It should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with the work of Naoko Yamada that flowers and flower language have their place in her latest film: Liz and the Blue Bird. For Yamada, flowers take the place of things left unsaid when people are unable to express their feelings for each other due to a physical disability (A Silent Voice), mental illnesses or internal fear (also A Silent Voice), societal expectations (her episode of Violet Evergarden), or myriad other reasons. When important context goes unsaid, Yamada frequently turns to flower language to do the emotional heavy lifting.

Her usage of flowers in Liz and the Blue Bird has a defter touch than A Silent Voice and Violet Evergarden‘s camellia princess. Many things go unsaid or unspoken between leads Mizore Yoroizuka and Nozomi Kasaki and Yamada wisely uses what unites them — music — to express most of them. Flowers create a secondary, background context, featured more prominently in the Liz and the Blue Bird storybook — used as another framing device for Mizore and Nozomi’s relationship — with a few flashes to real-life flowers at key moments between the two.

The movie opens with a page from the storybook that frames the rising sun over a lake with birch trees and flowers. The most prominent flowers are lupin or lupine on the left side and round pink flowers with yellow centers on the right. Lupine flowers are said to represent happiness and imagination. The round flowers could be a variety of flowers, but they most resemble pink cosmos which mean a deep lasting love, cleanliness, or in Japanese hanakotoba, a maiden’s heart.

Our first shot of Liz is framed by more lupines, holly, and a lily of the valley flower. While lily of the valley is perhaps most known for being poisonous, it carries similar meanings of a white lily like purity, chastity, and sweetness. There’s a story that one is incomplete without the person to whom they give a lily of the valley flower. Holly berries have a slightly more humorous meaning, signaling that they’re single and looking. At this point, Liz is alone outside of her animal friends, but the flowers showcase the depth that her feelings could have if given a chance.

Liz sees the blue bird and after it flies away, the movie pans down to a flowerscape that prominently features blue flowers with yellow centers. The most obvious flower that would tie in here would be a forget-me-not, but these flowers aren’t as small or clustered. They more resemble nemophila (although the centers don’t match) or a blue anemone (despite the centers not being a darker color. Forget-me-nots carry a message of true love but also remembrance, nemophila forgiveness, and blue anemones remembrance and well-wishes for the future or protection. All of these flowers coincide with the blue bird’s first appearance, signifying its importance.

The plot twist of Liz and the Blue Bird, if you can call it that, is that childhood friends Mizore Yoroizuka and Nozomi Kasaki assume that their storybook counterparts to their relationship are Liz and the blue bird respectively when the reverse is true. This is showcased through the music of the movie — which is a series of posts in and of itself — and also the usage of flower language among other symbols like the blue bird’s feather.

Buttercups appear briefly as a standalone shot when Nozomi crosses the school gate as Mizore waits for her on the steps. Buttercups can mean a cheery happiness or childlike charm, but can also represent childishness and ingratitude. Much goes unsaid between Nozomi and Mizore throughout the film and this meaning could apply to both of them. Initially, the buttercups only seem to apply to Nozomi, who is more outwardly capricious, and the framing sets us up to think this is the case. Similarly, the feather of the blue bird appears to be bestowed upon Mizore by Nozomi, but once all is revealed, this entire scene can be viewed as Nozomi returning the feather to its rightful owner, Mizore.

As Mizore follows the energetic Nozomi up the stairs, she recalls following Nozomi as an elementary school student walking under falling cherry blossoms. Liz and the Blue Bird is the story that reflects, like many of Yamada’s projects, on the transient nature of relationships. Much of the miscommunication comes from the fact that Mizore doesn’t understand why Liz would have to let the blue bird go.

Cherry blossoms are a repeating motif in Japanese media as a whole, representing impermanence. Mizore and Nozomi’s relationship is a deep emotional connection, but it’s also fleeting. The positioning of this flashback reiterates Mizore and Nozomi’s existing dynamic while also telling us that the nature of their relationship is about to change because it too is transient.

Most of the flowers in Liz and the Blue Bird appear in the titular storybook. These illustrations frequently return to the same flowers at Liz’s home, but recontextualize them through her relationship with the blue bird. Here we see what appear to be buttercups (which were also shown in Mizore and Nozomi’s opening scene) as well as what appear to be pink anemones. Pink anemones carry a different meaning than their blue counterparts and can have the negative connotation of a forsaken or dying love.

These also appear at the blue bird’s feet alongside blue flowers with pointed petals that most resemble a blue star flower although could be something else. Blue star flowers are said to show faithfulness and affection. Despite the fact that pink anemones may have a gloomier meaning, a possible indication of how Liz eventually shows her love by telling the blue bird to return to the skies, the blue stars are a reminder that there is genuine affection and a steadfast nature to their relationship. Even if it ends, their feelings are valid.

There’s also a cute scene where Liz pins what look like holly berries in the blue bird’s hair. As previously mentioned, they can carry the meaning of single and looking, so this is a bit of a cute flower language joke.

“She accepts it because Liz said so. The blue bird can’t reject the choice Liz made. Because the blue bird loves Liz very much. She has to fly away, even if it breaks her heart.”

-Mizore Yoroizuka to her teacher, Satomi Niiyama, Liz and the Blue Bird

A lingering shot at a small branch of berries accompanies this conversation that Mizore has with her teacher. It marks the moment that Mizore realizes that she’s not Liz, but the blue bird — her immense musical talent makes this the case and is the equivalent of the blue bird’s wings. The reason why Mizore didn’t understand why Liz gave up the blue bird was because she was thinking of her as Liz who didn’t want to give up Nozomi, the blue bird. The holly branch visually ties Mizore to the blue bird making the connection as Mizore and Nozomi think things through separately.

As they both come to the realization that Mizore is the blue bird and Nozomi is Liz, a small, white, three-petaled flower appears. There are few flowers with three petals and this most resembles a spiderwort. Spiderworts are said to mean that you hold someone in high regard and admire them. This is particularly important for Mizore and Nozomi, especially Nozomi, who just realized that she has unwittingly held Mizore back.

Naoko Yamada doesn’t use flowers in the same way that she uses them to express almost all of the unspoken emotion in A Silent Voice. Instead, she lets the music do the talking and uses flowers as a visual through line that accompanies the emotional narrative much like the storybook itself or the image of the blue bird. It’s fitting that Mizore’s goodbye to Nozomi and “flight” is told through the musical piece and not any other way. Here, it’s Nozomi who follows Mizore, unable to reach the same heights. This isn’t a happy ending, nor is it a sad one. Instead, it’s a bittersweet turning point in a relationship that both of them have outgrown in some way. Still, the admiration and affection remains.

“Those three are different, hunh? Norman is a genius who has the best brains. And Ray, an intellect who can compete against Norman’s genius. Emma has amazing athletic skills, and her learning ability allows her to stay close to the other two.”

–The Promised Neverland, Episode 1

With an introduction like this, it’s easy to identify Norman, Emma, and Ray by their prevailing characteristics that the show provides as shortcuts. Yet, this also does a disservice to how The Promised Neverland develops them throughout the series and makes it abundantly clear that their plan would not have succeeded without all three children working together. Episode 11 is a testament to how not only the main trio but all of the children were necessary to truly pull off their escape.

Norman is the group’s problem solver and, more importantly, organizer. He outsmarts Ray, revealing Ray to be the traitor in the group, and he frequently is the one taking Ray and Emma’s considerations in mind, organizing them into a coherent plan, even as circumstances change. After his death, Norman writes to Emma, detailing the final plan for their escape and ensuring that Ray is stopped from sacrificing himself.

It’s easy to see how they would never succeed without him.

He is the smartest of the group, and because of this it’s easy to mistakenly place him above the other two in importance. Yet, even Norman has weaknesses. He admits that he wouldn’t be nearly as determined without Emma’s infectious energy and love of her family. Norman is also not above making his own mistakes. Like Ray, he offers to sacrifice himself before he realizes that he is doomed, leaving Ray and Emma to stop him. He makes a serious misstep in lying to Don and Gilda that could have led to the demise of their entire plan. Yes, Norman is the most intelligent child but he’s not infallible and needs both Ray and Emma to ground him and inspire him respectively.

Ray is the most pragmatic of the group. This isn’t to say that he’s devoid of emotion, but he frequently pushes his emotions to the side in order to deal with things in the most direct way possible. It’s harsh, but necessary, and forces the other two to recalculate their own plans in the process. He’s been planning his escape for years and Ray’s anger at the entire system boils over during what he believes to be his ultimate trump card: his life for their escape. Through burning his body, Ray not only wants to help Emma and the other children, it’s a giant obscene gesture to the monsters that raised him as food. He even admits that he never loved studying, and only did it to make himself high-value merchandise.

This anger at the system is a necessary motivator, but also points out many of Ray’s flaws, including his self-centered nature — not to be conflated with arrogance — without truly thinking of what others want or recognizing his own value to them. Outside of being Mom Isabella’s merchandise, he’s also Emma’s found brother and friend. When Ray becomes obsessed with something, he ignores all else to his detriment.

Emma’s flaws are the most obvious, and her true strengths much more nebulous until Episode 11. She’s not as smart or devious as Norman or Ray, which is why she can never best them in tag and also comes off as oblivious a lot of the time. Emma’s characterization can easily be written off as the brawn and the heart of the team. While Norman and Ray try to outwit Sister Krone, Isabella, and each other, Emma’s role in all of this takes a bit of a backseat.

This is unfortunate and ultimately does her a disservice. Emma is an amazing character whose full importance isn’t revealed until a small twist during Episode 11. The plan wouldn’t have worked without her due to her positive attitude and physical capabilities, but more importantly, it wouldn’t have worked without her remarkable emotional intelligence and trust. Episode 11 reveals that — after Norman’s distrust in Don and Gilda nearly derails the plan completely — Emma decided to let the other kids in on it slowly. Nat, Anna, Lannion, and Thoma were all privy to Norman and Emma’s conversation with Krone and then Emma, Don, and Gilda spent two months slowly integrating the other kids into the plan. Emma trusted in her family and was richly rewarded by their preparation and planning of the escape itself and she executed this all while keeping Ray and Isabella in the dark.

With Norman’s death, Norman, Emma, and Ray don’t escape Grace Field House together, but the plan that is executed with Emma and Ray leading the other children wouldn’t have worked without all three of the main trio working together. They needed the sophistication and foresight of Norman’s planning, the scheming and pragmatic nature of Ray, and Emma’s emotional intelligence and trust in her family to succeed.

A few days before my high school graduation it struck me. I was staring out of our front bay window past the dying spider plant that hung on the right side looking towards the cloudy sky and thinking of nothing in particular.

It was the morning after a lock-in party that my school organized for the senior class as part of our senior week. I had been up all night. The day was empty with no classes, no senior activities, no preparation work, and no parties. My college had already been decided upon months ago and I had already attended pre-orientation where I had registered for classes in the coming fall.

I had nothing to do but catch up on sleep lost from staying up for over 24 hours, yet I had crossed a particular overtired threshold that looped back into being wide awake. In that moment, the day ahead seem to stretch out endlessly. School life, especially in junior high and high school, is regimented and organized. Without that order, I came to the realization that I would never have it again.

My high school life was over.

For Koyomi Araragi, this same realization — and ensuing confusion or emptiness — comes on the first morning that his younger sisters don’t wake him up. Part of Araragi’s high school routine was a loud, often physically violent, wake up dressing down from Tsukihi and Karen Araragi. The day after he graduates, this part of his routine is gone. In that moment, he realizes that he’s no longer a high school student.

More than any of the oddities Araragi faced, it’s this fact that confuses and troubles Araragi the most.

“The thing that clearly distinguishes this graduation from my previous graduations is that what will follow it is not yet known.”

-Koyomi Araragi, Zoku Owarimonogatari, Episode 1

In all of Araragi’s oddity-related adventures, the monsters, ghosts, oddities are all related directly to the sins, guilt, or deep-seated emotions of the person harboring the peculiarity. The true monsters of the series are always, at the end of the day, born of human emotions or humans themselves. This is reiterated through the existence of Ougi Oshino and her role in challenging the motivations of Araragi’s actions throughout the second season and into Owarimonogatari. Even Ougi the catalyst was Araragi all along — accepting her is the final missing puzzle piece towards accepting himself, rather than equating sacrifice with self-worth.

Zoku Owarimonogatari comes after a story that is already finished and is aptly titled as a continuation of the ending story. Araragi’s emotional narrative effectively ends alongside his high school career. It’s fitting that Zoku Owarimonogatari‘s first episode comes the day after, with a morning that seems to stretch out endlessly before him, uninterrupted by his sisters’ usual wake up call. A reverse of Lewis Caroll’s Alice, who drifted off to sleep and stepped into the looking-glass world of her own volition, Araragi is in the process of his morning routine — trying to wake himself up, while reestablishing a routine in his new world as a former student — when he’s involuntarily pulled into the world of the mirror.

The mirror world that Araragi discovers is similar to Alice’s looking-glass world. In Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, the world beyond the looking-glass isn’t a simple inversion, but in most cases, inversion of reality. In the real world, Alice commands inanimate chess pieces. In the looking-glass world, she must operate by the rules of the lively chess pieces themselves. The same things exist in both worlds, but take on completely opposite existences within the respective hierarchies of their settings.

Araragi goes from a real world where he is suddenly unsure of everything — despite everything looking exactly the same — to a mirror world where everything is inverted. The once-tall Karen is short, but she’s still Araragi’s sister. The once-expressionless Yotsugi Ononoki is suddenly overtly and awkwardly expressive but still lives at their house. Mayoi Hachikuji is an adult not a child — and acts similarly to how Araragi acts with child Mayoi in the real world — but she’s still the god of the North Shirahebi Shrine. This is accompanied by images like the one above, that resemble kaleidoscope imagery that appears intermittently throughout this first episode.

For me, the uneasy feeling disappeared once I began another routine, this time at a college for my undergraduate degree. For Alice, she works her way up to the position of queen while gaining confidence and control over her surroundings as she journeys. For Araragi, his epiphany will likely come in a similar fashion — acceptance, and then the necessary step forward. The mirror world isn’t likely created by a true oddity, but simply born of Araragi’s own uncertainties and momentary refusal to take that first step.

In two weeks, director Kunihiko Ikuhara’s latest original anime, Sarazanmai, will air in Japan. I’ve found few anime as immersive, both coy and direct with their symbolism, and as emotionally-affecting as Ikuhara’s original works, which include Revolutionary Girl Utena, Mawaru Penguindrum, and Yurikuma Arashi. They all have something important to say and reward watching (and rewatching) with a careful eye. To say that I’m looking forward to Sarazanmai is an understatement.

I rarely preview series, but in the interest of digging into Sarazanmai as soon as possible, and organizing my own thoughts before the first episode airs on April 11, here is a collection of themes that the series may be looking to tackle, based on the information available thus far and Ikuhara’s previous work.

This won’t be as in depth regarding some of the names behind Sarazanmai outside of Ikuhara and a few others. For more on that check out this post at Sakuga Blog. Also special thanks to Good Haro for translation work and providing additional pre-release material.

Major spoilers for Mawaru Penguindrum.

Shirikodama (or kappa butt fascination) and Japanese mythology

Did you know that you have highly-prized small ball in your anus?

According to Japanese mythology and folklore dating back to around the Edo period, kappa were said to murder humans who wandered too close to their marsh or river territory by forcibly removing your shirikodama (small anus ball). The kappa would either stick their hands all the way up a human’s anus, or suck it out. More often than not, the kappa were said to drown humans in the water before performing this extraction. As for why the kappa wanted this particular piece of human anatomy — which may or may not be the liver — it was rumored to either be a delicacy for them or it was blocking access to the liver, which was a delicacy for kappa-kind. These stories were so well-known that they were reflected in art of the time, like Hokusai Katsushika’s “How to Fish for Kappa” which features a man presenting his buttocks to a river behind him in order to catch kappa in a fishing net.

Kappa have mellowed out in recent years to become cute pranksters, but Sarazanmai mentions shirikodama specifically. The kappa Keppi instructs Kazuki Yasaka, Toi Kuji, and Enta Jinai to become kappa in order to steal shirikodama from kappa zombies. This line is followed by an image of a kappa-fied Kazuki looking shocked and covered in some sort of viscous fluid.

With a nearly all-male cast consisting of a main trio of eighth-grade boys along with an adult policeman couple and the rather graphic description of just how kappa steal shirikodama, Sarazanmai is setting up for a discussion about gay men. Much like Yurikuma Arashi discussed lesbians and yuri media, Sarazanmai looks like it will at least touch upon common boys-love and yaoi tropes, hopefully skewering the more toxic ones in the process while simultaneously developing genuine relationships between men that eventually break the confines of societal mores.

In conclusion, if Yurikuma Arashi can have a transformation sequence that involves three naked young women covered in lily and camellia flowers, licking nectar off of flower stamens, be prepared for whatever Ikuhara has in store for these boys’ transformation sequences in Sarazanmai.

Visual similarities with Mawaru Penguindrum (the otter faction versus the kappa faction)

From the moment the first Sarazanmai teasers were released, a major visual similarity to Mawaru Penguindrum was Wataru Okabe’s iconography. Okabe was brought back for Sarazanmai as are his grey icons that represent the masses along with circled “A” signs in katakana. This depiction of people and large crowds is fitting for the themes that Ikuhara has said that Sarazanmai will focus on: connections and relationships.

In Mawaru Penguindrum, the masses of icons tied into what the series had to say about the rise of the Aum Shinrikyo cult, their subsequent terrorist attacks on the Tokyo subway in 1995, and how the Japanese people reacted in the aftermath. Here, they’re more likely used to separate our main trio of boys as another nod to how each of them have trouble communicating and connecting with other people.

Otters and kappas also appeared in Mawaru Penguindrum as stuffed animals representing Ringo Oginome’s estranged parents. After Ringo’s elder sister Momoka passed away in the attacks, her parents’ relationship didn’t survive. Ringo blithely pretends that everything is normal while trying frantically to follow in her sister’s exact footsteps until she sees her father with someone else and is forced to face reality. The otter is meant to be her father and the kappa represents her mother.

Both otters and kappas are tricksters in Japanese folklore, and sometimes otters were said to be a type of kappa or grow into being a kappa as they aged. Across a variety of prefectures, otters were shapeshifting monsters that would appear as beautiful women before luring men to their deaths. The otter imagery in the preview appears to be associated with the policeman couple of Reo Niiboshi and Mabu Akutsu and their own transformation sequence. From this, it seems that the main trio will be a part of the kappa faction and the two policemen, the otter faction. Both will likely have similar goals in mind but conflicting ideas of execution or how to achieve them.

As for Reo and Mabu themselves, they were two of the first characters revealed in Sarazanmai’s early marketing. They also have their own Twitter account where they appear to tweet mundane things about their lives. With the suspect handle of “keeponly1luv” and preview lines like Mabu’s, “With no beginning and no end, I implore you, the unconnected, let us open up a door––will it be desire? Or love?” they appear to be drawing a direct line between the ideas of love and desire, as if they cannot coexist.

The three kappas and color-coding the initial PVs

The plot summary of Sarazanmai introduces eighth-graders Kazuki, Toi, and Enta. They are color-coded as follows: Kazuki (red), Toi (blue), and Enta (yellow) with small scarves in their kappa forms. Not-so-coincidentally, the first Sarazanmai previews were also color-coded in a light pink, light yellow, and a cornflower blue. The voice-acting doesn’t match up so they’re not true examples of what each of the characters are thinking at a given moment, but could still give insight to their motivations or deeper secrets, despite the fact that these initial previews appear to come from the otter faction. This is the largest presumption I’m making in this preview, so even if it turns out to be completely wrong, I hope it can still break down some of the narrative through lines by placing these previews and characters’ lines from the main preview side-by-side.

For a few a small side notes, the first three previews all end with the lines, “Don’t let go, desire is your life. Sarazanmai.” There are two larger previews, one called “Connected” and a more recent series preview.

Kazuki Yasaka (red) first preview: “I’ll let you in on a little secret”

The first preview (the red/pink preview) features a line that is very similar to the title of the third (yellow) preview: “Even if everything went away and this whole world was empty.” This is followed by, “I’ll let you in on a little secret––you’re connected, but you’re alone. Don’t let go! Desire is your life.” The main splash of red/pink is over icons of two people, one of whose head has been marred with diluted black ink.

In the Connected teaser, Kazuki says, “This world is overflowing with connections––connections by blood, between towns, of feelings. Everyone is connected here. So why is it that I can’t connect with anyone?” In the main preview, Kazuki adds while typing on his phone, “I live my life by three rules. I don’t need anyone else.”

Kazuki’s character summary describes him as a boy who used to be cheerful and loved soccer, but recently has become obsessed with “a certain something.” When placed next to the themes in the first preview, it presents the picture of someone who still desperately wants to connect with others, even if his outward attitude suggests otherwise. The marred couple in the preview could represent a relationship that scarred Kazuki in the past — if you want to go down the rabbit hole of assumptions, it could be fellow Sarazanmai trio member Enta since they used to be childhood friends — making him weary of opening up to other people.

Toi Kuji (blue) second preview: “As much as I hate it”

The blue preview features an otter icon and is more melancholy in nature. “Am fake? Is the world fake? Are we fake?” it begins. “We’re connected. As much as I hate it. As much as I want it. Whose desire is the strongest?”

In the Connected preview, Toi says, “In this town, when things disappear, they’re forgotten. Shops, buildings, and even people are replaced by the new, and no one even notices. I don’t believe in connections.” And finally in the main series preview he says, “Let’s get to it. You aren’t so different from me.” This last line in likely in response to the idea that all three boys are needed to perform the necessary sarazanmai transformation sequence. It would seem that Toi is the type to try to push forward, even if the three aren’t connecting in in the manner that they’re supposed to. Toi’s character summary tells us that he’s a recent transfer to Kazuki’s class and has been isolated from his classmates due to bad rumors. (Here’s where I put on my tinfoil hat and wonder if Ikuhara will revisit how society passes sins down through family members, even to children, like how Chiemi and Kenzan Takakura’s sins were heaped onto Himari, Shouma, and Kanba.)

I covered the otter symbolism in an earlier section, but here it could be tied directly to Toi’s feelings of isolation or things that are leading Toi astray/covering up the fact that he actually does want to connect, like rumors or presumptions of his character made by other people.

Enta Jinai (yellow) third preview: “Even if this whole world was empty”

“Cross the river. Because you can never return.”

“Even if everything went away and this whole world was empty, I want to maintain this connection.”

This is the preview that matches up most directly with its presumed counterpart. While Kazuki and Toi have more cynical mindsets, Enta takes up the position of their more positive counterpart, filling a similar role to Mawaru Penguindrum‘s Ringo Oginome and her initial musings on how much she loved fate in comparison to the Takakura brothers’ denigration of fate.

Enta’s main preview lines reveal an optimistic outlook. Even if it’s difficult, or he ends up physically alone, he wants to remain connected somehow to people he cares about. “Our connections aren’t that weak or flimsy!” he yells in direct response to Toi’s words. In the Connected preview Enta says, “But I do––I believe that we have a connection that can’t be severed so easily. And I know we’ll connect again.”

Most importantly, the yellow preview shows people icons for all three boys with a splash of yellow as they’re falling together. This could be another depiction of how they’ll have to be connected to transform together.

(again, special thanks to Good Haro, who has most of these these translations organized here.)

Social media, definitely-not-amazon, and connections

Revolutionary Girl Utena used Takarazuka Revue and other theatre trappings — the Kashira/Shadow Girls as a Greek chorus element for example — along with fairy tale framework to break a toxic cycle. Mawaru Penguindrum used iconography, Haruki Murakami books, and ARB’s music as covered by in-universe trio Triple H to tell the story of the 1995 Sarin Gas Attacks on the Tokyo subway by the Aum Shinrikyo cult. Yurikuma Arashi used horror films like Suspiria and Psycho along with the Sankebetsu brown bear incident to denigrate toxic or outdated aspects of how media views lesbian relationships. According to Ikuhara himself, Sarazanmai will use Japanese folklore of the kappa alongside modern technology to tell its story.

If you thought I was kidding about the kappa folklore tying into gay relationships between men, here’s Ikuhara on that very subject in an interview about Sarazanmai with Pash+.

“I’ve wanted to make a story focused on boys for a long time now. While there’s a lot of folklore about kappa, but no one’s ever actually seen one, which is why I’d like to say that the kappa that appear in Sarazanmai are the real deal! (lol) So the shirikodama is a pretty famous piece of kappa folklore and it’s a major motif in this series.”

“We live in an age where, with our smart phones and social media, connecting with people is a daily activity––so I wanted to ask, what does that all mean? What do we want to do with [those connections]?” Ikuhara said in this same interview.

While Mawaru Penguindrum used some social media trappings and the “villains” of Yurikuma Arashi made their calls on snazzy smartphones, Sarazanmai seems even more plugged in to modern technology and how ubiquitous it is in our every day lives — the world has changed so much in the short span of time since Yurikuma Arashi (2015), never mind Mawaru Penguindrum (2011) including the Kappazon (Amazon) boxes present in the previews and a giant cardboard monster. Look for themes about the strength of relationships through technology, and how technology helps form and maintain relationships as well as isolates us from each other.

SARAZANMAI!

The title of Revolutionary Girl Utena is self-explanatory and is part of the framework of Utena Tenjou’s journey. The meaning of the “penguindrum” is revealed throughout Mawaru Penguindrum. And the title of Yurikuma Arashi means, depending on how you want to parse it, either “lily bear storm” or “lesbian/girls-love bear storm.” All of Ikuhara’s titles are important to the content of the series and Sarazanmai will likely be no different.

From a recent summary of the series, when the three boys transform together, they make a noise together, “Sarazanmai!” They can only perform the transformation when fully connected or united, reiterating series themes of communication and connection. The transformation process also forces them to reveal a secret about themselves (presumably involuntarily as part of the sequence). Tying this together with the previews, there’s a Venn diagram motif that shows three statements: never starting, never connecting, never ending. If I had to hazard a guess, Kazuki is never starting, Toi is never connecting, and Enta is never ending.

The bowl or dish on top of a kappa’s head is called “sara” which likely has something to do with the series title and transformation sequence. When the water in the bowl is emptied the kappa is defeated or dies. If a person refills the water dish with water from the kappa’s home river, the kappa will be indebted to that person for eternity.

“It was for survival. Longer than anyone.”

-Mom Isabella, The Promised Neverland, Episode 12

By design, the dystopian world of The Promised Neverland first placates human children in captivity and then pits humans against one another. When a child raised in a plant like the ones at Grace Field House happens to learn about the reality of their situation, they’re immediately brought into the knowledgeable fold and forced to fight other humans for their own survival. If they succeed, they’re then put in a position where they will raise and then send other human children to their deaths by age 12.

It’s easy to see why even the most intelligent children choose to side with the system. The system seems all-encompassing and impossible to fight against. The Promised Neverland doesn’t denigrate Sister Krone or Mom Isabella for choosing the paths that they did and makes it clear that their choices were in many ways forced. Die as food for monsters or become a mom for your own survival and perhaps find solace in giving other children the best possible lives before their inevitable deaths.

At every turn where escape seems impossible and Emma presses onward, forgoing the significantly easier path of following the system, The Promised Neverland presents a situation in Krone or Isabella’s past where, when faced with the overwhelming dominion of the system, chose to compete against their peers to survive. This is especially apparent in Isabella’s memories of her childhood friend who was sent away and her personal discovery of what lies beyond the wall.

When Isabella saw what Norman saw, she chose to become the authority over defying it. When Norman saw what Isabella saw, he continued to lay the groundwork for his friends to escape, despite knowing that he himself would die.

The difference in his life was Emma.

Between Norman’s overwhelming intelligence and Ray’s scheming, Emma’s all-important role in the main trio is somewhat cast aside, or mischaracterized as the heart of the team. She is that, and being an emotional buoy is important to what allows them to consistently overcome a variety of obstacles, but Emma’s character is much more nuanced than being a stereotypical emotional battery for the rest of the team.

Emma’s earnest trust in her found family members of Grace Field House and overwhelming honesty makes her an important leader not only for the younger children, but for Ray and Norman as well. If it hadn’t been for Emma’s influence, Norman never would have returned from the stark visual reality of their situation, staring across the edge of a precipice, with renewed determination to see Emma’s plan through, even knowing that he would have to die. Emma’s insistence that they save everyone, or take everyone (albeit eventually for the four years-old and younger group) comes to fruition because of her trust in others. She hands down instructions to Don and Gilda, who in turn help train the other children and brings in certain others as early as their conversation with Krone.

A microcosm of what makes Emma such an important character comes in her conversation with Phil. She doesn’t treat him like a four year-old child, but an equal. She confides in him and then asks his opinion rather than assuming authority. Through this, she showcases her trust in Phil as a person, giving him a moment of agency.

The end result is that this love and trust that Emma displays radiates outwards, affecting all of the children at Grace Field House. Their coordination and cooperation at the wall is due to all of their hard work and preparation together, as opposed to having only five people in the know (Emma, Norman, Ray, Don, and Gilda) calling the shots. We see her influence in Ray not only acquiescing to the fact that he has worth and doesn’t have to sacrifice himself, but in his comforting Jemima when she panics and bolstering the spirits of Thoma and Lannion at the same time. Ray never would have done this before, but changes once faced with Emma’s trust and the trust she has in others.

When we see snapshots of Isabella and Krone as children, they already seem so isolated and alone. The series gives Krone a doll as her only companion (although this is an anime-only decision) while Isabella’s one close friend was sent away. It’s easy to see how, without Emma, both Norman and Ray would have crumbled just as it’s easy to see why Isabella and Krone chose the paths that they did. Without Emma, they would have not only have failed to take everyone, they would have failed to escape at all. It’s trite and, quite frankly, untrue to say that an entire system can be undone with trust and sincerity, yet The Promised Neverland is another pointed example of how those qualities should always be highly-prized. Without them, it makes the system’s job so much easier.

One of the most striking images from the main Sarazanmai preview trailer is of a red stain expanding outwards from an icon of an otter in a heart. The stain looks like a blood droplet spreading across Asakusa just above (or below in relation to this map, which is rotated) the Sumida River. Sarazanmai‘s Asakusa policeman duo of Reo Niiboshi and Mabu Akutsu appear to set this reaction in motion by throwing their hats in the air and yelling about extracting desire — complete with a transformation sequence that includes a lot of rising otter icons and the character “吸” for sucking or extracting. Given that the basic outline of the story involves three junior high school students transformed into kappa in search of tiny balls (shirikodama) inside the anuses of kappa zombies, Reo and Mabu’s presumed transformation where they “milk desire” is already an interesting addition.

The relationship between kappa and otters (kawauso) goes back to Japanese folklore, much like the existence of the shirikodama itself. Sarazanmai director Kunihiko Ikuhara used a kappa and otter motif around the parents of Mawaru Penguindrum‘s Ringo Oginome in a rather insidious way that could tell us a lot about his plans for a similar motif in Sarazanmai.

Major spoilers for Mawaru Penguindrum.

Among many other things, Mawaru Penguindrum grapples with questions of parental guidance, or lack thereof. Specifically, Penguindrum wrestles with the idea of allowing or forcing children carry the burden of their parents’ sins while also showcasing a variety of toxicity born of societal factors passed down from generation to generation, landing finally on the childhood experiences of Kanba, Shouma, and Himari Takakura as well as Ringo Oginome, Keiju Tabuki and Masako Natsume.

As members of the in-universe equivalent of the Aum Shinrikyo cult, responsible for the deadly 1995 terrorist attacks on the Tokyo subway, Chiemi and Kenzan Takakura are shown as loving parents to a point. Yet the story of their relationship with their children is ultimately told in a warped version of “Mary had a little lamb” where their fear of a looming crisis and disgust with the world drove them to the cult, away from their children whom they had said they were trying to protect through their cult activities, and eventually terrorism. Chiemi and Kenzan were active perpetrators towards the top, not low-level fodder and their actions affected their children directly through active neglect on their part, shame and active disgust or violence from outsiders towards their progeny later in life (Himari’s expulsion from school), and anger from other affected parties, like Tabuki or Yuri Tokikago.

Their actions also play a large part in destroying the relationship between Ringo’s parents, Satoshi and Eriko Oginome, after the terrorist attack kills their daughter, and Ringo’s sister, Momoka Oginome.

In Episode 6 of Penguindrum, “You and I Are Connected by M,” a feverish Ringo remembers a fight between her parents that she overheard as a child. So begins, in true Ikuhara fashion, the transformation of Ringo’s parents into an otter (Satoshi) and a kappa (Eriko) for the duration of the fight. Clutching her stuffed toy kappa and otter, Ringo peers in on her parents from her bedroom. They never notice her.

Still grieving from Momoka’s death years later, Satoshi and Eriko are presumably rehashing an argument that they’ve had several times. Ringo has the (mis)fortune of sharing a birthday with Momoka’s death day, tying her very existence to her sister’s death. Naturally, both Satoshi and Eriko are reminded of this whenever they see Ringo, or celebrate her birthday in tandem with a day of remembrance for Momoka.

Eriko, the kappa, says that she cannot get over Momoka’s death. Satoshi, the otter, says that they should pour all of their love into Ringo instead. Eriko takes this as a demand to forget Momoka, while Satoshi sees Eriko’s reluctance to move on as harmful to Ringo. He throws his rock on the ground. She, in turn, smashes the dish from her head on the floor. These are both meant to show just how serious they each are about their respective positions and how violent or hurtful the argument actually was — certainly not something that five year-old Ringo was ever supposed to witness. In folklore if a kappa’s dish is emptied or broken, the kappa is seriously weakened or dies immediately.

With Momoka’s death (on the same day that Ringo was born) tearing her parents apart, the lesson Ringo takes from this is that she was born to replace Momoka and live on in her sister’s stead. Ringo tells herself that if she does this, then her family will be reunited. She fervently holds onto this as she grows up, and this belief informs all of her often drastic actions throughout the first half of the show. Ringo’s parents are seemingly long-divorced once we as an audience meet them in Penguindrum‘s present, and show no signs of getting back together, but this only drives Ringo to further desperation, especially when she sees her father with another woman with a daughter. While Ringo experiences life as a proxy for her sister, especially while pursing a romantic relationship with Tabuki, the stuffed kappa and otter that she carried during that fight as a child occasionally reappear. In “You and I Are Connected by M” they show up during her false wedding night, a stark reminder of just how warped her worldview has become with that fight as a catalyst.

In Japanese folklore, otters and kappas aren’t particularly admirable creatures — tricksters at best, murderers at worst — and standing in for Satoshi and Eriko doesn’t cast a complimentary light on either of Ringo’s parents. Their opposing viewpoints on how to deal with their grief tears their family apart and affects Ringo’s mental well-being long after that defining conversation, making her believe that she needs to become her sister in order to be loved. It’s not Satoshi and Eriko’s fault that Momoka died — this is another instance of Chiemi and Kenzan’s actions tainting the entire world around them — but they still pass this on to Ringo, making her feel unloved and unwanted from a young age.

Across a variety of prefectures, otters were seen as murderous shapeshifters who would appear as beautiful women before killing men. They were also said to possess humans, and were sometimes described as a type of kappa or said to turn into kappa upon growing older. Kappa have long been blamed for drownings of both humans and animals. In pursuit of the elusive shirikodama, kappa would drown their prey and then extract the ball from the anus by force, either through pulling or sucking.

The otter is more deceitful than the kappa and could say a lot about what Penguindrum thinks of Ringo’s father. In Episode 5, Ringo meets up with the distracted Satoshi, who interrupts their visit, revealing a moray eel cell phone strap that replaced the penguin one all three of them bought together. The moray eel returns in Ringo’s flashback, destroying the dinner table and knocking out both the kappa and otter in Ringo’s dream. Despite the fact that it seems like Satoshi is the one who cares for Ringo more in the argument, he’s completely distracted during their dinner and seems to have moved on not only from Momoka’s death, but from his old family entirely.

Ringo also ends up with her mother, the kappa, and presumably only sees her father on visitation day. By contrast, present-day Eriko is shown to be a loving, caring mother with a small devious streak.

“Even in this rotten world, I’m not letting go of desire.”

-Reo Niiboshi, @keeponly1luv

The previews of Sarazanmai unite otter imagery with the policeman duo of Reo and Mabu and the ideas of mining desire from the masses. We already know that our main kappa trio is going to be composed of Kazuki Yasaka, Toi Kuji, and Enta Jinai, and employed by Keppi, the so-called crown prince of the Kappa Kingdom. They appear to be pitted against each other, but could be after similar goals with different means or execution. The kappa trio is focused on connection, while the policeman duo seems more honed in on this idea of desire, notably separate from love, and all-encompassing. Following the path of other Ikuhara “villains,” Reo and Mabu likely have good reasons for why they’re doing whatever they’re doing, influenced by societal mores or existing social structures.

Reo and Mabu have also been behind the bulk of pre-series promotion. Until March 31, they had their own Twitter account where the two posted daily. They were in the first character art released for the series, and also have their own manga: Reo and Mabu ~Together We Are Sarazanmai~. As “otters,” they may turn out to be deceitful, manipulative, and also playful.

It’s important to see that Satoshi and Eriko in Penguindrum were similar to each other as well — an otter is said to be a type of kappa — even when they found themselves on opposite sides of the parenting argument. They also were people affected by a great tragedy. This affected how Ringo grew up, and they are both accountable for that, but neither of them could be considered evil people. Reo and Mabu, even if they are antagonists at the beginning, will likely follow a similarly nuanced path.

When Cross Game initially aired, the small handful of western Mitsuru Adachi went to work, attempting to spread the word of a bestselling Japanese artist who was an unknown in the west. Touch, a domestic phenomenon in Japan, was cited in tandem with Cross Game as his most influential and greatest work. Although Cross Game is more accessible — especially for western anime viewers — and modern, Touch is Adachi’s magnum opus. Mix: Meisei Story is Adachi’s latest, set in the same universe as Touch, decades later.

It’s impossible to talk about Mix without mentioning Touch, but not for the reasons you may think.

The opening of Mix pulls on any existing heartstrings that an informed Touch or Adachi fan would have. Viewers relive Tatsuya Uesugi and Meisei High School’s Koshien victory from Touch through a 3:4 aspect ratio as if they’re watching game film in coach’s darkroom, a visual reminder of how many years have passed. Bridging the gap between old and new, Mix focuses on a memento honoring that Koshien win, widening the screen while further saturating the colors. The transition is seamless and poignant, letting us know by the trophy’s solitary status that this was the only time in Meisei’s history that they won the tournament. We see a time lapse of Meisei students in front of the school until the series finally rests on the three Tachibana siblings as children, playing catch at the Meisei entrance.

Aurally accompanying us on this journey down memory lane is a narrator: the voice of Touch heroine Minami Asakura, Noriko Hidaka. She is another bridge between past and present, chiding the Tachibana brothers in a familiar tone to Minami’s scolding of Tatsuya and Kazuya Uesugi.

In what seems like aeons ago but was really only 2012, I wrote about the idea of a universal nostalgia in Shoji Kawamori’s AKB0048 — the idea that pop music like the entire AKB48 discography would stand the test of time to be sung by several generations of AKB women decades later sounds preposterous in theory, but could somehow work in practice, given the way our brains engage with media, especially music. If Adachi’s works have a similar universal nostalgia, it’s for that liminal space between junior high and high school, where you discover that the person you grew up with might be the love of your life, come to terms with or live through a tragedy, and pour your heart into a sport like baseball with eventual success.

This space doesn’t exist. It’s transient and fluid, only coming into existence years later. Yet Adachi stories bring it to life. It’s a powerful and emotionally-resonant corner of our minds, especially in hindsight, when we look back and kick our childhood selves for not realizing how good we had it.

Mix works on both of these nostalgia levels: a continuation of a specific cultural touchstone in Touch, and on a more universal level, of fleeting and ephemeral school days.

Adachi’s stories aren’t comfort food as much as they are a specific meal, reserved for a special occasion from time to time, that makes your eyes well with unshed tears due to a deep emotional connection. They’re familiar but in a fathomless way that’s both refreshing and binding. Even if Mix wasn’t a continuation of Touch, set at Meisei High, Touch would inevitably crop up in Mix discussions, as it did when Cross Game aired in 2009. Every work in the Adachi oeuvre walks a similar path and builds upon the same nostalgia. Adachi’s stories make “formulaic” a compliment rather than an insult, and Mix is no exception. It’s why, despite knowing that the episode will end with Toma Tachibana on the mound, his pitching — visually-framed exactly like the opening film of Tatsuya Uesugi — still makes for an electrifying moment.

Who is Sara?

The short answer is, a local idol of Asakusa in Sarazanmai. The longer answer could relate to a kappa’s head dish (sara) and director Kunihiko Ikuhara’s penchant for Greek choruses.

Major spoilers for Mawaru Penguindrum. Mild spoilers for Revolutionary Girl Utena.

A Greek chorus in the traditional sense was a large, homogenous group of up to 50 people who, with an informed viewpoint, accompanied the audience through the story unfolding onstage. Dressed like the general population of the work being performed, they were said to be a bridge between the audience and the characters onstage, who were often divine beings.

Other iterations of Greek choruses as they evolved through the years as a theatrical element are commonly an informed group who comment on the action, spelling out allegorical or symbolic elements of the story or giving viewers a peek into the characters’ psyches. In Little Shop of Horrors, a trio of street urchins interact with the main characters frequently, but also begin large musical numbers with the entire cast, and sing songs that give greater insight to characters’ motivations. They’re also members of the Skid Row populace that makes up the cast of the musical.

Revolutionary Girl Utena was Ikuhara’s first original project as a director and features his most classic example of a Greek chorus element. A trio of high school girls appear in shadows, framed against a rose backdrop. Called the “Shadow Girls” or “Kashira Players” — due to their refrain of “Kashira, kashira, gozonji kashira?” (Do you know, do you know, have you heard the news?) — they launch into a short skit in every episode. With mannerisms ranging from slightly vague and symbolic to very direct, the skit spells out what that Utena episode aims to talk about.

For example, in the fourth episode of Utena, one of the Shadow Girls talks about how the first person to have a crush on her in middle school was a boy who was a math whiz. Yet, when he found out she liked weird or un-feminine things like pro wrestling and garlic ramen, he left her. They leave with the phrase “The truth behind the girl. Do you really know what it is?”

What follows is a study session featuring several desperate attempts by Nanami Kiryuu to “out” Anthy Himemiya as a loser, costing Anthy her newfound friends in Utena Tenjou and Miki Kaoru. Nanami is foiled at every turn, with both Miki and Utena accepting or even liking Anthy’s weirder tendencies. Unlike the Shadow Girl’s first boyfriend, they accept Anthy for who she is. Yet, it’s not that simple. There’s an added layer that all parties involved in this math review (another nod from the Shadow Girls’ tale) are involved in the mysterious after school duels for Anthy, the Rose Bride. None of them know the “truth behind the girl,” and that truth could refer to Anthy, Utena, and even Nanami herself. Some of the meanings behind the Shadow Girls’ plays are only revealed until after the series is finished, and a viewer returns to Utena for a second time.

In Mawaru Penguindrum, idol duo Double H becomes the series’ Greek chorus element. Appearing in daily slogans on the subway, Double H offer advice and commentary to the main characters of Penguindrum along with hints at the series’ thematic elements. Like the Shadow Girls’ plays in Utena, many meanings behind Double H’s slogans aren’t fully revealed until the series ends.

A particularly gut-wrenching example can be found in Penguindrum‘s third episode when Ringo Oginome brings a pot of curry on the train and the smell offends her fellow passengers who complain it’s something “foreign.” The slogan features Double H hosing down an icon with offensive body odor before saying “Stop Physicurry Odor.”

When this episode first aired, it wasn’t yet clear that Penguindrum would be addressing the 1995 terrorist attack on the Tokyo subway by the Aum Shinrikyo cult. Later on in the series, Penguindrum makes it clear that not only is the series about those sarin gas attacks, but that it’s addressing them directly. What becomes a slight poke at possible xenophobia via so-called foreign smell becomes a direct reference to the sarin gas used in the attacks, which was said to have a sickly-sweet odor like rotting food or vomit. Passengers began to complain about the smell first, before the sarin began to violently attack their nervous systems. Further driving this point home is a shot directly of Ringo and other passengers’ feet as she enters the subway car. The perpetrators of this attack placed sarin packets in bags, which they then stomped on beneath the subway seats to release the gas. It’s no coincidence that this shot follows Ringo into the subway. Similarly, it’s no coincidence that Double H’s slogan tells us that Penguindrum is going to be about these terrorist attacks before stating this outright in Episodes 11 and 12.

With less room to tell its story — an episode count of 12 instead of Penguindrum‘s 24 or Utena‘s 39 — Yuri Kuma Arashi doesn’t have a structured Greek chorus element like Ikuhara’s other two works. Instead, it presents thematic elements through the whispers of the young women at Arashigaoka Academy and the three judgmens of the Severance Court. These too, take on different meetings once a viewer has been informed by Yuri Kuma Arashi‘s ending.

This brings us to Sarazanmai‘s Sara Azuma, local idol of Asakusa, and a bit of speculation based on how Ikuhara has used Greek chorus elements in prior works. Sara appears in all of the “Connected” previews outside of the Asakusa Matsuya on a billboard. She is also in the main trailer and additionally appeared in her own teaser during a broadcast marathon of Ikuhara’s works before Sarazanmai‘s airdate.

In the Sarazanmai trailer, Sara greets us with a loud, “Good morning!” in English after Kazuki Yasaka’s initial monologue about failing to connect with others. She returns several times throughout the trailer in the form of what looks like her own local streaming show, commenting on local events or holding her own events. Sara seems to be connected to the ubiquitous katakana “A” (ア) scattered throughout Asakusa and her fortune-telling show is full of puns using her name, Sara. Kazuki’s room is full of Sara merchandise, his younger sibling does what appears to be Sara’s signature pose, and Kazuki’s cell phone charm is even of Sara’s icon, showing his dedication to (or obsession of) Asakusa’s local idol.

Iconography around Sara, including the ア, is reminiscent of Penguindrum‘s Double H and the duo’s subway slogans. This style comes from graphic designer Wataru Okabe who worked on Penguindrum and is returning to work with Ikuhara in Sarazanmai. Sara’s “Fortune of Today” or “Today’s Topic” shown in the previews could easily become Sarazanmai‘s Greek chorus element. There’s already been speculation of what her fortunes could mean.

For an addendum, in the supplementary manga that follows policeman duo Reo Niiboshi and Mabu Akutsu, Sara is specifically named “dish” (sara), not after a kappa’s head dish, but because she was found on a dish in the middle of the street. The two raise her together as their child. This doesn’t mean that this will happen in the Sarazanmai anime (the Utena and Yuri Kuma Arashi manga didn’t follow their anime counterparts exactly) but it’s something to keep in mind.

A world without music. A world without art. A world without — insert Shoji Kawamori voice here — culture.

This is the setting of Carole and Tuesday. Fifty years after Mars was colonized by humanity, everything culture-related is designed by algorithms. It’s not a society without culture per se, but it’s one where art is completely removed from human hands — a much more realistic outcome of what is currently happening across every artistic discipline.

Carole and Tuesday isn’t the first series to take on a world without music or art, but it could end up being one of the most prescient.

There are myriad thematic constants in all of director Shinichirou Watanabe’s works and one of the largest ones is music. Known for blending multiple genres together in his works, music becomes a unifying force that binds them together, especially through Watanabe’s partnership with composer Yoko Kanno. Cowboy Bebop‘s opening theme “Tank!” and entire soundtrack are still held up as one of the best of all time, and a frequently-cited favorite of Kanno’s fans. Kanno and Watanabe use hip hop in Samurai Champloo and take on jazz music in Kids on the Slope.

Music means a lot to Watanabe and this love becomes the primary thematic element of his latest work, Carole and Tuesday, in a way that’s more incisive and even more personal in a way than it was in Kids on the Slope. Where Kids on the Slope tackled how music transformed Kaoru Nishimi and Sentarou Kawabuchi’s individual lives, Carole and Tuesday aims for something significantly broader, much like its two leads, Carole and Tuesday: eschewing the algorithm, and the idea of what music (or art) can be.

Any artist, musician, or maybe just any artist who has been told that if they really wanted to do something useful, they should have gone into a STEM field, might want to pay attention to what this series will have to say. There’s no direct correlation between Carole and Tuesday and, for example, the current discussion of how Spotify pays artists, but the latter is difficult to put aside in your mind while watching if you know anything about it.

Further commentary can be found in environmental details. Carole is the only person on the road outside of an army of self-driving vehicles. There are some interesting, “inspirational” messages behind Tuesday when she arrives in the city and promptly has her luggage stolen. Art still exists in this world, but that art is commodified and produced according to an assumption of tastes without human input on the creative process. This is further exemplified by the music producer Mr. Tao, who tells the child star Angela that she is the first non-AI “musician” that he’s worked with, and that she’ll have to become his marionette, implying that there’s little creative process involved whatsoever.

Yet, these two young women aren’t creating music for the purpose of upending the algorithm, striking back at society, or anything other than expressing themselves as people. The other baggage just happens to come with that creative territory because the act of making music with their own hands, completely organically, is an act of defiance due to the social order, particularly for Carole, who says that she already knows that no one will listen to someone like her.

One of the more interesting, seemingly throwaway, moments in Carole and Tuesday is when Carole posts their first selfie together to Instagram (unchanged to a similarly-named off brand, which is impressive in its own right when you think about it and also thematically relevant). The camera later zooms in on their stat line: zero followers, zero likes.

The selfie and accompanying, “Yay” is a posed recreation of their organic and emotionally-charged reaction to their first jam session where both Carole and Tuesday, basking in the afterglow of creating their first song together, high five each other from across the room with a loud, “Yay!” This happens away from everything but the series camera. Naturally, the recreation for social isn’t going to have the same punch as the original. There’s also the real-life carole_and_tuesday Instagram account that posts the same images shown in the series.

Social media is a double-edged sword in that it allows smaller artists to gain traction organically. Many the unassuming artist has gone viral online and subsequently turned that into a legitimate career (or a one-hit wonder at the very least). However, most social media platforms are also increasingly skewed to those that have more money and resources. The slightly-futuristic Mars where Carole and Tuesday are trying to create music together and release it into the ether is home to a world where computer algorithms, like the ones used on current social media platforms, have completely taken over, automatically curating and dispensing what appears to be “best” (or perhaps simply the most lucrative). This isn’t a new story — money has ruled over music production for years — but the added detail that entertainment isn’t banned but controlled through technology is an interesting and timely theme.

It’s no coincidence that Carole and Tuesday — even with Tuesday’s departure from her obviously wealthy family, which is an entire other can of worms — shout their aspirations from a rooftop in a poor neighborhood across the river towards a glittering city that, despite being geographically located on Mars, doesn’t look all that different from modern major cities.

As for the music itself, Carole and Tuesday seems to be focusing on a broader pop music (which can come from multiple genres) rather than a specific genre like hip hop or jazz. Cyndi Lauper’s “True Colors” lends its name to the title of this episode and is an inspiration for Tuesday’s pursuit of music. “True Colors” is more general pop, and the next episode is called, “Born to Run,” after the Bruce Springsteen rock-and-roll pop song.

“The more boxes you have, the happier you’ll be! Take a Happy Selfie, send it to your special someone, and you’ll be even happier, dish~”

-Sara Azuma, Sarazanmai, Episode 1

Prior to Sarazanmai‘s television debut, director Kunihiko Ikuhara said in an interview with Pash+ “We live in an age where, with our smart phones and social media, connecting with people is a daily activity––so I wanted to ask, what does that all mean? What do we want to do with [those connections]?”

Sarazanmai is the most outwardly direct Ikuhara has been in a series premiere. Even the tagline of Sarazanmai‘s first episode, “I Want to be Connected, But I Want to Lie” neatly bookends the entirety of episode’s fairly self-contained plot. Naturally there’s a lot more to dig into, but in terms of Ikuhara premieres, this one was surprisingly succinct.

In Asakusa, across the Sumida River, Kazuki Yasaka has a secret. He carries that secret openly, in a cardboard box, wherever he goes. Carrying that box is one of his three rules to life.

In Asakusa, across the Sumida River, Toi Kuji has a secret. He hides it in a cardboard box in a storage locker. Inside that box, he keeps a gun.

In Asakusa, across the Sumida River, Enta Jinai has a secret. He received it in a cardboard box. It was a gift for someone special, but he can’t give it to that person any longer.

All of these secrets are much more than the items in their boxes suggest. They’re icons, much like the faceless crowds of people that drift through Asakusa in the backgrounds of Sarazanmai. Toi’s gun is a tenuous connection to his older brother that we know little about. Enta’s Kappazon branded fitness tracker was a gift for Kazuki when both of them were on the soccer team, yet Kazuki recently quit. Each of these items represent a connection that Toi and Enta have with someone that has been boiled down and turned into an icon that arrives in a Kappazon-branded box.

While blogging Mawaru Penguindrum, one writer of a now-defunct blog said something that has resonated with me ever since, and is applicable to Sarazanmai as well. In the rush to identify the Kiga apple sticker or the Penguinforce apple sticker we forget that apples in their natural state are unbranded completely.

In previous Ikuhara works, boxes have similarly held a character’s innermost desires — something that they wish to keep hidden or completely static and unchanging. As we continue on this journey to digest what Sarazanmai is telling us, let’s remember that like the Penguindrum apple, cardboard boxes don’t have to be branded. By contrast, unlike the apple, cardboard boxes are by default a vehicle with which to transport material goods. They’re man-made, and frequently branded.

Onto Kazuki’s Kappazon-branded Sara Azuma outfit. It’s a costume that outs him as a crossdresser and possible superfan of local Asakusa idol Sara by posing as instructed for her “Lucky Selfies.”

In extracting the shirikodama — in Japanese folklore, a small anus ball that kappa steal from humans, in Sarazanmai, a human’s innermost desire also stolen from the anus, like in folklore — from their first episode opponent, a box zombie, Kazuki exclaims that he understands. Before discovering the box zombie’s secret, he yells at the zombie, saying that it’s the zombie’s fault for having a secret that could get them in trouble. Despite the zombie’s pleas to stop the extraction, they continue, and the entire process reveals that this person’s desire was related to stealing boxes and wearing them over his head while naked. Kazuki doesn’t show a lot of empathy towards someone whose secret he forcibly exposed, and his seemingly heartlessness is subsequently revealed as a deep self-loathing when Kazuki’s own crossdressing secret and impersonation of Sara is exposed to the other two boys.

Sarazanmai gives us enough clues to know that it’s not simply an infatuation with Sara. It’s somehow related to Kazuki’s sibling, Haruka, who is a Sara superfan. While packing the Sara costume back into his branded box, Kazuki yells that he would do anything for Haruka. Kazuki’s secret isn’t simple, it’s complex and deeply personal, like most true desires. It can’t be simplified down to just a Sara costume.

Earlier in the episode, we see the policeman duo of Reo and Mabu interrogating the same young man, pre-zombification, at their police station. At the end of the episode, Reo and Mabu extract the desire from another human at the station — presumably the next episode’s kappa zombie. Kappa prince Keppi (with the trio of boys) and Reo and Mabu seem to be similarly-motivated, but their methods and outlooks aren’t in agreement.

Today’s Fortune from Sara Azuma:

“Normal humans can’t see him. Simply Asakusa Sara TV. I’m looking for my prince. They need to have a sexy voice, smell nice, have nice pale skin, and not be a frog.”

Every week, I’m going to dedicate the final section of these episodic posts to Sara’s fortune. I’m standing by the prediction that she’s going to be used as a Greek chorus element, even if she’s also going to be actively involved in the show as a person and not simply through a phone or billboard screen, as Kazuki’s activities would suggest.

Her fortune for this episode involves searching for a prince whose description matches Keppi, foreshadowing his arrival. Her aforementioned Lucky Selfie item is a box, which becomes the item representing the person behind the zombie in this episode.

Himari Takakura’s first brush with divinity came years before she met Sanetoshi in the library.

Forgive me, for I am about to blaspheme (a bit).

A recurring theme of Mawaru Penguindrum is various characters’ encounters with the divine. Godhood comes the form of Sanetoshi, Momoka Oginome, or Himari as the Princess of the Crystal and transforms the lives of Kanba and Shouma Takakura, Ringo Oginome, Keiju Tabuki, Yuri Tokikago and so on. Following these life-changing, mystical experiences, these characters spend the majority of Penguindrum‘s runtime trying to reconnect with that fleeting Other, beyond the scope of humanity.

When these spiritual elements of Penguindrum are discussed, it’s rarely Himari Takakura who is featured beyond her role as the princess. Himari becomes the Princess of the Crystal after she meets Sanetoshi and this, along with her scene with Shouma in the Child Broiler, is perceived as her default brush with the spiritual. From that moment, Himari is bypassed as someone who is trying to somehow hold onto her mystic experience and instead becomes an agent for others (particularly Kanba). Of all characters who have brushes with the divine, Himari is the one who is most accepting of it as a fleeting encounter.

Her scene with Shouma is important in determining why this is, even if she doesn’t remember for most of the series that it was Shouma with whom she shared the fruit of fate. Shouma reached out to Himari and she was able to separate herself from the other children in the Child Broiler: a sterile, terrifying representation of societal pressures as a whole. As Shouma himself says in his opening monologue about fate, “Because, ever since that day, none of us had a future and the only certain thing was that we wouldn’t amount to anything.” This is the certainty of the Child Broiler. Desperate, spiritual desire is one thing that helps lift people from the Child Broiler, naming them as “chosen,” as Momoka did for Tabuki and Yuri, and Shouma did for Himari.

Revisiting Super Frog Saves Tokyo, there’s a specific reason why this short story was chosen above Haruki Murakami’s other works while delving into Himari’s psyche: it’s about an average person. When Katagiri is enlisted by Frog to quell Worm before Worm’s actions have more horrific consequences, Katagiri is, for lack of a better phrase, a nobody. Frog and Worm are divine beings of sorts, two complementary but opposed halves of a whole that are meant to represent, among other things, nature itself. In Katagiri’s specific circumstance, Frog is good and Worm is bad, just as for most of Penguindrum, Momoka is regarded as good and Sanetoshi is regarded as bad. But this is inherent to Katagiri’s situation and his actions more than it is a universal truth. Similarly, we see Momoka and Sanetoshi most frequently through their most prominent agents: Ringo, Tabuki, and Yuri for Momoka, Kenzan and Cheimi Takakura for Sanetoshi.

Super Frog Saves Tokyo is one in a collection of Murakami short stories called after the quake, an attempt to reconcile or accept the 1995 Kobe earthquake. Unlike Underground: The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche — another favorite of Penguindrum‘s and a source of Shouma’s aforementioned monologue — Super Frog Saves Tokyo is about coming to terms with a force of nature beyond human control, and one human’s momentary heroism at the behest of nature. The important part is the Katagiri is average. His actions give Frog meaning, and this is the heroism.

Throughout Himari’s conversation with Sanetoshi, divine curator of her memories for that moment, Sanetoshi repeats that Himari is special. She has been chosen by fate. She is the bride of fate. And she must go to the destination of fate. Yet, Himari is also just as average as Katagiri. It’s Himari’s reaction to this fate, that elevates her character. Despite active memory repression or simply not remembering her childhood friends, Himari’s reaction is not at all similar to her adoptive parents’ reactions — Kenzan and Chiemi were members of a cult not unlike Aum Shinrikyo and perpetrators of the Penguindrum version of the 1995 Tokyo Subway Attack. Much of this has to do with her early childhood friendship with Shouma.

Himari had another formative “divine” encounter years ago, in elementary school, through her friendship with Hibari and Hikari.

As the idol group Double H, Himari’s childhood friends Hibari and Hikari become a Greek chorus element within Penguindrum, cheekily winking at the viewing audience from their subway advertisements. During Himari’s first visit to Sanetoshi and his mystical library, we learn that her second divine encounter was with this idol duo now called Double H. They were originally going to debut with Himari as Triple H, until Himari was pulled from school and her parents’ crimes became public.

Year’s later, Himari discovers that her two friends went on to become idols in, as Sanetoshi says, possibly the most hurtful way: she sees one of their advertisements on the subway, and then sees them on television. Separated from them due to circumstances beyond her control (her parents were discovered to have been behind the terrorist attacks on the subway) she could have easily despaired and returned to the Child Broiler.

Himari, despite obvious jealousy and disappointment that she didn’t become an idol with them, later knits them scarves as a symbol of their lasting friendship — scarves are another call-out to her childhood friendship when Shouma “chose her” — from her hospital bed. She struggles with these feelings, ultimately giving up and throwing them away, saying that her former friends wouldn’t want presents from “someone like her,” implying that the weight of her parents’ sins carries over.

One of Sanetoshi’s more interesting decisions in Penguindrum is that he sends these scarves to Hibari and Hikari, despite Himari’s momentary despair. Like Himari’s discovery that Hibari and Hikari became idols at all, this discovery is also somewhat by chance via a television program. Even in the library, he continuously pokes and prods at this particular wound of Himari’s, but he never seems to be actively trying to recruit her into his post-apocalyptic vision as he did her parents. When discussing Penguindrum, Sanetoshi is frequently slotted in as a stand-in for Aum leader Shoko Asahara, but he’s also more than that: a divine element to be interpreted with less rigidity.

It’s no coincidence that Double H specifically are idols in practice because they are Himari’s idols having been her friend at an important time in her life. The moment that Hibari and Hikari react not with disgust but by actively reaching out to Himari transforms her life. This, and her prior encounter with Shouma, helps Himari, like Katagiri before her, transform what she is given into something extraordinary for others. It doesn’t stop with Double H, and even more miraculously, Double H reciprocate Himari’s feelings, proving that their friendship isn’t conditional. Ultimately, Himari’s sacrifice is that she chooses to live, despite the pain inherent to being alive. Her heroic nature in choosing this comes from relationships with her found brothers (Shouma and Kanba) and her childhood friends (Hibari and Hikari).

In conclusion, the above image — a throwaway scene towards the end of the series where Double H have tried to visit Himari only to be told by Ringo that she’s not home — speaks volumes. Shouma, Himari’s original divine encounter that saved her from the Child Broiler, passes by the disguised Double H, friends that Himari was able to make and continue passing the fruit of fate forward, so to speak. It tells us what Himari’s choice is before she makes it.

“I never asked anyone to understand me! This is my own business. It’s the connection between me and Harukappa. For that, I’ll pretend to be anything!”

-Kazuki Yasaka, Sarazanmai, Episode 1

Naturally, some of the questions inspired by Kazuki Yasaka’s outburst is of Harukappa, who they are, and what Kazuki’s relationship or connection to them is exactly.

The short answer is that Harukappa is Harukawa Yasaka, a kid who lives with Kazuki and is likely Kazuki’s younger sibling.

(a few mild spoilers for Mawaru Penguindrum, specifically Episode 9)

The longer answer involves Kazuki’s “desire box,” which is packed with a Sara Azuma costume, makeup, and a wig in order for Kazuki to crossdress as Sara to take her lucky selfies. One of his primary motivators for doing this daily is Haruka. Before delving into that, I want to return to another Kunihiko Ikuhara property in Mawaru Penguindrum for a framework, and one particular creator involved with both series among many other things: Nobuyuki Takeuchi.

Takeuchi is fairly well-known for his work at SHAFT on various parts of the Monogatari series. He was a supervisor under Ikuhara for Revolutionary Girl Utena, and draws from some similar influences but has his own tweaks to his style.

This was particularly evident in his episode of Penguindrum, “Frozen World” where he combined his visual style and a few tricks that he had learned at SHAFT with Ikuhara’s overall vision of the series. It was one of the most well-received episodes of that entire series. Takeuchi did everything from direction, to storyboarding, to key animation. “Frozen World” revisits a scene from the series’ first episode and tells it from Himari’s point of view. While in the real world, Himari is unconscious due to her mysterious illness, Himari is spiritually visiting Sanetoshi Watase at his Hole in the Sky library.

“Frozen World” marks a major turning point for both Himari Takakura and the audience’s understanding of the entire Penguindrum narrative. It’s a one-episode journey that Himari specifically takes through her own memories of her friends and family as well as outside events that affected those relationships. At the end of her adventure, Sanetoshi gives her the penguin hat — the “real” one being an aquarium gift shop souvenir that Shouma Takakura purchased for Himari — and Himari enacts the survival strategy. “Frozen World” recontextualizes every episode that came before it and informs episodes that follow.

Takeuchi uses a lot of the same tricks from “Frozen World” in the cold open of Sarazanmai‘s first episode, “I Want to be Connected, but I Want to Lie.”

While Kazuki is running at night we see a camera pan along the Sumida River underneath Azumabashi (Azuma Bridge). The imagery is similar to Himari being entranced by the reflection off of the water at the aquarium. A voice (presumably Haruka) calls out “Kazu-chan!”

Throughout Kazuki’s inner monologue about connections, a circle is being cut from a piece of sheet metal. When the circle is closed, a large metal sign (or dish) with the ubiquitous character “㋐” appears. As the voice cries out, Kazuki turns, avoiding the falling dish from the sky moments later, which falls next to him. However, he doesn’t truly avoid the dish because he’s caught up in it the next moment. Takeuchi uses water imagery and repeats a similar latticework from the aquarium elevator to show falling ㋐s from the sky. (As a sidenote, the smaller ㋐ dish icons are reminiscent of blood droplet icons from Penguindrum.)

The visuals, coupled with Takeuchi’s work on “Frozen World,” hint that a similar revelation could be to come later in Sarazanmai. Kazuki has been affected by something prior to even his kappa transformation. Perhaps the large metal ㋐ sign killed him before the timeframe of the series even began (note: this is pure speculation). If the otter/kawauso and taiko drum appearing during the ㋐ scene is anything to go by, he may have undergone a similar transformation to the kappa zombies created by policeman duo Reo Niiboshi and Mabu Akutsu. One odd thing to note is that it’s a single otter and not the mitsudomoe imagery that accompanies Reo and Mabu.

A microcosm of this within Sarazanmai already happens when Enta Jinai’s desire box begins to float in the air and quickly takes off into the sky, leaving Enta and his sister dumbfounded. Later events in the first episode reveal that this happened because of a kappa zombie on the parallel spiritual plane of the “Field of Desires.” These zombies, along with Keppi and the main trio in kappa form, are not visible to, as Sara Azuma says in her daily fortune, normal humans. Keppi’s revelation of their existence recontextualizes the floating box that Enta saw, and the myriad floating boxes around the city. Similarly, there’s an interesting discrepancy between who Toi Kuji initially perceived (Sara Azuma) and the reality revealed during the sarazanmai connection (Kazuki dressed as Sara Azuma).

What we do know of Kazuki’s activities is as follows: he waits for Sara to reveal her lucky selfie item, dresses up as Sara, takes a picture of himself as Sara, and sends this lucky selfie to “Harukappa” or Haruka as Sara. All signs point to Haruka not knowing that it’s Kazuki at all, and thinking that they’re receiving selfies from Sara herself. This idea is further supported by texts on Kazuki’s phone with a goodnight message (shown during the cold open) and bookended by Haruka in bed, about to fall asleep, texting “Sara” goodnight.

“Only those who can connect desires can have a future.”

-Mabu Akutsu, Sarazanmai, Episode 2

Ah, the things we do for love.

One of the oft-repeated refrains of Mawaru Penguindrum‘s first few episodes was, “Himari no tame ni!” (For Himari! For Himari’s sake!) For their sister, Himari Takakura, Kanba and Shouma Takakura were willing to do a variety of things — Kanba in particular.

Here we see this dilemma repeated with multiple Sarazanmai pairs: Kazuki and Harukawa Yasaka (for the sake of Haruka!), Toi and Chikai Kuji (for the sake of Chikai, but since Chikai is the older brother, I’m not ruling out the fact that he’s doing a lot of his illegal activities for the sake of Toi), and presumably Reo Niiboshi and Mabu Akutsu (for the sake of Mabu). The question that Sarazanmai poses is whether the sacrifices made are worth it, or even the sacrifices that /should/ be made over others. Penguindrum, Revolutionary Girl Utena, and Yuri Kuma Arashi all dealt with fundamental misunderstandings on behalf of the person making the sacrifice as to what their sibling/lover/special person would want in the first place. I expect Sarazanmai to be no different.

The episode title ties directly into this, “I Want to Connect, but I Want to Take.”

Kazuki’s devotion to his younger brother, Haruka, is obvious and a highlight of this episode. Both sarazanmai leakage scenes have involved the great lengths that Kazuki will go to capture those lucky selfies and continue pretending to be Sara for the sake of Haruka. There’s likely something more at stake than simply making Haruka happy. Regardless, in this episode we see that Kazuki has no problems stealing someone’s cat from their yard — this entire setup was reminiscent of one of my favorite Ikuhara episodes from Sailor Moon‘s first season involving a cat named Rhett Butler — to show it to Haruka, and this is even before Sara announces “cat” as her lucky selfie item.

While he’s not yet at Toi’s level of law-breaking — drowning people, running the weed side business — cat theft could easily be a slippery slope for Kazuki, especially since he stole it a while ago (or repeatedly steals it) so that Haruka could have a pet. The sentiment that he would be willing to do anything for Haruka is actually what’s bringing him closer to Toi and further away from Enta, although Enta does a bit of his own boundary-pushing by kissing a sleeping Kazuki-as-Sara.

There’s also the issue of Kazuki himself, and his life-changing event that was shown in the cold open of the first episode. Sarazanmai poses the question not only of what happened to Kazuki but whether he’s even “alive” at all. This episode raised more suspicions by showing Kazuki’s only interaction with his parents to be after Haruka addressed him specifically. We know that Kazuki can interact directly with Toi and Enta, but given his recent and sudden departure from the soccer club, his “near-death” experience from the ㋐ sign nearly falling on him, and odd interactions, it’s something to keep an eye on.

Returning to our desire otter pair, there seems to be a similar dynamic between Reo and Mabu, albeit a romantic/sexual connection rather than a familial one. At the end of their musical number that transforms a cat criminal into the cat zombie monster of this week, Reo pulls out Mabu’s heart in a very familiar scene for anyone who has seen Utena Tenjou and Anthy Himemiya from Utena, or Kanba and Himari Takakura from Penguindrum. They’re sharing something in that moment, which certainly works as a euphemism for sex, but also deep and lasting connection between the two. It insinuates that there’s very little (or nothing) that Reo and Mabu wouldn’t do for the sake of each other, and that includes turning other people into zombies for their own benefit (presumably after they murder them).

Reo and Mabu also play another role directly related to their in-universe job of policemen. They actively police the desires of others. It’s too early to say definitively that they uphold the status quo, but existing societal norms is what they appear to side with, especially since their two cases thus far have been deviants. Additionally, they specifically make a distinction between “desire” and “love,” forcibly separating the two, which plays into common boys-love media tropes. Yet, true connection between the two would involve both love and desire.

All of Sarazanmai‘s episode titles have been structured as such: “I want to connect/be connected but I want to [X].” The [X] part of the equation is always negative — I want to lie, I want to take — and could be restructured as such linguistically.

I want to be connected, but I don’t want to tell the truth.

I want to connect, but I don’t want to give.

The translated title of the series’ third episode “I want to connect, but it’s not meant to be” includes the negative directly.

These statements all guide us to one of Sarazanmai‘s key thematic elements, the dichotomy of what the series sets up as “love” versus “desire,” wanting something but not wanting a key part of what that something entails.

For someone who claims to be going to great lengths for his brother Haruka, Kazuki Yasaka barely acknowledges him when directly interacting with Haruka. While directly talking to Haruka, Kazuki feigns disinterest and boredom. He tries to appear like he’s uninterested in what Haruka has to say, and the only emotional reaction from Kazuki during one of their conversations is his small cheer to himself at Haruka’s happiness to be chatting with Sara Azuma.

Behind this disinterest is an entire double life of him crossdressing, supposedly for Haruka’s sake, to make him happy.

Enta Jinai shows more brotherly affection for Haruka in a few Episode 3 scenes than Kazuki has within the scope of the series. It’s also revealed that Haruka is disabled, and needs to use a wheelchair to get around. This adds fuel to the theory that something serious happened with both Haruka and Kazuki — most likely depicted in the opening sequence of the series premiere — and Kazuki is trying to make up for it by assuming the image of Sara and texting Haruka as Sara daily. Here, Kazuki gets the “desire” part of the equation, but he doesn’t understand that he truly needs to open up to receive the “love” part. His instant gratification from Haruka’s responses hints at how toxic this relationship could (or already has) become. He gives up everything to capture these lucky selfies as Sara, so he isn’t the one spending time with Haruka in the park. There’s an underlying sense of guilt in Kazuki’s actions, as if he feels responsible for whatever happened to Haruka and therefore is keeping himself at a large distance while indulging himself in a concurrent obsession in the name of making Haruka happy.

In a conversation with Enta, Haruka talks about Kazuki and how he’s worried about his older brother. We see that Kazuki threw out his blue miçanga anklet when he suddenly quit soccer. They both agree that they liked Kazuki better when he played soccer, but Enta’s affirmation has a more selfish tinge to it.

Enta takes the lead for most of this episode, which ends with a heartfelt confession. Of the main trio, Enta certainly seems the most in tune with his own emotions, which makes his confession to Kazuki genuinely heartbreaking, especially when the scene begins to follow the similar comedic trajectory of Enta’s Kazuki daydreams and you know that he’s going to be ignored in some way.

The episode title, “I want to connect, but it’s not meant to be” is slightly different than its predecessors, not only because the negative is included, but because it directly passes off responsibility to another party — in Enta’s case, Kazuki. It implies that part of Enta’s inability to connect is due to someone else and not Enta. This is partially true because Enta’s feelings won’t be returned if Kazuki doesn’t feel romantically towards him in the same way, and he won’t reach his desired connection.

Enta’s feelings are genuine, but he also shows a desire not only for Kazuki, but for things to be as they were. He puts his time with Kazuki in the soccer club up on a pedestal and in a way, is not getting to know Kazuki as himself. Even in his imagined confession, he asks Kazuki to be the golden duo for life. This isn’t to say that Enta isn’t trying — he’s more open and honest about his emotions than Kazuki is regarding Kazuki’s relationship with Haruka, but there’s many facets to his crush on Kazuki, and one of them is a desire to return to what for him was the status quo.

Prior to the series airing, one of the predictions I made was that Sara Azuma, local idol of Asakusa and one of the faces of Sarazanmai, would end up being the series’ Greek chorus element, similar to the Shadow Girls of Revolutionary Girl Utena or Double H in Mawaru Penguindrum. One of her duties, in addition to being a mysterious, ubiquitous presence in the series — alongside the ㋐ icon — her reports would inform us of that particular episode’s events as well as overarching themes in the series as a whole.

Although it appears she’ll likely step out from behind the screen eventually, like her counterparts in prior Kunihiko Ikuhara series, here’s an update on what Sara’s messages could mean thus far, and how they’ve informed events and themes in Sarazanmai.

The caveat is that — like Shadow Girls and Double H — there may be additional meanings hidden in these messages that won’t become apparent until the end of the series. I’ll most likely end up revisiting these in a master post after Sarazanmai is finished to see how right or how wrong these early assumptions are.

Mild spoilers for the Sarazanmai companion manga, Reo and Mabu ~ Together They’re Sarazanmai.

Full translations of Sara’s reports courtesy of Good Haro, who has compiled them on her blog here.

Episode 1: “I Want to Connect, but I Want to Lie”

Lucky Selfie item: boxes

Following the mysterious events of the cold open, Sara’s report accompanies Kazuki Yasaka’s first monologue of the series present. He fervently wishes that her lucky selfie item won’t be “something weird” and it’s revealed to be boxes. The most obvious tie-in is the introduction of Toi Kuji, Enta Jinai, and Kazuki’s symbols of desire packed away in boxes as well as the box zombie that they fight later in the episode. Boxes also introduce Kazuki to Toi, as he accidentally stumbles upon Toi trying to steal a car while crossdressing as Sara for his lucky selfie of the day.

In every episode, Sara gives multiple news reports with crawling text and acts out related events to that episode’s plot with her otter-like plushie companion (to Keppi’s plushie kappa presence). Her first scrolling text in Episode 1 says that she’s looking for a prince and then describes Keppi specifically: “He has a sexy voice, smells good, has smooth white skin, and he is not a frog, dish. His favorite food is cucumber. Normal humans can’t see him.”

She later mentions that her prince is in a cold sleep and waking him will cause the waker to be cursed, much like how Toi and Kazuki accidentally break the kappa statue and Keppi turns them into kappa.

Her final text line appears during her report of boxes mysteriously flying through Asakusa. “I need a large quantity of boxes, dish. I’m hoarding black3der chocolate bars, dish. It’s a secret I can’t tell anyone, dish. [You] need boxes to run away in the middle of the night too, dish. I also–”

Although there have only been three episodes in total, already a lot of what has happened in the show recontextualizes this line from nonsense about hoarding chocolate, to a running commentary on the boys’ own desire box items as well as the items of the kappa zombies created by Reo Niiboshi and Mabu Akutsu. In the Sarazanmai companion manga, Reo and Mabu ~ Together They’re Sarazanmai, Reo and Mabu raise Sara, a magical child who they found on a dish in the middle of the street. Unlike Reo and Mabu’s relationship now — which seems a bit one-sided in affection with Mabu cold and distant and Reo the more affectionate, intensely emotional one — in the manga they’re an awkward and deeply committed domestic couple, struggling to raise Sara.

Given this connection as well as Sara’s otter companion, there’s a strong chance that Sara’s actions are somewhat related to those of Reo and Mabu’s “otter empire.” There’s also the tongue-in-cheek reference that what’s in someone’s desire box may seem stupid on the outside, and certainly isn’t the entirety of their desires, just a simplified, commodified version of it.

That being said, this doesn’t paint Keppi and the otters necessarily as adversaries. It also sets up Sara herself as someone who needs to collect something for her own wish (possibly related to her separation from Keppi), just like Reo for Mabu, Kazuki for his brother Haruka, Enta for Kazuki, and Toi presumably for his older brother Chikai.

Episode 2: “I Want to Connect, but I Want to Take”

Lucky Selfie item: cats

This lucky selfie item is revealed during Kazuki’s conversation with Haruka while they feed Nyantaro — the cat who is revealed to be stolen by Kazuki for Haruka’s “benefit” — but foreshadowed earlier with Kazuki’s conversation with Haruka as Sara. Through this, it’s not only Sara herself who is acting as a Greek chorus element, but Kazuki interestingly steps into that role while he’s pretending to be Sara for Haruka, chatting about cats prior to the selfie item reveal. Nyantaro, like the boxes in the previous episode, becomes the catalyst for this episode’s events, bringing Toi and Kazuki together again.

In Sara’s initial report, she mentions that she’s found her prince (Keppi). He looks different than she remembers, but her love is forever. The connection between Keppi and Sara is still unknown, but this hints at the fact that this many not be Keppi’s actual form, or that there’s still a lot separating Sara from Keppi.

Sara then goes on to talk about fishing in the mountains, listing fish that are delicious to eat, before her text talks about having cats as pets. “Cats are an absolute must-have if you live alone, dish. You can eat together, play on the cat tower together, take naps together, stare at empty wa–”

Although it’s a simple list of jokes about cat people, there’s a bit of a dark twist to it when thinking about both Kazuki and Toi in this episode and how the two of them push away people who try to grow closer to them. The two reach an odd understanding at the amusement park when Kazuki mentions that he’s going to great lengths for his brother specifically. Toi recognizes the similar desperation in Kazuki that he himself has. Yet if Toi’s relationship and thoughts are anything like Kazuki’s, his actions are only likely to separate him further from his brother.

Over Nyantaro, the star cat of this episode, we see the way that Kazuki treats Haruka. He keeps his younger brother at arms’ length and treats him coldly when speaking to him. This is not lost on Haruka, who admits in the following episode that Kazuki used to be happier, and that he misses that Kazuki. Sara’s reminder that cats are supposedly for people who are alone hits hard when you think of all of the emotional separation in this episode, especially between Kazuki and Haruka.

Won’t forget, can’t regret, what I did for love.

One of Nobuyuki Takeuchi’s strengths in his visual direction is taking something established and recontextualizing it with a completely different look or added scene. The entirety of what is widely considered his best episode, Mawaru Penguindrum‘s “Frozen World” is all about this, and there’s little doubt that his opening scene in Sarazanmai will be fleshed out later in the series. His first stint as an episode director in Sarazanmai — he’s already Chief Director of the entire series — sets about giving further context to the developing relationships between the boys of Sarazanmai‘s main trio: Kazuki Yasaka, Toi Kuji, and Enta Jinai.

Since they accidentally destroyed the kappa statue together in the first episode, Kazuki and Toi have been thrust into a variety of absurd situations that should (and have to some extent) pit them against each other. Yet as they open up to each other outside of the “leakage” scenes when connected as kappa, they develop a shared understanding of each other. Toi respects that Kazuki is willing to go to such great and illegal lengths for Haruka, because he’s willing to do the same for his older brother Chikai.

In this episode, we discover why Toi is willing to do this via a leakage scene that is given particular weight and gravity due to music and color choices that frame the serious admission that Toi killed a man when Toi was a child.

Even before this reveal, Kazuki knows that Toi is willing to break the rules of law to get what he wants, and trusts Toi with his own insane plans — this week it’s a plot to momentarily kidnap the real Sara Azuma so Kazuki can take her place, covering up his lies that he is Sara for Haruka. They don’t have the same childhood weight to their friendship that Enta and Kazuki have, making it easier for Kazuki to open up to Toi. In fact, Enta’s crush on Kazuki and his insistence that things return to the status quo as the “Golden Duo” of their soccer club is actively pushing Kazuki away because Kazuki is not the person that Enta wants him to be. That person doesn’t actually exist.

With Toi, Kazuki not only doesn’t have to hide his crossdressing, but can also be completely upfront and honest about his increasingly illegal plans while acting as Sara. This leaves Enta not only in a fragile emotional state regarding Kazuki’s lack of reciprocation, but also precipitates extreme jealousy of Toi and his growing closeness to Kazuki.

This week, Toi and Enta are given another one-on-one scene that serves as a follow-up to Toi discovering a beaten-up Enta last week. In last week’s conversation, Enta inadvertently blames Toi’s arrival, saying that Kazuki quit on the day that Toi joined their class. When Enta says that he wants the dishes of hope to make Kazuki play soccer again, Toi scoffs at him.

Although Toi shows no signs of letting Kazuki have the dishes, he has backed off in the past when Kazuki has talked about why Kazuki needs them. With Enta, Toi offers less leeway, despite offering a sympathetic ear and, in this episode, appearing to be emotionally affected by Enta’s words. Yet, what Enta is willing to do for love isn’t the same as what Toi is willing to do, or Kazuki. There’s still a fundamental difference between Enta and Toi that separates them completely, reinforced visually throughout their confrontation in this episode. In the scene above, only Enta’s shadow stays separate from the entire block of shadow that contains Toi.

As they walk into the abandoned lot, Enta hops over the traffic cones immediately, while Toi pauses before stepping over. It’s a subtle difference that’s given specific visual attention from Takeuchi and crew.

In past episodes, Enta has been shown as a small voice of reason, chiding Kazuki for breaking the law when he stole Nyantaro, and acting astonished at what he thinks is Toi’s brazen disregard for the rules. Last week, we saw the lengths that Enta was willing to go for his crush on Kazuki, which broke all kinds of personal boundaries. Of the two, Enta is far more chaotic and his emotions carry him easily over thresholds that he crosses without care, all while looking down on others for breaking different rules.

This actually makes Enta the most volatile of the group since he lacks a certain consideration that both Toi and Kazuki have been shown to possess, even in an episode where Toi admits that he shot someone as a child and Kazuki lays out a plan to briefly kidnap Sara Azuma. There are additional visual nods tying Enta and Toi together while also separating them by showing similarities between Toi’s childhood apartment and Enta’s current living room. Soccer is a common denominator, and they are even shown to have liked the same player. In another timeline, one where he didn’t have to leave due to killing someone, Toi may have been on the same soccer team with Enta.

After Toi’s reveal and similarities to the soba zombie — he wants to be closer to his brother but his brother is actively pushing him away so he can lead a somewhat normal life — he gets into another dust-up with Enta, reinforcing the divide between the two of them. Enta is still willing to draw very specific lines of what he believes to be “right” or “wrong.”

This is the lead up to Kazuki offering Toi his dish of hope and admitting that he actually hates Haruka.

The visual framing is similar to the way the series captured Enta’s offering of his own dish of hope, complete with the new miçanga, to Kazuki last week. This time, instead of points of light that separate Kazuki and Enta, Kazuki and Toi are united by a line of light behind them. While Enta’s offering was more selfish than anything else — to return his relationship with Kazuki back to what he considers normal, genuine crush or no — Kazuki’s seems to be more selfless.

In that moment, Kazuki simply regards Toi’s desires as more important than his own.

Love has already been pitted against desire in the language of Reo and Mabu during their desire extractions. Yet Kazuki offering up his dish of hope and admitting that his feelings for Haruka are much more complex than we initially thought inspires another train of thought worth following.

What happens if Reo and Mabu determine that one of their victims has love and not desire?

This is a continuation of notes on Sara Azuma’s scrolling text reports and what they could be telling us about Sarazanmai‘s thematic elements and plot events.

Special thanks to Good Haro for full translations of the text crawls here. I highly suggest following her on Twitter as well for more Sarazanmai translated content and speculation.

Sara’s messages in Episodes 1-2 can be found here.

Mild spoilers for the Sarazanmai companion manga, Reo and Mabu ~ Together They’re Sarazanmai.

Episode 3: “I Want to Connect, but It’s Not Meant to Be”

Lucky Selfie item: kiss (also a pun for kisu fish)

Sara’s Episode 3 lucky selfie item is “kiss” which is a pointed jab at all of Enta’s actions not only throughout this episode, but in the final moments of Episode 2 where he kisses Kazuki without Kazuki’s permission.

While announcing her lucky selfie item, Sara says, “The more [item] you have the happier you’ll be!” and this week, indiscriminate kisses take the forefront as Enta wars with himself regarding his love for Kazuki. Prior to his heartfelt (albeit still fairly selfish) confession at the end of the episode, Enta eschews the idea that his kiss was random, a dare, or anything other than love for Kazuki himself. Enta also scorns the kiss/kisu zombie for saying that quantity of kisses matters over kiss quality, reinforcing the idea that he wants to kiss Kazuki and only Kazuki. Like Sara’s words, the zombie of any given week also reflects on a character’s mental state as well as larger themes of the series.

This is the week where Sara’s scrolling text phrases become significantly more esoteric and include recipes as well as continuing allusions to cucumbers, furthering the idea that Keppi is Sara’s long lost prince.

“This is a recipe for cucumber sesame chicken, dish. Prepare the cucumbers. Then kill the chicken. Drain the blood. Pluck the feathers. Then take a little break… Crunch Crunch Crunch”

“In Sara’s home country, we brush our teeth with cucumbers before kissing. Kyukyukyukyukyu~! And we finish it off by drinking cucumber flavored water, dish.”

Episode 4: “I Want to Connect, but You’re So Far Away”

Lucky Selfie item: soba (also a pun on soba ni~, to be close to/in close proximity)

With every rendition of Reo and Mabu’s “Kawausoiya” there’s an emphasis that creates a large distance between “love” and “desire.” Thus far all of Reo and Mabu’s victims have been fairly nefarious characters who acted out their desires in unhealthy ways, precipitating Reo and Mabu’s “desire extraction” that transforms them into zombies for Keppi’s main trio to fight.

The pun of soba noodles, the reveal that the soba zombie (when he was still human) was stealing bathwater from nearby woman’s house (ew) to be closer to her, the pun in the title of the episode “soba ni inai,” and the many distance-related puns of the Kuji family all tie into overarching themes of connection. There is a distance between desire and love. There is a distance between Toi and Chikai.

Now for Sara’s text crawl.

“Writers exist in the space between life and death, dish. Sara exists between Sumida ward and Taito ward, dish. [Sara’s] prince exists between love and desire, dish.”

In Reo and Mabu~ Together They’re Sarazanmai, Reo and Mabu open the manga by finding pancakes on a dish. Mabu becomes obsessed with the flavor and recreates them for Reo in the comfort of their apartment. The next day, they find baby Sara on a dish and, somewhat accidentally, adopt her. Their police box where they perform desire extractions in the anime is located in the Niimi Cooker building in Asakusa (Taito ward).

The young adult Sara of the anime says that she exists “between Sumida and Taito ward” — Taito being the ward that houses Asakusa, and Sumida the ward below or across the Sumida river. The ambiguity of her statement is important because she essentially exists in a space between Taito and Sumida, which either means the river itself, or the all-important Azumabashi bridge which doubles as the Field of Desires in every episode. Sara exists in the same nebulous space that the boys use to capture shirikodama from kappa zombies created by Reo and Mabu. Her prince (Keppi) exists in the space between love and desire — pointing to a plane of existence that doesn’t favor one or the other but possibly both.

We’ll likely receive a lot more context on this and Sara’s place in the series as Sarazanmai continues, but this is a big hint regarding her existence and role.

“No one can find out (about this secret)”

“Go grab it!”

“You and I are supposed to be connected.”

-lyrics from the kappa’s song at the Field of Desires, Sarazanmai

There’s a lot of nuance in “supposed to be” or “should be.” “Supposed to be” or “should be” says that something is not right. Something should exist that does not. Should implies obligation, suggestion, or a likely event.

The lyrics of their songs and patterns of the kappa boys’ actions upon arriving at the Field of Desires have been standardized by the series. This allowed viewers, and Kazuki Yasaka himself, to have a bit of a false sense of security entering Sarazanmai‘s fifth episode.

Yet, if you stop and actually think about Kazuki’s plan, his plot to capture Sara Azuma (even with Toi Kuji’s help) marks a significant escalation in Kazuki’s actions. Stealing someone’s cat, although wrong, is not on the same level as beating up Sara’s manager and kidnapping Sara for the afternoon. This was the episode that proved Kazuki would do anything to continue being Sara for Haruka, and his embarrassing, public failure along with the revelations and leaks about his family lead to another, more critical failure: the failure to connect to Toi and Enta, trapping all three boys as kappa.

“You and I are supposed to be connected” always stood out to me among all of the other lyrics in their shirikodama song. It suggests that something that is likely to exist doesn’t due to unforeseen circumstances, or circumstances out of the kappas’ control.

The evolution of Sarazanmai episode titles has been an interesting pattern, running concurrently with the boys’ struggle to connect with each other and important people in their lives. The first two and the fifth are presumably from Kazuki’s perspective, the third is from Enta’s perspective, and the fourth, Toi’s. The speaker changes depending on who takes the lead that week and whose secrets are leaked in the process.

As mentioned previously, the first two episode titles shift into a negative for the second part of the phrase — I don’t want to tell the truth (I want to lie), I don’t want to give (I want to take). Enta’s is the first that shifts away from this pattern and places more emphasis on an unknown party that’s out of Enta’s control with the phrase “It’s not meant to be.” His romantic love for Kazuki, in Enta’s words, is not meant to be, but this could be for myriad reasons. Kazuki might not be into Enta. Enta’s love is fairly selfish and his desire is to return their relationship to old times while also making Kazuki into a person he cannot be anymore. There’s also societal pressure against homosexuality — Enta isn’t “supposed to” have a crush on Kazuki.

Similarly, the second part of Toi’s title, “You’re so far away” or “You’re not near” shifts focus away from Toi and towards the object of his hidden desires. He’s not close to his older brother Chikai because his brother is physically not near. Yet, Toi is also set some distance emotionally from Chikai, and this is primarily due to Chikai trying to distance himself from Toi as much as possible for Toi’s benefit. Whether this is a good decision or not is up for debate, but Chikai’s actions and few conversations with Toi make Chikai’s reasoning clear.

Tying this back to “should” or “supposed to” in the song lyric, that too implies something that is beyond the boys’ control. The trick is figuring out what truly is out of their hands — Enta can’t force Kazuki to fall in love with him, Toi can’t force his brother to stay — and what they’re willfully ignoring or brushing aside, thereby blaming themselves or others for their failure to connect.

Kazuki takes the position of main vocal in three of Sarazanmai‘s five episodes thus far. It’s no coincidence that for those first two, the episode titles are negative things that belong to the speaker. Kazuki wants to keep lying and it’s stopping him from connecting with Haruka. Kazuki wants to keep taking and it’s stopping him from connecting with Haruka. These both blame Kazuki for his shortcomings that are actively blocking a true sibling relationship with Haruka.

In this episode Kazuki says, through the episode title, that he cannot be forgiven, or that it’s unacceptable and this is why he cannot connect. The language tries to shift focus away from Kazuki, but draws more attention to his debilitating guilt. Kazuki’s guilt is on display throughout the episode from the moment it’s revealed that he’s not a biological member of the Yasaka family to his argument immediately before Haruka’s accident while trying to hide his meeting with his biological mother. He already would have said that “it’s unacceptable” due to his parentage, but Haruka’s accident makes Kazuki’s guilt infinitely worse.

It’s no wonder that Kazuki pretends to be someone else in order to develop a relationship with Haruka. As Sara, Kazuki doesn’t have to worry about Kazuki Yasaka’s guilt. Instead, Kazuki borrows a different persona and build a relationship that way. With Sara, he can compartmentalize his feelings and shift them away for short periods of time. When that Sara persona is revealed as Kazuki to Haruka, Kazuki cannot reconcile the things he feels are his fault — Haruka’s accident, being biologically unrelated to Haruka — while facing Haruka as himself. There’s nothing to suggest that Haruka blames Kazuki in any way, and the situation is not Kazuki’s fault. Yet, what matters are Kazuki’s feelings on the issue and he is boxed in by his own guilt. He now not only cannot connect with Haruka, he cannot connect with Toi or Enta either, trapping all three as kappa.

A speculation post for everyone’s favorite otter cops: Reo Niiboshi and Mabu Akutsu.

Major spoilers for the Sarazanmai manga, Reo and Mabu~ Together They Are Sarazanmai.

Translation of Reo and Mabu’s Twitter archive courtesy of Good Haro.

Reo and Mabu’s domestic life

Kunihiko Ikuhara’ series often have a companion manga. In the case of both Revolutionary Girl Utena and Yuri Kuma Arashi, these were alternate retellings that ran concurrently with the series as they aired. Sarazanmai will have a companion manga with the first chapter releasing on May 17. This is in addition to the first light novel which has already been released and follows the series’ plot with a few minor changes and supplementary details.

Reo and Mabu~ Together They Are Sarazanmai is an outlier to other manga for Ikuhara’s series in that it’s specifically a one-voluma prequel that was released before the show began, and is not the typical concurrent series manga like those of Utena or Yurikuma. Reo and Mabu’s manga prequel seems meant to be digested as just that, a prequel, along with their Twitter account.

The Reo and Mabu of the manga are vastly different from the singing cop duo we see in the Sarazanmai series. Not only are they cops together in Asakusa but they’re in a domestic partnership. The two are emotionally expressive, and obviously care deeply about one another — their teasing in the manga is reminiscent of Sailor Moon‘s Haruka Tenoh and Michiru Kaioh where it’s laced with sexual tension and shows warmth and very committed relationship from both parties. Reo is outgoing and gregarious. He is shown to know nearly everyone in Asakusa in some way or another. Mabu is the more straight-laced of the pair, but even he has his goofier sides, like cooking in only an apron for Reo or becoming singularly obsessed with one thing until he figures it out.

Of the two, Mabu is the most different from his later iteration in the Sarazanmai series. As early as the first manga chapter, Mabu is shown to be fairly possessive of Reo, saying that the food he makes is specifically for Reo to eat — implying that it’s for no one else. By contrast, the Mabu of the series — presumably several years older than he was in the manga — is cold and distant. During their “Kawausoiya” dance and Reo pulling out Mabu’s beating heart, Mabu never looks at Reo while Reo looks lovingly at Mabu the entire time.

Throughout the manga there’s no explanation of how Reo and Mabu began working for the so-called “otter empire,” what happened to Mabu’s heart, or why they have to extract the desires of others, transforming them into “kappa zombies.” Presumably, all of this happens following the scope and timeline of the manga.

Reo and Mabu and Sara

In the manga, Reo and Mabu became fathers of baby Sara Azuma, who they name “Sara” because they discover her in the streets of Asakusa on a plate. Nearly the entirety of the manga could be marketed as, “Sara Azuma and her two extremely good gay dads” as Reo and Mabu go about their daily lives as policemen in Asakusa with adopted baby daughter Sara in tow.

In the penultimate chapter of Reo and Mabu~ Together They Are Sarazanmai begins with both Reo and Mabu waking up suddenly from a dream as baby Sara sleeps between them. the two policemen encounter a barefoot, pajama-clad stranger who wanders into their police box while Reo and Mabu are eating lunch (lovingly prepared by Mabu, of course). The stranger says that he lives in the ward across the river but sleep-walked his way into Asakusa. After Reo and Mabu give him money and shoes, a full-grown adult Sara Azuma — as shown in the Sarazanmai series — appears to thank Reo and Mabu before leaving. They both wrack their brains as to how Sara grew up so quickly, yelling at themselves for failing to remember her upbringing. After she thanks them for their help, Sara is reunited with her prince (the pajama-wearing man from earlier) over the Sumida River. Later, Reo and Mabu wake up with a start, finding that it’s all a dream and baby Sara is sleeping between them per usual.

“Writers exist in the space between life and death, dish. Sara exists between Sumida ward and Taito ward, dish. [Sara’s] prince exists between love and desire, dish.”

–Sara’s text crawl, Sarazanmai, Episode 4

There is evidence that this stranger could be Keppi himself in human form. Through Sara’s text crawls, it’s clear that the prince she continuously talks about his Keppi, who seems to be permanently in kappa form and guides the main trio of Sarazanmai (Kazuki Yasaka, Toi Kuji, Enta Jinai). In the series’ fourth episode, she specifically states that Sara exists “between the wards” and her prince exists “between love and desire.” In the manga, the pajama stranger “sleep-walked” from ward to ward before being reunited with Sara over the river itself.

Love and desire are made out to be at odds with each other during Reo and Mabu’s transformation sequences and Kawausoiya song in the series. With every zombie that Reo and Mabu create, they are confronted by Kazuki, Toi, and Enta at the Field of Desire, which is located on the Azuma Bridge (Azumabashi). Sara also takes the surname Azuma, rather than Niiboshi or Akutsu, pinpointing her location in a way.

@keeponly1luv (what happened to Mabu?)

Alongside the manga, Reo and Mabu had a Twitter account that posted from Nov. 11, 2018 to March 31, 2018, before Sarazanmai began airing. Each post is tagged with the name of the poster — either Reo or Mabu. Most of the account appears to be domestic fluff about their adventures as cops in Asakusa, but a closer look reveals nods to the series material as well as a rift in Mabu and Reo’s relationship. It also presumably chronicles their foray into the otter empire and details a bit of communication with higher-ups who are also present in the series.

Most noticeably, there is no Sara. Not only is she not mentioned at all in the Twitter timeline, but this post on Hinamatsuri (Girls’ Day) cheekily says, “Girls’ Day hunh, that isn’t very relevant to us.” While it could be a simple joke about them both being men, Hinamatsuri is something that they would participate in were they raising Sara, since it’s a festival to celebrate girls’ prosperity, health, and good fortune for the future. In this timeline, Sara is gone — or simply the young adult idol who is ubiquitous in the series.

It’s apparent that something happened to Reo and Mabu — Mabu specifically — in the time between the manga and the series. Sarazanmai‘s Mabu is completely devoid of emotion in a manner that’s almost robotic. The transformation of kappa zombies by Reo and Mabu are said to be Mabu’s “lifeline.” After the events of the fifth episode with the sachet kappa zombie surviving, Mabu states that he has to go out for maintenance and drops the line, “What’s the point of prioritizing personal feelings?” a stark contrast to his jealousy at someone else other than Reo eating his food shown in the manga.

This naturally upsets Reo, who not only is always looking at Mabu with a loving expression, but is also shown in the opening alongside the main trio and their “connections.” Just like Kazuki wants to connect with his brother Haruka, Toi wants to connect with his brother Chikai, Enta wants to connect with his crush Kazuki, Reo wants to connect (or reconnect) with Mabu. Something happened to Mabu and now Reo has presumably been collecting desire to keep Mabu alive. Reo appears to have a similar desperation shown by Kazuki’s crossdressing as Sara.

The “it was all a dream” manga ending with Reo, Mabu, and baby Sara points to another theory that the entirety of Sarazanmai the series could have happened within the “dream” that Reo and Mabu had in the manga. At the end, Sara reunites with her prince as an adult and leaves, which could be a later plot point in the anime series.

“I have faith that he’s going to smile again. I’m not the only one who wants to see Kazu-chan’s smile. Kazu-chan, you’re in the middle of a big circle.”

-Haruka Yasaka, Sarazanmai, Episode 6

As others have already written, placing things into a box in a Kunihiko Ikuhara series is almost always a bad thing. Boxes capture shortcuts — what people love is confined and boiled down to an easily-commodified object. It’s not allowed to get dirty or become “impure.”

Yet humans are dirty. The briefest of looks at the three disasters headlining Sarazanmai (Kazuki Yasaka, Toi Kuji, Enta Jinai) are enough to prove this but it’s a recurring theme in Ikuhara’s oeuvre: living is the punishment, but loving (yourself and other people) is the reward. All of that is messy, dirty stuff, especially when we have to fight through our own self-hatred to get there. We see this in Mawaru Penguindrum‘s Child Broiler and we see it again here in Sarazanmai with the inner workings of the Otter Empire’s plans in an otherworldly Sumida River/Azumabashi stage.

Speaking of self-hatred, let’s talk about Kazuki Yasaka.

Kazuki cannot truly connect with others because he hates himself. This is not only due to feeling responsible for Haruka’s accident but also because he was adopted by the Yasaka family and feels like an outsider because he’s not related to them by blood. Even then, he actively chooses the Yasaka family — and says as much when he meets his biological mother. The only thing stopping Kazuki from connecting with Haruka is himself. Rather than moving past his guilt, Kazuki connects with Haruka not as Kazuki: Haruka’s older brother but as the idol Sara Azuma. His false identity exposed, Kazuki is suddenly unable to connect even with Toi and Enta to perform the shirikodama ritual, which confines them to kappa form.

The entirety of Sarazanmai‘s sixth episode painfully and messily shows Kazuki breaking down before actually reaching out to form those true connections. In the opening moments of the episode, Kazuki is in complete denial, trying to convince himself that being a kappa is the best thing that ever happened to him. This continues until Haruka becomes Reo and Mabu’s latest victim.

All of the boys’ “desire box” items are present and each play a role in Kazuki’s growth. Toi uses his gun to rescue Kazuki from willingly sacrificing himself — a throwback in many ways to Momoka Oginome rescuing Keiju Tabuki or Shouma Takakura rescuing Himari Takakura in Penguindrum. Haruka holds Kazuki’s Sara Azuma headdress close to him as he’s shuttled around in his box. Enta uses the miçanga to finally talk to Kazuki without enabling him.

This scene with Enta has been a long time coming. Enta’s love for Kazuki is genuine and his confession heart-wrenching in Episode 3, but he also desperately wishes for Kazuki to return to “normal” or return to the past and their days as the Golden Duo. Enta doesn’t accept Kazuki for who he is, and even in the opening moments of this episode is easily swept into his own romantic delusions while enabling Kazuki’s self-destructive ways.

Yet Enta is in the unique position of not only loving Kazuki but also as a witness to how Kazuki’s actions have affected Haruka. Enta of all people understands how Kazuki has actually been hurting Haruka rather than helping. His scene with Kazuki and the miçanga is triumphant because he finally stops enabling Kazuki and speaks to him frankly. This miçanga isn’t the one that Enta bought Kazuki to try to confine him in the “box” of his expectations of who he wants Kazuki to be, this is Kazuki’s original that he tried to throw away. Here we see the true extent of what one of these desire items can represent — they are icons of that person’s love of something, but they’re also so much more. Their commodified versions, like the one that Enta bought Kazuki from Kappazon, cannot tell the entire story of a connection, love, or desire. Rather than trying to freeze time and put Kazuki in a box, Enta offers the miçanga as a representation of a way forward to truly having a relationship with Haruka, since it’s proof that Haruka still loves Kazuki.

We also see this during the sachet flashback. Previously, Kazuki wondered why Haruka had his mother’s sachet and this was filtered through his own self-hatred into something bad — a reminder that Haruka knows that they are not biologically-related brothers. Instead, it’s because Haruka didn’t want to be separated from Kazuki and didn’t want Kazuki’s biological mother to take him away.

Back to the idea of the Child Broiler, in order to escape being shredded by the Broiler, you had to be “chosen.” In this episode, we see Haruka, Enta, and Toi all choose Kazuki. This in turn allows Kazuki to put aside his self-hatred and choose Haruka in turn, rescuing him from his box. As Haruka says to Kazuki in his final text to “Sara,” Kazuki is in the middle of a circle. He’s loved by people other than Haruka, and with a little self-acceptance, he too can love them in return.