Macky wrote:

Another thought popped into my mind, why is Chiemi a suspect of the attacks? Wasn't she delivering her boy (or boys) that very same day? I wonder what he role was, maybe intelligence?

I believe we've heard that the Takakuras had administrative positions within the organization.  They may have been the masterminds, but they weren't the operatives on the ground -- assuming, of course, that they were involved at all, which we know only through Shouma's extended family.

HOLD THE FUCK UP.

The beginning of episode 13 for absolutely sure uses sound effects from SKU. I suspected it at one point earlier where I heard the water drop from the last episode, but this was twice in a row.

No, I'm serious. Symbolically irrelevant IMO, but totally a shoutout.

Would sex Sanetoshi. He's an enormous troll on everything in the universe.

Hiraku wrote:

I had the feeling that they used the imagery of apple to symbolize the idea of "universal gravitation"

That's actually a really interesting observation considering that this line appears in the new OP song (no idea if it'll be in the TV cut though):

真っ赤なリンゴ弧を描いて
I draw a bright red apple in the air
万有引力でもって落ちる
It even falls in accordance with absolute gravitation

dirufacade wrote:

Maybe we need to make a symbol chart of the different animals / icons / symbols / etc. and their correspondences.  :p

Some people working on the wiki have started on doing some of that, it's just sort of a daunting task considering just how many logos there are in the show.

Hiraku wrote:

And it looks like the two kids' names are Souya and Shirase... I wonder what significance they bear, given that they are also written in Katakana...

I think some of the kana-only names in the credits have corresponding kanji spellings, they're just not revealed yet for whatever reason. Apparently Mario's name was spelled 万里夫 in some of the anime magazines this month (I haven't seen any scans to confirm it, but 2ch was talking about it). The Japanese fans were joking about how we have a "Triple S" now though (Sanetoshi, Shirase, Souya).


On another note, am I the only one who immediately thought "FUCK, SANETOSHI IS DIOS!" when he said the line about being able to hear the entire world crying out "save me"?

Last edited by citrinitas668 (10-09-2011 12:11:34 PM)

Chrome, yes, indeed I had!

But I had to watch it twice and check out penguindrum wiki to realize that Paku Romi was doing the voice.

First time around, I was too preoccupied with how "Oscar-ly" the character looked.

And how much that whole thing is reminiscent of THIS: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rt_ceVwfDE8

And also this, for the red dress: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qjS62sykoA

I mean, just look at this! Look at all the... sparkles and... dresses and... $#%@%$#@^ BEAUTIFUL!!! IT'S SO.... CURRY!!! T_T

Last edited by Hiraku (10-09-2011 05:01:43 PM)

The sounds when Sanetoshi broke the glass vial had Utena sound effects all over it.


And there has been so much Mikage throwbacks. I don't really wanna say the shows are similar, but they totally are.

A creepy scientific girl who spouts nonsense to a former love, and who obsesses over him...
Said girl trying to save the life of a sickly younger girl/boy thing....
Who also stays in contact with a guy who seems to be behind saving their life.

Not to mention how now that Ringo doesn't have the diary, it feels like she's been discarded for a new duelist, er, competitor, who's stronger than her.

HonorableShadow wrote:

And Kanba! Is he somehow tearing his soul apart just to be with Himari? I thought he loved her sincerely, but when he said something like: "Justo so Himari can stay with me!", it came out as selfish.

It is little selfish, but I don't think he's tearing his soul apart to keep her alive just to be with her.  After all, he was ready to sacrifice his life for her, and after he died he wouldn't be by her side anymore.  I think wanting to save a loved one's life is always a little selfish though. (Not a bad thing.)  "I don't want to lose them,  they mean so much to me and I'd miss them so much."    I felt sorry for Kanba in that scene, he's trying hard to be selfless for Himari's sake but he can't be, because that's unrealistic.

Now that you put it that way it makes more sense...I took it as "I JUST WANT HER TO STAY WITH ME 4EVAH NO MATTER WHAT!" so that sort of "polluted" the idea I had of Kanba. But now with your point of view I'm not so dissappointed anymore.

So far, this series has dealt heavily with concepts of responsibility and obligation, particularly among family members. We've also been given some strange hints about the background of the Takakura parents - apparently before the gas attacks, the father was on an expedition to Antarctica that has some kind of plot significance. Perhaps he founded the "PingCorp" that sometimes appears to be used as a stand-in for the Aum cult. (The dad is in a PingCorp factory during the 1995 flashback, and Aum had secret factories making weapons and nerve gas.)

Here's where I'm guessing this story is going: the parents are still on the run from the law, and the kids are going to encounter them in the end. Sanetoshi or whoever is running the supernatural game they're playing will demand that they turn in their parents in exchange for Himari's life. The parents will resist this and Kanba and Shouma will have to choose between sacrificing them or letting Himari die. We may see some light shed on the parents' motivations. "It was our duty to carry out the attack, the world was fated to end if we didn't", that kind of thing. That's basically what the Aum leader Asahara told his followers, and are Kanba and Shouma that different from them? They carry out seemingly crazy tasks because they believe it'll bring their dying sister back to life. The climax will be about conflicting ideas of destiny.

Well, we'll see if I'm right.

dirufacade wrote:

Then again, am I the only one who finds it curious that Himari herself has never expressed a desire to live?  Nobody seems to have informed her of the Faustian pacts being made to keep her alive.  Would she really approve?

Shoma kirked the fuck out on Ringo and threw her against a wall when she suggested that Himari wasn't happy. We've already seen that Himari's childhood dreams were crushed -- she didn't get to be a pop idol & wherever her soulmate is, he's certainly not around.  Her parents are criminals and missing.  She doesn't go to school and the only friends she has are Ringo, her invisible penguin and her brothers.  In a lot of ways, she reminds me of Anthy in that she's living entirely in a cage and has next to no control over her own life.  Is she really happy being a stay-at-home mom to her brothers?  Even though she's ressurected, it's been quite some time since she's had a real life.

This is a worthwhile point.  Himari smiles a lot, but Anthy teaches us that smiling is different from being happy.  There is a certain ominous similarity between, say, Himari's sexualized cooking ritual and Anthy's dancing-rabbits song.  Both of them are hitting on deep themes of their respective shows in allusive ways that shouldn't escape their performers.  Himari could be suffering from intolerable pain or hopelessness, and using performances like cooking to accept the unacceptable.

At the same time, though, maybe she really is a jolly Buddha for whom being alive is reason enough to be happy, regardless of what kind of pain accompanies it.  Can anyone think of moments when post-resurrection Himari is obviously sad?

We've also been given some strange hints about the background of the Takakura parents - apparently before the gas attacks, the father was on an expedition to Antarctica that has some kind of plot significance.

EVA also had Antarctica as being the point of origin for Second Impact. Since Anno and Ikuhara were friends, I'm kind of wondering if anything happened with Antarctica in the '90's that would make it a 'hot-spot' for psychadelic pop-culture.

And one of the Shin Megami Tensei games sites the entrance to the Schwarzwelt, the demon world, in Antarctica.  I couldn't say whether there's a particular event that founded the trope of "Antarctica is creepy," but clearly it is a trope.

At the same time, though, maybe she really is a jolly Buddha for whom being alive is reason enough to be happy, regardless of what kind of pain accompanies it.  Can anyone think of moments when post-resurrection Himari is obviously sad?

Himari definitely comes off as more melancholy in the book then she does the anime. Not about being alive necessarily, but she's just not as cheerful  as her brothers seem to think she is.  For instance, she's lonely because the two of them keep running off and leaving her. 

At the same time, Himari does seem to be happy to be alive.  When the doctor said she was all better, she seemed eager to be strong enough to go back to school.  In the book, she asks Kanba if dating is fun and wants to go on a date for herself. She doesn't seem like someone who has a death wish to me, she seems like she wants to get back to "real life" now that she's been given a second chance. But I don't think she would be happy if she knew what was going on to keep her alive.

Is it inherently selfish?  Maybe.  But at the same time, Kanba was able to witness Himari, his little sister who he loves so much, getting better because of the penguin hat after she had died.  He was able to see her excitement that she may get to go to school again and when she made a new friend in Ringo.  He's able to get to see her, healthy and smiling and able to do normal things like knitting and cooking. So while it is selfish not to ask her opinion on the matter, and while Kanba is doing it for somewhat selfish reasons (she means the world to him and he would miss her) I don't think it's entirely selfish.  I'm sure he wants her to go on living and for her to get all the things she was eager to do now that she's healthy.  Of course that's just speculation on my part, but I think from his point of view, he probably doesn't think the choices he's made to save her are selfish at all.

Last edited by HonorableShadow (10-11-2011 07:53:51 PM)

Damn it all I can't find 14 and 15! T_T Anyone know where they hide?

"Fuck it, we'll do it live.  We're doing it live!"

VictorVVV wrote:

Ep14 has aired.
[spoiler Ep14]Yuri has the second half of the diary. She was on the moto.
But why does she rape Ringo ? (I do not speak Japanese.) [/spoiler]

Because she misses Momoka (implied that Momoka was her first love) and Ringo reminds her of Momoka. She seems to want to turn Ringo into Momoka. At the end she says she's going to "mess up" Ringo so that her "body cannot exist without [her]" /spoiler

I saw on reddit this morning that gg's not gonna have the new ep up today. *weeps.*  Has anyone else done a sub for this week?  PM me? Please?

Need to get mah fix before my Friday decadence.  XD