Today on Why It Works, I used the reveal of Toi’s backstory as a jumping-off point to explore the searching for a home that dominates all of Ikuhara’s anime productions. It’s nice to be able to put all those hours spent exploring and detailing Penguindrum’s themes to good use, and always a treat to revisit the art design of Ikuhara’s works in general. Here’s the piece!
Searching for Home in the Anime of Kunihiko Ikuhara
And so it ends.
Having followed the cursed Takakura family as they carried out the rambling will of fate, everything comes together on that inescapable train, icon of both terrorist violence and the inescapable nature of destiny. The tracks only ever go one way, and all we can hope to do is leap onboard and be carried where it goes. Kanba hopes to tame the beast that is fate, agreeing to Sanetoshi’s bargain if only to save his sister. Shoma knows Kanba’s route is hopeless, but has no clearer goal. The two stand apart, each desperately hoping to save Himari, each powerless before the will of fate.
Penguindrum’s twenty-third episode opens with one of Sanetoshi’s memories, underlining the fact that we’re truly in the endgame now. From a vague figure defined by cryptic mysteries, Sanetoshi has reached the point of addressing the audience directly, literally speaking to the screen as he describes his philosophy. “This world is made of countless boxes. People bend and stuff their bodies into their own boxes, and stay there for the rest of their lives. In those boxes, you lose your sense of self. That’s why I’m getting out. I’m one of the chosen.” Speaking of anonymous fates and chosen people, Sanetoshi seems to be twisting the philosophy other characters used to save their friends from the child broiler. Sanetoshi’s explosive terrorism is just another response to the world’s own fundamental violence.
After the elegiac and atmospheric frozen world of episode twenty, Penguindrum’s twenty-first episode sees the show’s narrative shifting into high gear. The episode opens with Ringo being confronted by a tabloid journalist, who claims he has an important scoop regarding the Takakura family. Ringo pushes this man away, but his fundamental presence implies that the Takakuras’ fragile equilibrium is about to fall apart. Times have been desperate before, but the siblings have always had their home and each other to rely on. Now it seems like even that sanctuary may be crumbling down.
Penguindrum’s twentieth episode (directed by talented key animator and Gainax mainstay Akemi Hayashi, who also gave us this terrific Space Dandy episode) centers on a new location and an old memory, at the forbidding Penguin Force Hideout. The hideout is located in a vast, colorless condominium, a structure that seems to underline our collective anonymity. Rows after rows of identical doors promise homes for everyone and no one, infinite potentially wrong paths. The young Shoma is dwarfed by this place, lost in long stairwells and ensconced behind railing bars. This is truly a frozen world.
It’d be hard for any episode to live up to Shigeyasu Yamauchi’s gorgeous interpretation of Tabuki’s rooftop duel with Kanba. That episode isn’t just great for this show, it’s an all-time great episode within anime at large. In light of that, it’s perhaps a bit less disappointing that Penguindrum’s nineteenth episode doesn’t even really try to compete with its predecessor. This is largely an information-expositing and board-moving episode, shifting us past the focus on Tabuki and into a new and somewhat abrupt arc starring Masako Natsume. This is the point where the cracks in Penguindrum’s overall narrative begin to show, but it still gets its job done.
Penguindrum’s seventeenth episode is titled “The Unforgiven,” a meaning which only becomes clear in its final moments. But unlike many of its recent episodes, this episode isn’t really “about” any one specific thing. So far, we’ve spent the show’s second half establishes the diverse and incompatible motivations of this world’s side characters, from the desperate loyalty of Yuri to the rigid persistence of Masako. There are few secrets left in this place, but that doesn’t mean we’re any closer to arriving at solutions. The still enigmatic Sanetoshi seems to understand this, musing idly on how all humans pursue individual ideals of truth to the point of self-sacrifice or destruction. Penguindrum’s human players have all established their truths, and now “the war is about to break out.”
Mawaru Penguindrun’s sixteenth episode is goofy as hell.
That’s not really unusual for an Ikuhara show. Just like how his dramas juxtapose grounded, universal themes like gender identity and social ostracization with ornate, melodramatic framing, so too does he often mix his serious material and his absurd comedy. Ikuhara does not believe tone must match dramatic intent in the way, say, a director like Hiroshi Nagahama (Mushishi, The Flowers of Evil) might. The real world often splices comedy and tragedy, so why shouldn’t our fabrications do the same? It’s a style that takes some getting used to, but ultimately it’s quite possible to see the comedy as compatible with the drama, or even a way of underlying the fundamental absurdity of the world.
Penguindrum’s fifteenth episode begins with a young Yuri declaring that “I’ll never be free as long as that tower stands.” In the distance rises a giant, improbable skyscraper in the shape of Michelangelo’s David. It’s a testament to her sculptor father’s power and influence – wherever that tower can see, Yuri remains under his watchful eye. A metaphor made real, standing as the cruel arbitrator of Yuri’s life.
Mawaru Penguindrum’s fourteenth episode has sex on the brain. After a cold open revealing the last of Yuri’s performances, we cut to Yuri and her costar in a private moment, where we learn that the hero of Yuri’s play is actually a heroine. Their sexuality is emphasized here to the point of performance, and their words feel like theater as well – Yuri’s partner seems to feel no embarrassment tossing off lines like “you can only share this feeling with another woman.” Happy to play the role of callous seductress, Yuri plainly states that “I’ve grown tired of you,” and abandons her lover. And after we hear a strange hint about Yuri’s “secret,” she drives off, leaving her paramour behind.