointing. I had hoped that Sanetoshi’s purpose in the show would have been revealed along with his actions and his part in this whole Terrorism Take 2. Also, the constant focus on the rabbits is really getting to me as well. When will the show finally reveal everything? There’s only 2 episodes left and I don’t think there is enough time to wrap eveything up with Momoka, Shouma’s past, Kanba, Himari, Ringo, Penguin Princess thing, the Rabbit twins, and Sanetoshi.

At this point in time, I am pretty certain that Momoka’s character is going to remain in the past and won’t be making a reappearance, but we shall see how that turns out.

Composition Circle

(Hey, I am trying to keep a trend here with the use of the word “circle” =P)

It has been awhile since I have had the time to appreciate the composition of the scenes in the series. The recent episodes had left me more focused on the plot instead of the animation, but this episode had given me the time to get back into the admiring the awesome animation. There was an increase in the usage of artistic “metaphorical” scenes to portray an event in this episode and it has been awhile since we have seen this much in one go. Perhaps one may see this as being good, but what I had saw was the fact that the pacing had slowed down whenever they decided to do something creative in this episode.

Sure, those scenes had really helped in building up the atmosphere of the events that had occurred, but at the same time, it had also felt too artistic and tedious at times. There were moments that had left me feeling like the animators had simply wanted to get whatever creativity that is left in their system out onto the screen since this would be the last time in a long while for them to be able to do so.

Others

Kanba’s actions had left me annoyed with the way his character has been acting. On one hand he is treating Himari in such a precious manner, whilst on the other hand he is so cold to Masako yet so willing to sacrifice his life in order to save her. I just wish that he would stop being so obsessed with his past since it is quite obvious that he is going to end up losing everything that had matters to him at the rate he is going (if not already). I can just imagine the psychotic break he is going to go through when he finds out that Masako may have sacrificed her life for him and that Himari had done the same as well.

As for the scene with Himari, that moment had given off a very “sparkly” and “starry” vibe that had felt too cheery for such a scene. I know that Himari’s scenes are usually pretty much filled with stars, but her journey back to the past followed by the starry atmosphere had felt like a clash in the different moods. On one hand we have these desaturated solemn scenes, and on the other hand things are bright and cheery in her mind. If I were to be honest, I would actually say that Himari’s reactions in that scene had came across as being somewhat over-the-top.

Episode Rating: 7.5/10

Overall, the episode was still a solid one and had covered quite a bit of ground amongst the main characters of the show. It looks like the next episode would be showing us more of Shouma, and hopefully, there would be enough time for them to squeeze a little bit of a catch up on Ringo’s character so that she no longer seems more like an ornament instead of something useful. Her character has turned into this excuse to allow the writer of the show to play “catch up” with the Takakura family members.

The pacing in the episode was also a tad erratic with some moments being too quick and some feeling like they were being dragged out. And with the way things are going, I am going to have to buy myself a box of tissues and lable it “Specially for Mawaru Penguindrum’s Finale” when episode 24 finally airs. T^T I can already feel my tear ducts getting a nice workout during that episode.

The best part of the episode was probably the scenes between Masako and Kanba and their connection with one another. I sincerely hope that Kanba would feel some sort of remorse that he had put Masako through danger instead of turning into a bigger ass and hating the world even more (irregardless of whether Masako does end up dead or injured).

-ra

Ra’s Mawaru Question of the Week:

I am just going to copy and paste the question that I had written above:

Do you guys also think that by the end of the series, everyone is going to either end up dead or horribly depressed?