Shelf Life

Destiny's Child

To say that Penguindrum is weird may be the understatement of the century. It is, indeed, weird, but that word alone doesn't give it credit for everything else that it is—artistic, thought-provoking, intriguing, and simultaneously hopeful and cynical. It's a show that requires multiple viewings—one time to absorb all the story elements, another time to distinguish between reality and metaphor, and another time or two to process it all. Along the way, you might notice aspects of the artwork you didn't have time to notice before. You'll probably also pick up on symbols that you completely missed the first time around.

For those expecting a thematic continuation of the first half of Penguindrum, you might be surprised. The show takes a rapid turn away from the Ringo storyline and enters a more magical, more supernatural realm (not that there was anything that natural about an alien hat that possessed teenage girls). Gone is the running narrative about Ringo's creepy stalker activities, and gone, also, is much of the talk about finding the “Penguindrum.” What does come to the forefront is flashbacks of the Sarin gas attack, which was brought up near the end of the first half of the series. It's been fictionalized, though, in order to accommodate the story of the Takakura siblings, their emotional fallout from the incident, as well as any ongoing involvement with the terrorist organization. Throughout the remaining episodes, though, it becomes increasingly fuzzy what is “real” and what is an extended metaphor. Some aspects were simply supernatural, like the presence of ghosts and alternate destinies. Still, even though Penguindrum begs for repeat viewings just to absorb it all, it's immensely intriguing. Even as I was confused by bits and pieces of the series, I found myself needing to watch more.

In the end, I was satisfied by the conclusion of the series. I still had questions remaining, but I felt the ending was appropriate. As I mentioned earlier, though, the second half of the series feels very different than the first half. The first half is a little more simple and straightforward—it's an eclectic mixture of cute and funny, mixed with creepy, and sprinkled with cynicism. It focused more on questions of fate and destiny, and the two very different schools of thought regarding their existence. The second half still relies heavily on destiny—but with the mysterious revelation of pink-haired, bishonen-looking Sanetoshi; the truth behind Momoka's diary; and questionable imagery like the child broiler, the cages, and the chisels—things definitely take a more surreal turn.

If I am to be completely honest, I'm not sure I fully understand every aspect of the series and its implications. There are themes and ideas that are easier to pull out than others, and some metaphors that are easier to string together than others, but I think there are definitely parts of the series that were either lost on me, or not meant to be overanalyzed. At the same time, this fuzziness is what draws me to the show. If you're anything like me, and you've consumed days, weeks, months worth of anime, then it takes something like Penguindrum to reignite that spark of curiosity inside you. Seldom is there a series that not only captivates my interest, but also the magpie center of my brain that responds to bright colors and pretty visuals, and makes me want to sit down and seriously mull over what I've just consumed.

The thing about Kunihiko Ikuhara's works is that there is rarely any excess. Things in his works happen for a specific reason, whether it's a stylistic choice to depict faceless crowds as cartoon stick figures, or have girls transform into vehicles. It makes watching his series an intellectual delight, and as you watch his creativity unfold, you can't help but strive to see if you can glimpse the world through his eyes. I think Penguindrum can easily be enjoyed on a surface level—it's bright, it's fun, it's wild—but I think more than any show I've seen in recent years, it begs to be rewatched.[TOP]

Here's my admission—I dragged my butt on watching Steins;Gate. When it first came out, I enjoyed the episodes that I watched, but I didn't get far enough into the series to really be gripped by it. Now, a couple months after the DVD and Blu-ray combo release date, I finally plowed through the first half of the series, and it is truly a fun show. For me, Steins;Gate felt a lot like a roller coaster—not in the emotional sense, but in the pacing sense. There are scenes of extreme velocity, where crazy, wild things happen—history is rewritten, characters disappear, the space/time continuum is split. Then there are scenes where hardly anything happens at all, like a trip to the grocery store, or a cutesy interlude where one of the girls makes a cute sound effect. And yet, things are always moving. Even in the slower scenes, the series is always one or two scenes away from something eye-opening.

The questionable hero of the show is the self-proclaimed mad scientist Rintaro Okabe. He operates a “lab” in an apartment above an electronics store, along with his friend Mayuri and the otaku computer whiz Daru. As the series progresses, more characters are added to the mix, and all are made honorary members of the lab. Their main project right now is a tinkered-with microwave contraption that turns bananas into blobs of gel, but they quickly discover that they can also use it to send short emails to the past. Once the past has been changed, though, the only one who remembers both timelines is Rintaro. Because of their initial success with the microwave, they're also being targeted by SERN (Get it? Like CERN?), an international organization that's been Doing Time travel research of their own.

As a scientist, what makes Steins;Gate appeal to me is its lack of science. It's refreshingly open-ended and vague, only rarely dropping in chunks of technobabble. This keeps the series moving forward, using drama and suspense to propel the action rather than heavy details, which have a tendency to get in the way when they veer too far off what's physically possible. As a result, Steins;Gate strays a bit closer to fantasy than science fiction, but it still retains a certain geeky charm that I think will appeal to technology hobbyists.

My appreciation of the open-endedness of the series, though, is also one of my issues with it. Because we see everything through Rintaro's eyes, we only know what he knows. Meaning, if the past is changed, we only see the aftereffects—Akihabara can be drastically changed, or a character's identity can be completely changed. Just like Rintaro, though, we're not privy to the details of Why. Even though he (and the audience) retains memories of the previous time line, he has no memory of the new timeline. Once the ripples from the “butterfly effect” get to be too big, the series starts to lose its grasp on itself. Why does Faris want to remove moe from Akihabara, for instance? By not giving us the reasoning behind this move, or seeing the changed timeline prior to the event, it removes large chunks of characterization. Because of this, some of the characters can seem shallow, because we're not privy to the motivations behind their actions.

I think Steins;Gate is a ton of fun, but it's not without its pros and cons. On the upside, its portrayals of time travel and the dangers of changing history are intriguing, and it makes for riveting television. On the downside, character development takes a hit in the process. With the exception of Rintaro, I don't really feel like I know any of the characters that well. When history changes, I know them even less. Still, I'm very eager to see how the rest of the series will unfold, and I am looking forward to checking out the last half of the series in a couple weeks.[TOP]