Hola Minna! Yeah I just combined Spanish and Japanese there. Anyways, I am back with another First Impressions post, and probably my last since 2nd episodes are starting and I have to start those episodics. There's three more shows I wish I had time to do First Impressions, though. One of them I think doesn't need one since it's a sequel that stays true to the first season, and the other two I might just do an overall kind of thing at the end of the season. Anyways, now we're going to talk about Mawaru Penguin Drum, which I'm sure is going to be one of the superstars of the season if all the half the episodes are of the same quality as the first one. So here we go, Mawaru Penguin Drum!
So we open up with a monologue about fate. I don't know what's up with all these shows starting with a monologue, but man I sure do looooooves it. As a theatre man who basically was surrounded by monologues, I enjoy them very much. The art is so bea-u-ti-ful (I will pic-spam) in this beginning scene, and monologue extremely well executed. After that we jump into the OP!
I believe the term beautiful are applicable to both the art and the shoujo
The show involves penguins. Believe it. Love it.
The OP is pretty good. The art sequence is amazing, and it seems like we'll have a good cast of characters from what's shown in the OP. The music sounds familiar, but I can't place what OP it sounds like, but it was pretty good. So we open up on an extremely colorful house. We meet the orphaned three Takakura siblings. Shou is the blue-haired bishie and Kan is the red haired bishie. I really dislike bishies, but I sucked it up and found myself being okay with these two by the end. Then, there's there little sis Himari, who is the adorable little girl who seems to have just gotten out of the hospital.
I'm jealous of you Himari. I wish my food would sparkle
Well thanks for the notification!
It seems a dark cloud looms over our happy scene. The flashback shows Himari's disease is life threatening, and she only has a few months to live. Kan has a total breakdown, begging the doc to save Himari. The doc asserts he can't save her, that he's not a god. The flashback ends with Kan believing that there is no God at all.
BLASPHEMY! HERETIC! but I mean...I still feel bad for him
I want to be... that pillow
Himari is now absolutely blissful that she can eat with her family again. They then decide to go to a zoo where they used to go with their parents to see the, you guessed it, penguins! So after a fun subway ride talking, they see the penguins!
"Cute and cuddly boys. Cute and cuddly..."
Shou - "Dude you're seriously picking a girl over PENGUINS?!"
Kan goes off somewhere to take a phone call, and Shou takes Himari to buy a souvenir. At first, she looks at a sea otter. In the end, however, Shou buys her a hat that he thinks she looks disgustingly cute in.
I wouldn't say disgustingly cute. I would say UBER CUTE!
After Shou buys the hat, Kan comes back asking where Himari is. Suddenly, we hear that a girl has collapsed outside, and it is unfortunately Himari. She gets rushed to the hospital where she knows her time's up, and she says good-bye to her onlooking brothers.
"I see the light."
NOOOOOOOOOOO!
The boys lament Himari's death, but Kan tries to be real, thinking about Funeral arrangements. Shou gets angry at him, and they start to fight, when Himari jumps up from her dead state with the Penguin hat on her head. She yelled "Seizon Senryaku" (Survival Strategy, but it sounds cooler in Japanese) when she rose up. She's talking weird until the hat falls off her head, and she's back to normal Himari.
"JK, guys. I was only playing dead."
Hugs time!
We skip ahead back to the home. It seems that they all three are happy again, and Himari wants to help out around the house. Another well-introduced flashback shows that Himari is not only back from the dead, but she's completely stable and cured. It's a miracle. We go back to the house scene, and they get a strange package with frozen blue...things. Shou's late for school, however, and he heads out.
Shou's answer, "Eggplants". Really? Really? Since when were eggplants blue!
Shou ponders in school about the miracle God gave them on a whim. He leaves school, harrassed by some random guy, and we see a glimpse of one of the girls in the OP. Shou believes he forgot his subway pass, until a PENGUIN comes and hands it to him.
Is it me, or is that thing wa-ha-hay cuter than the ones at the zoo
"Shall we walk lovingly together under this umbrella?"
Stalker penguin shows up at random times when Shou's in need, like when cabbage is sold out, and with an umbrella while it's raining. Shou massively freaks when he realizes he's the only one who can see the penguin. He runs home to find more penguin's helping Kan and Himari. Kan says they can help around the house, but they are the only ones who can see them.
The next iron chef
Himari - "You're incredibly good at this for not having thumbs."
Cockroach just experienced death by penguin. Yes...Death. By. Penguin.
It is here that the most freaking trippy and most freaking amazing anime scene I have scene in my life, in terms of the fact that it managed to make me WTF and Bolololo and Epic at the same time. Himari with the hat on, yells "SEIZON SENRYAKU" once more and the sequence begins. MASSIVE PIC SPAM ALERT (with bonus video!):
"SEIZON SENRYAKU!"
Art so amazing. Colors so vivid.
It wants your honey.
Seems Himari is a flasher. Lifting up her skirt like that.
That outfit is soooo sexy. Btw, the actual word that she's saying is "imagine" not "nadine"
"Now, who wants to dance?"
"Oh, let me just take off my skirt...in an epic way!"
I have no words right now.
Himari - "Oops. I dropped something in your chest cavity. Let me get it out real quick."
It just needs to be shown in full glory.
So what happens is that the entity controlling Himari says that she's giving Himari life temporarily. She tells them to fetch the Penguin Drum, whatever that is. She also says there's a price. Helper penguin sends Shou away via trapdoor. Then, Himari completely strips (nicely hidden by making everything a silhouette), saying it was time for Kan to perform Survival Strategy with her, proceeding to rip out what is presumed to be his heart.
Wondering. You should be wumboing.
We come back to the house, where Shou seems to be having a nightmare. Kan is alive watching Himari sleep, pondering about fate and God again. After saying that he's just wondering, just before the ED starts, he then proceeds to do THIS:
WHAT THE FREAK MAN?! KISSING YOUR SISTER?! I totally thought that Shou would be the one to do this.
Opinions: Absolute freaking love. Everything was totally win for me. The characters are so complex and simple at the same time. It's so great. I may not love their bishieness, but the bishie brothers are growing on me. Shou seems like he's incredibly nice, but I bet he's hiding something, just like cool big bro Kan totally hid something, and sprung it on us at the last minute. Though, I might attribute that ending to whatever the heck the heart rip out/survival strategy was. Himari is totally freaking adorable, and that survival strategy outfit of hers is H-O-T. I really want to know what the penguin drum is, and what survival strategy is. I want to see more of this beautiful artwork with its vivid colors (Sorry about the pic spam. I just wanted you guys to see how pretty everything was). I want to know more about these characters and know more characters in general. Most of all, I want MOAR of them PENGUINS!!!
Preview:
So we listen to Himari speaking about how she loves the word fate. Not much is shown about the next epi, but the penguins in the stall were epic! So can't wait till next week!
Oracion is the big man in charge. He's a romance fanatic with a slight focus on harem. His avatar's Plue, because Plue always made him laugh on rave.
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