#or that ass facing pose reo does in the middle of fighting to avenge his love

[void-official]

Sarazanmai! was a fun anime with a lots of emotionally resonant moments and even more dumb potty humor but would I say its Ikuhara’s best anime? probably nah BUTT we’ll see how it ages. And I mean!! I really did like it and it’s worth a watch if you share general taste with me, but what I liked most about it and what I think it offers most above his other stuff is that it felt condensed and fast-paced in a way that made it very watchable and entertaining for someone with a short attention span like me. compared to like, a 24 episode anime where the themes are more carefully paced and constructed and might be harder to just dive into watching. I often drop shows by the third episode even if I think i’m gonna like them, bc i just don’t always have the energy to watch more than one season of something. Even the best anime tend to have slow arcs or bad episodes, and Sarazanmai just didn’t seem to have time for that, or I didn’t notice them bc there was just too much going on at any given point for me to ever feel bored by it.

Does that + the constant slapstick make it less emotionally resonant than Utena or YuriBears or Penguin Drum? Maybe? But that would be sorta assuming those things were absent from those shows, which they definitely weren't, and at least in Sarazanmai its tonally there for practically the entire time, whether you want it there or not, so its feels less jarring than Nanami getting turned into a cow episodes or the 3 cartoon penguins doing human things in the background of a show that otherwise feels like a child’s interpretation of Film Noir. I at least had a decent emotional reaction to Sarazanmai, all things considered, but I’m aware some people don’t really enjoy mood whiplash and might find it distasteful that you can literally have Butt Jokes and Plot Progression taking place within the exact same frame. comparatively its a lot like. having silly dumb goofy Sidekicks piping in with their weirdness during serious moments of a Disney film, but I mostly found it entertaining bc i wasn’t exactly. watching with the expectation of it being 100% serious anyway. Like after the first episode you already have a good feel for how this show will be. The themes here were pretty simplistic and easy to grasp, a lot of the meta stuff is embellishment and not necessary to enjoying the show’s basic plotline and even then its fucking silly and lighthearted in its approach most of the time in a way even haters of Ikuhara’s heavy handed ~symbolism~ might be able to tolerate due to its utter like. irreverence towards it? The fucking otter that is an abstract concept who keeps reminding you that its an abstract concept is the clearest example I have. It’s literally feels like someone appending ~It’s Symbolic~ to a shitpost in execution and I lost it nearly every time it happened.

I guess like, people have this association w/Ikuhara shows that he’s always trying to be like SUPER DEEP and make complicated, difficult to understand stories. Hes High Art, using anime as a medium or whatever. But even if elements of this are like that, and I can appreciate it that way/want to re-watch to see what more I get out of it next time, I don’t think Sarazanmai necessarily wants to be seen as #Deep to the average viewer or expects you to need to engage with it that way, and that’s why i say its very Watchable. Honestly I laughed more than I cried white it was airing bc Sarazanmai basically just throws so much shit at you at once, sometimes its metaphorical shit, sometimes its deep shit, but mostly its just Literal shit butt balls. and you kinda just have to deal with it as it comes. its actually going above and beyond to make itself accessible to the point im sure some people might find it low brow, ridiculous or distasteful as a result. Also it might make you uncomfortable if you can’t stomach the mild sexual themes involving teenagers but I’d argue its literally the tamest example of it out of literally any Ikuhara anime to date, sexual themes involving teenagers have literally always been there in his work and imo despite Sarazanmai being like. a butt joke anime where teenage boys transform into kappas to probe peoples butts to free them of their worldly desires every night its utilized in a far less uncomfortable way than like literally anything else he’s been involved with (and I’m one of those people who argues the sexual themes 100% are necessary to his work bc they’re often about the end of adolescence and the different types of love you can feel for a person. and showing where the line is crossed between different types of love and particularly when love becomes toxic or abusive is integral to those themes) I mean there are lots of things I could ‘warn’ for but its all the kind  of stuff you’d find in literally any other Ikuhara show. Do you like Ikuhara’s other stuff? Congrats you’ll probably like Sarazanmai. Does Utena transforming into a car at the end of the Utena movie send you into a blind rage bc WHAT DOES IT MEAN? Probably dont watch Sarazanmai. Would I recommend it as your first Ikuhara show? Idk Maybe? Like I personally still think Utena and Penguin Drum are better but I think Sarazanmai is maybe more watchable if you just want to get your mind fucked and also potentially laugh/cry a lot in as few episodes as possible