Mawaru Penguindrum

For the Takakura family, destiny is an ever-spinning wheel, pointing passionately in their direction with equal tides of joy and sorrow before ticking on to the next wishmaker. With their parents gone, twin brothers Kanba and Shouma live alone with their beloved little sister Himari, whose poor health cannot decline any further.

On the day Himari is given permission to temporarily leave the hospital, her brothers take her out to the aquarium to celebrate, where the family's supposed fate is brought forth with her sudden collapse. However, when Himari is inexplicably revived by a penguin hat from the aquarium's souvenir shop, the hand of fate continues to tick faithfully forward.

With her miraculous recovery, though, comes a cost: there is a new entity within her body, whose condition for keeping her fate at bay sends the boys on a wild goose chase for the mysterious "Penguin Drum." In their search, the boys will have to follow the threads of fate leading from their own shocking past and into the lives of other wishmakers vying for the Penguin Drum, all hoping to land upon their chosen destiny.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Takakura, Himari Main

Arakawa, Miho Japanese

Oginome, Ringo Main

Miyake, Marie Japanese

Takakura, Shouma Main

Kimura, Ryouhei Japanese

Takakura, Kanba Main

Kimura, Subaru Japanese

Watase, Sanetoshi Supporting

Koizumi, Yutaka Japanese

Penguin 2 Supporting

Kimura, Ryouhei Japanese

Penguin 1 Supporting

Kimura, Subaru Japanese

Penguin 3 Supporting

Arakawa, Miho Japanese

Natsume, Masako Supporting

Horie, Yui Japanese

Oginome, Momoka Supporting

Toyosaki, Aki Japanese

Maruyama, Hiroo Producer

Ikeda, Shinichi Producer

Ikuhara, Kunihiko Director, Episode Director, Script, Storyboard, Screenplay, Series Composition

Nakamura, Shouko Director, Episode Director, Storyboard, Key Animation, Animation Director, Setting

Reviews

Aug 11, 2024

sslick

Recommended

(Copied from my Letterboxd review)
“I love the word "fate". Because, you know how they talk about "fated encounters"? A single encounter can completely change your life. Such special encounters are not just coincidences. They're definitely... fate. Of course, life is not all happy encounters. There are many painful, sad moments. It's hard to accept that misfortunes beyond your control are fate. But this is what I think: sad and painful things definitely happen for a reason. Nothing in this world is pointless.”

Words cannot do this justice. One of the most visually insane, incredibly deep, and incredibly written pieces of media I have ever seen. It ... baffles me where you would even begin coming up with something as genius as it is, from its insane amount of symbolism, masterful storytelling, and absolutely bonkers story. It’s an experience like no other that I will likely not be able to share with very many other people due to how difficult it is to recommend due to its complex nature.

Every single character has an incredible amount of depth and time dedicated to them. Every single line of dialogue and moment is crafted so well, with tons of foreshadowing, including in the openings. Visually beautiful, with maybe the most symbolism I’ve ever seen in my life. I could talk about the symbolism and foreshadowing for hours and still not cover everything. I’ve barely even scratched the surface, no words come close to explaining how absolutely masterful this is.

If it weren’t for those stupid ass penguins being basically brain rot for the viewers to look at, and a couple minor story tweaks, this would EASILY be a 10/10 masterpiece.

And yes, I cried. Twice.

I don’t want to go bowling for a long time now.

Unforgettable.

9.2/10

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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Sep 18, 2024

DreamTraveller

Mixed Feelings

What would be your goal, as a writer? And really, not just as a writer - but as an artist, in general? Think about it for a second. Is it to deliver a story, a message? Is it to make something enjoyable? Or something uncomfortable? And if so, whom should be the receiver? Are you making it for yourself? Or for an audience? Are you reaching out to as many as possible, or maybe only to a select few - to those who can think the same way, who can match the lock with the key? What should it be?

Maybe there's not an answer set ... in stone. Maybe sometimes you want one thing, and sometimes another. Yet artists are usually made distinct by a certain style, some rules they abide to, at least for a period of time. Some opt for character driven stories. Some opt for environmental storytelling. Some prefer for the abstract, the surreal. But, which one of those "styles" is the most universally digestible? History says that characters tell the best stories, and that should obvious. We are humans, and the easiest way to stimulate our senses is through compassion. We relate to others, stories resonate with our realities, clashing with each other, amplifying each other, creating emotions, leading us to new and past realizations.

At last, we reach at an impasse: there are two ways to achieve the aforementioned. There's the easy way, and there's the hard way, with each having their pros and cons. The former, reaching wide, yet perhaps hitting shallow. The latter, maybe restricted to a lesser area - yet it can possibly reach much deeper. Of course, these are generalizations, and not the rule. Well then, between the two, what does Mawaru Pengiundrum chooses? The answer: the IMPOSSIBLE way.

If your goal as an artist is to reach out to as many people as possible, then resorting to the methods of shows like Sonny Boy and Mawaru Penguindrum do truly boggles me. Then again, I believe a wider audience is not their goal. Which in turn, makes me wonder: what exactly is it that makes every positive review on this site drop a casual 10/10 on them? Did this show reach so deep so easily to everyone else? Or is it simply a copious delusion of theirs in an attempt to artificially reach that depth? After all, everyone likes being smart. Allow me to admit then, that I'm a moron - because if you ask me, this show requires extraordinary amounts of mental gymnastics and retrospection for one to be able to reach at the same wavelength this show is broadcasted at. I understand that there's something this show wants to tell me. I understand that if I re-watch this show, maybe I'll get more of it. I truly do. But really, are you listening to yourself reading this? Why on fuck should anyone watch a show a second time to "understand" it? Why should anyone subject themselves to such masochism when there are awesome shows out there that can reach just as deep before they've even finished their runtime?

Maybe, there are some rare cases, where this process could be interesting. Alas, in case you didn't notice, this show kind of pissed me off, and there are two things that almost made me hate it (and I did, at some point): first, it tries to speak with me in MORSE. And not only does it speak in morse, but it does so in a whispering tone, while covering its face so I can't read their emotional expression. Rejoice to anyone who can deal with such a mode of conversation, because I CAN'T. Maybe there's a certain artistic value to choosing this method, maybe its cryptic, or funny, and those who understand it jerk off with each other. However, I prefer something tangible, something that I can understand, at least to some level. I prefer English.

Secondly, and most importantly: in front of everything this show wants to tell me, lies a character set that, after the first quarter of this show, descends to absolute TRAVESTY. From rape to pedophilia, we've got it all, no worries! We have "dramatic" scenes that are plagued by little penguins that excrete gases and read porn magazines, and character inconsistency blowing through the roof. The first episodes are actually exciting and I loved the duo dynamic of the brothers - in any other case though, this show's writing is dogshit, and makes the second half of this show outright unwatchable. But hey, since it's one of "those" shows, an abstract, Avant Garde masterpiece, everyone can excuse it, because come on, you really know that this is not what it means - past all of these, there's actually a message about love and fate!

Where do we draw the line? This is the question of abstract art. To abstract art, horse excrement represents the mysteries of the universe. However, let me be clear: as I said, Penguindurm is not like that. It wants to say something definitive, and I feel that. Among all the absurdity of the characters and the narrative, lie question marks and puzzle pieces. This show has amazing art direction, with colorful backgrounds and beautifully designed assets. Yet it goes out of its way to make some scene utterly ridiculous. Therefore, I understand that I should doubt their literacy - but how much of it is literal and how much of it isn't? Is it morse code, or the phonetic alphabet? Mawaru Penguindrum enlists you to be a cryptographer and comprehend the symbolism, and what character arcs, apples, and naked sisters mean in relation to the context and themes of the anime. Dear writer, then, I'm sorry. Whatever and however deep your messages may be, I'm not going to "decrypt" borderline rape scenes to realize that life is cruel.

So, to all those that dub this anime a masterpiece, I urge to you enlighten me - what exactly did you see in it? Maybe I'm just blind. Maybe I did not look deep enough. Should I be ashamed for not being a good enough viewer? Or should the writing make itself clearer? If you want to know my opinion, I'm not ashamed whatsoever. I respect my identity as a viewer. I am, however, open to other perspectives, if they are based on some rationale. That's why at the end of the day, although my suggestion is that you should avoid Mawaru Penguindrum, maybe you'll see something different. Seeing that so many people liked it, maybe I'm the weird one. Draw a conclusion by yourself, if you want. But I won't be re-watching this anime to "understand" it. The last two episodes made me think for a while, but that's as far as it went.

Sure, maybe the writer has infused this anime with meticulously hidden symbolism, that once you connect the dots, this show becomes utterly profound. But when you make this process so challenging -- not only in terms of difficulty, but in terms of having to deal with miserable writing -- to me, whatever message there was, loses all meaning. The process becomes masochistic, at best, and pretentious, at worst. If that's your medicine, take it, and tell me how it felt. Because to me, it felt like headache.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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Jun 7, 2021

blanchetre

Not Recommended

Hoooo boy, what a disappointment this ended up being!

Mawaru Penguindrum started very strong for me: an easy 8 but as episodes went by, the drearyness got stronger and stronger... and stronger.
I don't know what happened midway, if it was me or the series but things just stopped clicking.

The character design is a constant positive, voice actors have done a good job, music selection also a big plus (COTD being an instant win!) and the first Seizon Senryaku will forever be etched in my mind as it was this part that made me think I was in for a spectacular ride... sigh...

But, on the other hand, ... story and animation/editing weigh this anime down so much it became impossible for me to like it in spite of its shortcomings.
There is an impressive amount of reused animations and, of course, it happens in a lot of anime but they could have maybe been less obvious about it, it took me out of the moment every time.
As some others have mentioned, characters talking over a static scrolling image also happened way too often. I guess budget wasn't really high?
How do you expect me to get engrossed in a friendly ping pong match with characters giving the viewer precious info while showing : an empty ping pong table, vending machines and a poster?
I didn't mind the cardboard cutouts at all though, to me they served as filler while pushing the main characters to the front of the scene.
As for the story, well it was a mess with some themes being repeated a bit too much and a lot of arcs just mashed in there for the sake of it.
Symbolism was fine, some metaphors being quite obvious while some others would have warranted a rewatch that will sadly never happen.
As said above, music selection was top notch but their editing not quite. Starting a sad piano song just as some character exposed some sad information deserved a bit more subtlety. Make the viewer feel sad, don't tell him to be!

I really believe all the ideas this show wanted to bring forth could have been compressed in 12 episodes and it would have been a much better experience!
I guess I'll just cling on to what could have been, to what I thought the anime was going to be after the first few episodes : a whimsical but strong drama.

Next time maybe!

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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	Poll: Mawaru Penguindrum Episode 7 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 ) Yumekichi11 - Aug 25, 2011	155 replies	by phantom346 »» Nov 16, 12:47 PM
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