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Thu 24 Nov 2011
My Issue With Penguindrum
Posted by kevo' under Anime, Editorials
[8] Comments
If you’ve been following anime to any degree the last few months, you know about Mawaru Penguindrum, the show by Brains Base that everyone is praising. Praising it for being super deep, loaded with symbolism, and telling a gripping story that keeps you at the edge of my seat. Yeah, yeah, the show is fine. There has been more than one instance where I honestly could not leave my seat during a scene or I could not wait for next week’s episode. Penguindrum does lots of things right, and it does them quite often, but the problem is the big picture.
"Wait, kevo... you DON'T think this show is the best thing since the Lord incarnate?"
I believe I have been very patient with Marawu Penguindrum. For the first half of the show, I have again and again claimed that “now the plot is start to kick in”. First on episode 3, then episode 4, then episode 8. I think there are people who are still saying that after the most recent episode. Penguindrum is addicting because there’s a new , well-executed plot twist every handful of episodes, and there’s that “omg what???” factor that draws us in. But this creates an incredibly convoluted storyline. In Ikuhara’s effort to bring intricacy and depth to the plot, I think he created something far more complex than it needs to be. You can tell that plot twists are starting to become more and more bizzare — from the first one, when we find out that Ringo is an obsessive stalker, to the most recent one, where we see that Tabuki is a broken and twisted sociopath that sought to avenge Momoka all this time. It’s not what good storytelling is about, it’s spanking a mule every few minutes so that it doesn’t stop walking. What should it do, then? How does it tell its story while keeping the plot comprehensive to viewers? I don’t know, I’m not the paid writer on the staff. (There are going to be spoilers after this break)
And don’t tell me that I’m just not cultured enough to appreciate this show; no anime should ever be written to be accessible only to Ph.D. holders from the University of Douchebag. A good show scales itself to work on multiple levels. Look at Madoka or Cowboy Bebop, they are functional in the highest levels of literary dissection, but they also work as simply entertaining stories. As a purely dramatic story, Penguindrum lacks that elegance. Flashbacks litter the show, and I feel that entire episodes are dedicated to grafting a “backstory” to each character. We slowly get the story of Momoka revealed to us, but the pacing just felt drawn out. The comic relief with the penguins is nice and light, but I feel like it’s so egregiously out of place during some of the more serious scenes that it exceeds the limits of juxtaposition and distracts from dialogue. Additionally, some characters (i.e. Shouma) are gratingly annoying and totally useless. Yes, I admit that I’m nitpicking pretty hard right now, but how can I not? Especially when people are dropping 10/10 reviews on MyAnimeList like roses after a performance.
There’s also loads of symbolism in the show — from subways to peaches to bullets to apples. Truly we have not been bombarded with so many motifs since The Catcher in the Rye. That’s great, and it’s always fun dissecting these things and figuring out what the director is trying to tell us. But that’s not the point of anime – a show like Penguindrum should never have to rely on puzzles and wordplay to be great. I don’t feel that the mystery surrounding the two black bunnies that accompany Sanetoshi is contributing anything to my enjoyment of the show. A subway sign comes up alerting us that a flashback sequence has started. Great, it means that the writers think we are so dumb we can’t figure it out ourselves. The most outstanding example for me was that dream Himari has in episode 9. She’s standing in a library and a secret door is a block rearranging puzzle that solves itself and opens. OH GOD WHAT DOES IT MEAN?. Is Shinbo Ikuhara really thinking he can entertain us with garnish and decoration? The abundance of completely unnecessary details in the show really made me ask, “what’s the point?”. Oh, and the members of Double H are named Hibari Isora and Hikari Utada. Haha, that’s cute.
Don’t get me wrong, Mawaru Penguindrum is good and I like the show. Underneath the exploitative and confusing storytelling is something that is quite entertaining and commendable. I just feel that in Penguindrum‘s case, less is more.
I completely agree that less is more with a show like this. (then again the show wouldn’t be it if it wasn’t like this…) Like you I like the show alright but I’m certainly not dropping a 10/10 on it because of OMG SYMBOLISM!
I find that Penguindrum, like Utena I just couldn’t get 100% into loving them because they throw just too much at me that I could care less about.
So umm yeah you aren’t alone!
[Reply]
I kinda agree. I personally don’t give half a fetid dingo’s kidneys about the myriad imagery or symbolism (“Oh look, another symbol. That’s… nice….”). However, I just chalk all of these + the flashiness up as an Ikuhara thing; I figured it’s ok to have unique style like these once in a while.
The main draw of Penguindrum for me is the elaborate mystery underneath all the style, and that’s what I’m truly watching it for. That’s why I like the episodes where the plot moves and emotionally powerful scenes appear, such as in ep18.
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I haven’t watched this show for awhile simply for the reason that I saw it was pulling a bunch of plot twists out of nowhere just to keep our attention, instead of trying to tell a coherent plot, whatever it may be. I also found the characters unrelatable and/or unlikable. Is there anything in this show then worth watching for then?
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I’m not sure if I’d say that Penguindrum is being praised by everybody. Look around the blogosphere and it seems to me there’s a fairly clear divide between people who love it, people who despise it and a handful who are somewhere in between. I personally love it, but good lord Penguindrum has tried my patience at times. I can certainly understand why it might not be for everybody.
I think that a lot of what I find unique about Penguindrum is its confidence. I can’t think of any other show that would have the balls to constantly try to upend itself, constantly weave in references to art and literature that are actually coherent if you pay enough attention. With only five episodes left I have no idea whether or not the creators of Penguindrum will be able to tie up the loose ends, but just rewatching earlier episodes or OPs reveals enough information to certify that pretty much everything was planned from the beginning. I think that they’re on the ball.
Granted, those elements that were planned from the beginning could have been introduced a lot more gradually. The show’s been labelled as a “mystery” by the creators, and I think you could probably divide the show into “question” and “answer” arcs (a la Higurashi) if you cut the show into two seasons. But could the show have been a lot better if those elements were introduced more organically?
So the problem isn’t necessarily that the plot twists come out of nowhere, because look close enough and the hints are there. The problem is that the show drops tiny hints in previous arcs and then brings plot twists out of nowhere with very little visible buildup. Ikuhara obviously has a very firm grip on the content, but I think you could make an argument that the execution isn’t all there. The backstory-an-episode approach worked in Utena, since that show was purposefully taking the episodic magical girl approach. But does it work in Penguindrum? I think you could argue either way.
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As someone already pointed out, you’re not alone on this one. A lot of viewers started losing track of the show midway, including me. I just don’t feel picking this show back up after putting it on hold at episode 14.
As much as I enjoy attention to detail, constant movements on screen and symbolism, Penguindrum does a lot of useless stuff. I don’t see the humor or the class in penguins farting and serving frog goo to make men fall in love.
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I agree. I still like Penguindrum well enough but by the halfway mark and beyond it’s become so over-saturated with vaguely hinted at subplots and a myriad of symbols so specific that you could only understand them if you have access to the director’s mind, I’ve started thinking to myself “I don’t even know what this show is about anymore.” There’s a fine line between symbolism that’s fun, creative, and allows the audience to interpret things the way they will, and symbolism that’s so overused it almost seems like the show is just a canvas for the director to try out all these random artistic symbols that only he knows the real meaning to.
But! If Penguindrum can deliver a good ending that ties up loose ends, I might reconsider how I’ll rate it. I’ve seen Ikuhara’s other major work, Utena, and I don’t remember being this confused by it though. *spoilers warning* Not sure what I think of the new subplot of Himari and Shoma being “soulmates” – it just kinda came out of nowhere. Just four more episodes to go before we’ll see.
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I liked it up to around episode 12. But around that point, it decided to GO BIG AND COMPLEX, and just dragging its own feet and using random twists for the sake of having twists. Nothing else was important. And when I look at it now, it really should have skipped a lot of Ringo-episodes and instead used them to create characters we care about, as it is all about them now.
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There are more flaws with Penguindrum than people care to admit, most of which you have detailed here. I think the belief is that all the ambiguity and logical twists will be explained by the end of the series, but I’m not so naive anymore as to hold onto this hope. However, I do think it has set itself up for a strong, satisfying final leg.
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