Hello everyone,
Here we are to talk again about the most strange anime series of this summer season 2001 named Mawaru Penguindrum that is generating quite some talk over the blogosphere due to the bizzarre storyline and the many "symbolism" present in it. (Judging from what they write at least, as I never really make attention to that stuff)
The episode start fast with a flashback scene of a long past in which Kanba runs away from home to accompany Himari to the hospital with her father that dashed out to save her. (no ambulance was available it seems, what a coincidence)
Soon after we start to get a mysterious scene in which the girl that fallen from the staircase (no it wasn't Ringo the "killer") in the previous episode is attacked in the hospital by one of her "friends" (the girl with a gun of the opening sequence) with a penguin drawed ball that somehow is able to clear up her entire memory of the event.
This whole penguin incident seems a lot bigger than I first thought with even Kanba requiring money from this type of organization (to pay the rent). The proof is that the money was in a envelope with a penguin drawn on it. Who are they? Some kind of cult of the penguin god? (Himari God, maybe I should say) Why would they have to lend money to Kanba?
Instead of clearing up questions, this show continue to give us what he is able to do better, create them! And after just 8-10 minutes in the fifth episode I had to stop the video reproduction to try to make a summary of what was happening in front of me.
On the other side of the episode, Ringo ended up misunderstanding the diary once again. In a fit of rage she dashed under the rain only to be found by a clueless Himari that decides to invite her home where she's finally introduced to the Penguin God mystery (she even watched the Seizon Senryaku scene, that by the way is back!).
I loved that finally someone (Himari Penguin God) tells the damn truth to her about her "pure love". The machine-gun of insults against Ringo was hilarious as it was hilarious her superhuman tackle against Himari after being mocked.
Ringo, without even knowing, is starting to create quite some love flags with Shouma with all their talking together. (If you notice, Kanba rarely talked with her) The more I look at it, the more I think they're going to end up together.
Anyway, after Ringo throws the hat out of the window (that by pure coincidence happen to get stuck in a running truck) begin the final scene with Kanba risking his life to recover the hat to make Himari come back from the dead.
While it was quite emotional and clearly shows how much he loves Himari, if I watch the scene with critical eyes it was somehow unbelievable. I mean, who would survive without any serious injury after that situation? Let's be honest...
Now what is going to happen in the future? My most interest is focused around two of the many plot lines this series is narrating.
The first one is definitely the possible romance options between Ringo and Shoma (Ringo is my lovely favourite character of the series after all), the second in the mysterious penguin organization's reasons of existance. I'm especially interested in how they'll manage to merge this last plotline (the organization one) together with the main Penguindrum story...
What else to say? There are many questions still pending and all of them are really interesting, but while I'm not worried about the number of plotlines/questions, as there are still plenty of episodes to close all of them before the end of this series, I find myself in a terrible urge to watch the next episode...:P
See you soon,
feal87