#tabuki keiju

[piercesnower]

reverence for martyrs

14 of 365

[xbuster]

[hakonohanayome]

RE:cycle of the PENGUINDRUM Part 2 - I Love You (2022)

[witchofanguish]

thinking about her again

[shinhonkaku]

[seasaltmemories]

Penguindrum Polls Round 1-Match 2

Who will win: the all-loving savior child who shapes the narrative or the birdbrained teacher who was both saved and haunted by said childhood crush?

[mmmmalo]

1. Been listening to Penguingdrum reactions during work for brain fodder. Started wondering if Tabuki’s name were a compound of “taboo” & ki (meaning “tree”), making him a natural pair with Ringo (meaning “apple”) -- though usually in Biblical allusions it’s the fruit that’s called forbidden, not the tree. Still, the image of an apple trying to undo its fall from the tree was cute.

2. Being a dullard, I like reducing Utena’s grand battle standard THE ABSOLUTE DESTINY: APOCALYPSE to the banal truism EVERYONE DIES. And being presumptive of the continuity of associative chains, every time Ringo cries DESTINY I hear DEATH. So Ringo becomes a gallows chaser, an apple seeking to be strung up from the branches of the forbidden tree. The show is widely preoccupied with self-sacrificial behaviors stemming from guilt, so this mostly seems to reinforce an established motif.

3. I looked up the actual kanji for Tabuki Keiju, 多蕗桂樹. To my delight, the second half means “Judas Tree”.

[roseillith]

mawaru penguindrum, episode 4

[megane-boys]

today's megane is: Tabuki Keiju from Mawaru Penguindrum

[mayuhatsuharu]

Mawaru Penguindrum  ❥

[piercesnower]

Now we are the same

6 of 365

[xbuster]

[metaldragoon]

Mawaru Penguindrum (2011)

[myimaginationplain]

this is a keiju tabuki stan account. I am one of his 15 fans

[shinhonkaku]

[medea10]

My Review of Mawaru Penguindrum

How did I get into this anime? I’ve known of this anime’s existence for a while and was well-aware that this series was directed by Kunihiko Ikuhara. Anime director of the beautifully complex Revolutionary Girl Utena and…kappas eating people’s asses fame of Sarazanmai! Well, this anime was made somewhere between both of those I just mentioned. And as long as I don’t see penguins eating people’s asses, we’ll be alright!

Kanba and Shoma Takakura are twin brothers living alone with their baby sister Himari. Time has not been kind to this family as these siblings lost their parents a while ago and Himari has been sick her whole life. In fact, Himari is given a few months at the most to live. During one of her brief breaks away from the hospital, Kanba and Shoma take Himari to the aquarium. They do the usual thing like watch the exhibits and buy souveniers. Unfortunately, the day ends in tragedy as Himari collapses. She is immediately transferred to a hospital and is later pronounced dead.

After being dead for a few minutes, Himari jumps up wearing a penguin hat that was recently purchased at the aquarium. Apparently her life has been extended a bit. Being brought back from the dead thanks to a penguin hat was strange enough. Then you have these three penguins hanging around the home all of a sudden doing odd jobs! Then Himari (while wearing the penguin hat) tells her brothers they must find the “Penguin Drum” or Himari will die. Their target for the Penguin Drum lies with a young girl named Ringo Oginome. She contains a diary that supposidely predicts the future. And it goes insane from there!

Survival tactic! Shall we begin?

BETWEEN THE SUB AND THE DUB: So this anime is a couple of years old and dubbed by Sentai Filmworks. It’s what I would expect. You’ve got the usual voices of Monica Rial and Luci Christian. There are the veteran voices like Hilary Haag, Cynthia Martinez, Shelly Calene-Black, and Dave Matranga. You’ve got voices ranging from great to mediocre. And then there’s…Oh dear.

Hello Illich Guardiola. We meet again.

Yeah, he’s one of the main leads of this anime. And we don’t hear him anymore! Reason why is due to the fact that he was charged with sexual assault on a child, but was really getting married to a 16 year old (with her parents as a witness). Regardless of your thoughts on Guardiola, this is one of his final roles before all this happened. And I have the same opinion as many do with a lot of his roles…he’s okay. Aside from that, I noticed there were a lot of cast changes on a lot of the minor characters throughout the dub. I’m not sure what the case was and I didn’t really notice the change all that much. Here’s what you might recognize these folks from.

JAPANESE CAST: *Shoma is played by Ryouhei Kimura (known for Hinata on Angel Beats, Takizawa on Eden of the East, Judar on Magi, Hachiken on Silver Spoons, Hiyori on Free!, and Taishi on Tokyo Ghoul)

*Kanba is played by Subaru Kimura (known for Takeshi on Doraemon and Terasaka on Assassination Classroom)

*Himari is played by Miho Arakawa (known for Concordia on Pokemon BW, Sonia on Danganronpa 3, and Ginko on Yuri Kuma Arashi)

*Ringo is played by Marie Miyake (known for Aki on Silver Spoon and Hideki on Love Live)

ENGLISH CAST: *Shoma is played by Blake Shepard (known for Soma on Food Wars, Otonashi on Angel Beats, Natsume on Inu x Boku SS, Alex on Domestic Girlfriend, Kyousuke on Little Busters, and Laito on Diabolik Lovers)

*Kanba is played by Illich Guardiola (known for Yoshino on Clannad, Takamatsu on Angel Beats, Kanae on Maria Holic, Kuze on ef – a tale of melodies, and Shidou on Highschool of the Dead)

*Himari is played by Monica Rial (known for Bulma on DBZ: Kai, May Chang on FMA: Brotherhood, Index on Railgun/Index, Nyamo on Azumanga Daioh, Stocking on Panty & Stocking, and Mei-rin on Black Butler)

*Ringo is played by Emily Neves (known for Kotomi on Clannad, Kanade on Angel Beats, Minene on Mirai Nikki, Kumin in Chunibyo, and Yuu on Watamote)

SHIPPING: Wow, this gets bat-shit early on! Take a sedative, y’all!

In the early episodes of Mawaru Penguindrum, we see Ringo infatuated with an older man named Tabuki. He’s a teacher at Shoma and Kanba’s school. But it gets creepier when Ringo crawls under this guy’s house to listen to his various noises, steal curry his girlfriend made, use aphrodisiacs on him, and have elaborate plans to seduce this guy. However, it does get a little sad when you realize this girl is trying to win over Tabuki to somehow become her dead sister (that died the day Ringo was born). But then it gets really fucked up when she tries to rape Tabuki not once, but twice. Yes, you heard me! In one episode Ringo comes up from the floor boards naked as a jaybird and tries to jump in bed with him (thankfully he wasn’t at home). Then in another episode, Ringo drugs Tabuki and Shoma, dresses up like Tabuki’s fiancé and was ready to do the deed. We are eight episodes in at this point and hoping to the anime Gods that this kind of batshit insanity ends quickly.

(It doesn’t. It gets worse.)

From one train-wreck of a character to another! Let’s talk about Yuri. This is Tabuki’s fiancé turned wife. This is the woman Ringo was trying to get rid of so she can have Tabuki all to herself. But it turns out Yuri has history involving Ringo’s sister Momoka. Yuri loved Momoka. So much so that she sees Momoka in Ringo and Yuri ends up sexually assaulting Ringo. And that’s just layer one with Tabuki x Yuri. They have their own ambitions and they all involve Ringo’s dead sister. Their love for each other is quite fake. And it wasn’t until Tabuki got stabbed by a jilted lover of Yuri’s that they just settled for each other.

And then you’ve got Masako trying to shower love on Kanba. They’re blood brother and sister.

Can we talk about something normal here?

Right, this is an Ikuhara directed anime. Nothing’s ever going to be normal here.

After learning about the relationship between the Takakura siblings, I wondered who really loved Himari most and if Ringo was going to get any love either. It was very clear that Kanba was the closest to Himari. I know Shoma was the one that saved Himari when they were children, but there are scenes with Kanba accepting items from Himari that he would never normally accept from any female. Not to mention Kanba willing to sacrifice his own being to save Himari more than once.

As for Shoma, I know he had his fill of Ringo and her bullshit early on. But things became a lot more civil between the two. Almost friendly! But then Shoma learned about Ringo’s sister Momoka dying in a terrorist attack and became absolutely riddled with guilt. Well, that’s because Shoma’s parents are to blame for that attack. So he was very distant with Ringo. But we do get a love confession at the end of the series. But…well, shit happens!

THE PENGUINS: In the first episode, Shoma, Tanba, and Himari were given three penguins shortly after visiting the aquarium and getting that penguin hat that changed everything. These penguins can’t be seen by anyone else and throughout each episode, they’re seen doing ridiculous things. Even during the tensest moments of the series, we’ll see one of these little penguins doing something unbelievable. I think the most ridiculous moment has to be in the hospital where we see one of them stealing women’s underwear. Shoma’s in the freakin’ hospital after getting hit by a car and we have to watch a penguin fishing for panties.

Fine, I admit it. I was laughing my ass off when one of the penguins was fishing for panties. I am an immature degenerate.

MARCH 20TH, 1995: In terms of Mawaru Penguindrum, this is a very important date. First of all, it’s the day that Shoma, Kanba, Masako, and Ringo were all born. Not only that, but this was the date of Momoka’s death when she was in that terrorist attack in the train station. But did you know this particular date has left a mark in Japan? That day was when a cult released Sarin gas throughout several trains in Tokyo, killing 13 and injuring over 5000.

FORESHADOWING?!: It might have been some major foreshadowing where we see Ringo’s plush toys every now and then. Normally I wouldn’t give it another glance, but watching this immediately after viewing Sarazanmai and seeing an otter and a kappa together like that, I’m starting to wonder. Mawaru Penguindrum was made in 2011 and Sarazanmai was made in 2019. Maybe Sarazanmai was in the works for many years and we just didn’t know it.

ENDING: So it’s pretty clear that Ringo’s sister Momoka had a powerful diary. So much so that even after Momoka’s death, people want to get their hands on it. Yuri wants it to revive Momoka. Masako wants the diary to make her younger brother Mario better (as he’s sick with the same illness as Himari). Both Yuri and Masako have part of the diary but can’t really do much with it as it is split in half. Momoka was able to create miracles with her diary when she was alive. Things that are written will come true, but comes at a price to Momoka’s body and she would ultimately die from it.

And then we get the bombshell of Takakura family. Kanba isn’t really Shoma’s real brother. He’s really related to Masako (the girl who’s been chasing him down for nearly half the series). They’re twins! And as for Himari, she’s not related to Shoma either. This makes Shoma the only real Takakura. Apparently, Himari was an unwanted child and was sent to a place called the “Child Broiler” to disappear. Hold the ending for a second!

WHAT?! A Child broiler! Where unwanted children are gathered and are burned and turned into smoke. What kind of holocaust shit is this?! Dude, burning children is not cool! I had to do a double-take when Tabuki told his story about that place. But when I learned about Himari almost dying there, oh hell no! I just had to get that off my chest.

BACK TO THE ENDING: Despite Kanba and Himari not really a part of the Takakura family, they’re still getting the brunt of the blame for what their parents did. I mean, their parents are part of a terrorist organization that caused the death of a lot of people. So it does get to the point where Tabuki snaps and tries to kill Himari as revenge for Momoka. And Shoma has been a depressive basket-case since learning about Ringo’s sister dying as a result of his parents. This happy, little family that Shoma, Kanba, and Himari built is crumbling down. Kanba is actually in cahoots with his parents who are still alive and not in prison. Himari and Shoma remember the truth that Himari isn’t really their sister and that Shoma saved her. This leading to Himari leaving Shoma to go with Kanba!

Kanba is pretty far gone at this point. His objective is to save Himari and that’s all. He doesn’t care about his real siblings Masako and Mario. Mario is just as sick as Himari and can only live because of a special penguin hat much like Himari’s. Kanba is following in his parent’s footsteps of setting off bombs and causing mass destruction. In a showdown between him and police, he was already pretty beaten up and Masako ends up saving him and taking the brunt of the attack. And that’s when Sanetoshi steps up!

Yeah, this guy has been seen around almost hauntingly throughout the series. Halfway into the series, he was the doctor with special viles to help Himari live. Yeah, he’s a ghost, but he still twerks things to his liking. He’s the reason why there are two penguin hats and surprise, those hats are really Momoka split in two. Sanetoshi then has Himari and Masako live a little longer. And then he burned Momoka’s diary while Ringo is surrounded by flames. Next to come will be Kanba’s big bang by setting bombs all over the train. A revisit to what his parents did on the day of his birth. Thankfully, he was stopped by Ringo who recited something related to the diary and her sister. We end this stand-off with Shoma admitting his feelings for Ringo and a final touching moment between Kanba and Himari. Kanba and Shoma end up disappearing and wiped away from everyone’s memories.

Okay then!

So Masako and Himari don’t remember them having an older brother and Ringo doesn’t remember being told she was loved. But it’s a happy ending I suppose. Mario and Himari aren’t going to die like what was indicated throughout the series. Tabuki and Yuri are going to stay together and bury the hatchet over losing Momoka all those years ago. But there are still clues that indicate that Shoma and Kanba indeed existed. So will we ever see them again? Who the hell knows? Ikuhara-san gives me headaches.

Yep, it’s an Ikuhara brain-fart classic. It was a fun yet confusing ride. And isn’t it just perfect timing that while watching Penguindrum, they announce a recap movie? The franchise is still as popular as ever if the crowd-funding site reached its donation goal in less than one hour. I know it’s been 10 years since the anime’s debut and it’s only a recap, but who knows! We could get an extra at the end that could indicate a return or something that involves the girls reunited with Kanba and Shoma.

Oh dear…um, who’s gonna play Kanba if this gets picked up overseas? Because there’s no way Illich is ever coming back.

Once again, I always enjoy the art and animation here. No matter what Ikuhara anime you watch, you can tell that there’s so much inspiration from Rose of Versailles. And why not? That’s a great freakin’ anime, somebody relicense it please! But art alone isn’t going to hook a lot of viewers to this one if you aren’t used to this kind of thing. Many of Ikuhara’s animes deal a lot with fate and destiny and going through the weirdest things imaginable in order to get there. It won’t always make a lot of sense. And when you see penguins roaming around doing weird-ass shit, even during the serious moments, you might get thrown off.

Once more, I recommend you watch Revolutionary Girl Utena and Yuri Kuma Arashi first to get your feet wet. Then watch a few Bakemonogatari episodes too. I know Ikuhara isn’t involved in the Monogatari series, but it’s good practice. Then, I think you’ll be ready to take this series on.

If you would like to watch Mawaru Penguindrum, all 26 episodes are available to watch on Hi-Dive.

Now what’s my next Sentai…AND NO, I WILL NOT REVIEW REDO OF HEALER!

Hell yeah! Shoujo-Ai in the house!