YamPuff wrote:

Do you know why Kanba annoys me? Why can he do all sorts of shady dealings and illegal, immoral things to save his sister EXCEPT steal a diary from a 16 year old girl? Even Yuri was more on the ball. I wonder if that's a significant point or just me reading too deep into the show...

Exactly!

As much as he loves Himari all he is doing is destroying his family like his parents did.

Do you know why Kanba annoys me? Why can he do all sorts of shady dealings and illegal, immoral things to save his sister EXCEPT steal a diary from a 16 year old girl? Even Yuri was more on the ball. I wonder if that's a significant point or just me reading too deep into the show...

But it seems to me like Kanba was never all that interested in the diary in the first place. It seemed like early on, he decided the diary wouldn't actually do anything for Himari (or maybe PoC outright told him it wouldn't), plus Shouma was closer to Ringo anyway. Shouma wouldn't steal the diary from her either.  Hell, Shouma didn't even want to enter a girl's bedroom to save his sister's life.

YamPuff wrote:

I came to back to this forum after so long because my friends were sick of me making Mawaru Penguindrum comparisons to SKU and none of them have watched either. I felt very misunderstood. Almost transparent, if you will.

Holy cow, YamPuff, it's been an eternity!  Welcome back   I have no idea how Ikuni's going to wrap this up in one more episode either, but the frenetic pacing of this episode was a good start towards not leaving us with crucial questions unresolved.

Hiraku wrote:

One thing I am actually kind of hoping that Ikuhara would not do: [Using Deux ex machina to bring people back from death. :|]

It's not a [deus ex machina if it's clearly foreshadowed and relevant to the show's themes.  This is not the first time we have seen Sanetoshi exert control over life and death, and the question of whether to save a person from their destined death -- and at what cost -- is visited repeatedly throughout the show.  It was reasonably guessable -- though I didn't guess it -- that Sanetoshi would be able to bring Masako back from death in order to increase his hold on Kanba].

Davine Lu Linvega wrote:

So I think that someone is going to transfer fate in the next episode, and when they do it the characters will find themselves in "the real world," without all the penguin stuff. Maybe an allusion to "coming out of your shell" and living in reality? Someone else has pointed out that as flightless birds, the penguins represent the characters' frustrated desire to escape their limitations, and entering a world without penguin logos all over the place will represent the characters having passed that psychological hurdle.

This seems like a sane and reasonable guess; someone, or maybe everyone, might have to sacrifice themselves in order to cleanse the curse and transfer fate to the real world.  Another sane and reasonable guess, I think, might be that someone is going to have the ability to transfer fate in this way and is going to decide not to do it because it would be the wrong thing to do -- because altering destiny usually seems to carry a terrible price for everyone in this show.  I will be fascinated to see.

Now, my usual question update on the ones I identified as important after last episode...

- Who is Penguin Hat Lady?
- What is the Penguindum?  Why does Penguin Hat Lady want it?
- Where is Momoka?  What exactly happened on the day of the attack?

[We can now confidently see the linkage between these questions.  Sanetoshi was in charge of carrying out the attack.  Momoka confronted him with her spell to transfer fate (how did she know what he was doing?), but he sealed her spell with a curse; both disappeared, replaced by the penguin hats and the Dark Bunnies.  Momoka definitely inhabits the hats, or at least Himari's, but it's not at all clear what her relationship is to Penguin Hat Lady.  We still don't know what the Penguindrum is.  Agree that there is an increasing chance that it is a washing machine, albeit possibly a figurative one.]

- What is Ringo's diary?  How did Ringo get it, and how did Momoka get it before that?

[These questions are still unresolved, but we're getting more hints.  Was the spell to transfer fate really inside the diary, or was the power something that belonged to Momoka all along?  Ringo seems to have possessed the diary without having a clue that it held a literal fate transfer spell.  In this episode, the diary burned, yet the show's not over.  I think the diary is, and always has been, a red herring.]

- What condition is Himari (and presumably Mario) suffering from?  Is the spell in the diary the cure?  Is the Penguindrum the cure?

[I'm still not completely clear on what the heck this mysterious ailment is.  I'll wave my hands and say it's the curse.  As for the cure, it looks increasingly likely that all the cures the show has put forward -- the diary, the spell to transfer fate, the life force Kanba gave for Himari, the medicine, Sanetoshi's magic -- have been nothing more than sad stopgaps that have come with awful costs.  Will the Penguindrum cure Himari and Mario at last?  Or are they meant to die?]

- What does Ringo have to do with anything?

[I still don't know, but she got more face time in this episode.  I think she still has a role to play, but damned if I know what it is.  Maybe she will be the one to make the sacrifice -- a sacrifice she would happily have made when she thought she had to be Momoka, but which will only be truly meaningful now that she knows she can be herself.]

- What does Shouma have to do with anything?

[This one got resolved definitively in this episode.  Shouma's job is to save Kanba, full stop.  He's the only one who can.  Everyone else who was ever close to Kanba is dead, dying, or phantasmal.  Shouma has to do for Kanba now what he did for Himari in the Child Broiler.  The central question for the final episode to resolve is: Will Shouma be able to save Kanba?  This episode was resonant with SKU echoes; I almost cried when Kanba jammed the gun barrel into Shouma's back.  But is Penguindrum really the same as Utena?  Will Shouma be able to awaken the part of Kanba that is willing to live in the world, like Utena did for Anthy?  Or is Penguindrum a show about the inevitability of loss, one where we will see the characters ineluctably drift apart no matter how much they would be willing to sacrifice for each other?]

Seen wrote:

I GUESS Kanba could be an Anthy expy at this point, but unlike her, Kanba feels like he's far beyond saving at this point.

Anyways, [watching Ringo try to save the Diary was hard to watch. I was worried she would burn up like in the first opening. Thank god she didn't.]

I thought Anthy also believed that she was beyond saving at this point when she convinced herself that she's a "doll with no heart", and therefore will be able to endure anything that comes her way.

In any case, I like this parallel, maybe the idea would be that even if Shoma can't save Himari, at the very least he can continue helping others who also need help. That would coincide with Tabuki's realization that the reason he is still alive is so that he can be there for other abandoned children like him.

Last edited by Hiraku (12-19-2011 10:14:56 AM)

satyreyes wrote:

YamPuff wrote:

I came to back to this forum after so long because my friends were sick of me making Mawaru Penguindrum comparisons to SKU and none of them have watched either. I felt very misunderstood. Almost transparent, if you will.

Holy cow, YamPuff, it's been an eternity!  Welcome back

Thanks! Seems like only yesterday I first watched SKU. *wipes tears from eyes*

Makubi wrote:

And the Triple H album is now out.

ROCK, ROCK, ROCK OVER JAPAN

The Triple H Mawaru Penguindrum Character Song Album is indeed Fabulous Max to the core.

So what are the odds on Ikuhara ruining Christmas? If he gives a sad/bittersweet ending, we'll open our presents whilst rubbing away tears. If it somehow manages to be a happy ending, that still means Penguindrum is over. ;-;

... oh my god

OH MY GOD!!!!

I am so sorry for ever having doubted Ikuni for not being able to wrap things up nicely!

All I'm going to say is, watch the series finale! Just... do it!!!

And, hopefully, someone will have an answer for the question I still have, [spoiler][Is the Princess actually a selfish manifestation of Himari?][/spoiler]

EDIT: Second_Penguin, oh god... I just got the joke now XD Season's Senryaku to you, too!

Last edited by Hiraku (12-22-2011 10:56:33 PM)

Okay so.  this is odd.
I'm not sure how I'm feeling XD

Also, ringo's schoolgirl outfit reminds me of the Ohtori school uniforms. :x
Most useless post ever - sorry people.

I'm a little annoyed/pissed, but also filled with so much love (such noble characters) and sadness (why must fate be so cruel?) Utena and Mawaru had very similar endings, but at least Utena made way more sense. It was lazy(?) of Ikuhara to not provide some of the answers, but in the end it was about the message of abandonment, love, and family more than anything. Apparently there was a Night on the Galactic Railroad reference that I didn't catch (and Kanba and Shoma were discussing Kenji in the very end.) Beautiful yet, flawed series. It still made it into my top 10.

Maybe the novels will explain more.

I'm still not sure what was up with the whole Shoma and Kanba in boxes thing.

Last edited by chrisb (12-23-2011 01:49:31 AM)

My response to the finale: 


You gotta be shitting me.

Box of wine ready. Three glasses in now. Cigarettes at hand, vodka by my feet. I suppose I have no choice now but to enter the penguin zone and see what's made you all cry.

Let's destiny.

... [30 minutes later.]

Idk what just happened but it made me cry.

Last edited by dirufacade (12-23-2011 07:39:54 AM)