Mawaru Penguindrum First Impressions: I Still Don’t Know the Purpose of that Transformation Sequence I Saw That Day

Mawaru Penguindrum is going to be quite a tough nut to crack. It’s easily the densest start to a series all season, as well as one of the most intentionally ambiguous. Though the plot isn’t all that difficult to follow, as was the case in Revolutionary Girl Utena, the tiny details that really add to the experience are difficult to pick up on without a working knowledge of fairytales and a keen eye. I’ll be honest, this seems to be one of the most interesting looking series to arise in quite awhile.

Synopsis

Most of the first half details a tragedy in a particular family. Brothers Kanba and Shouma have received news that their fragile sister Himari has a terminal disease that could cause her to drop dead at any moment. The two are determined to make the rest of her life happy, deciding to take her to an aquarium one day after a breakfast that serves to establish the relationships in this odd family.
While at the aquarium, Shouma takes Himari to the gift shop to buy her a souvenir, finally setting on an odd looking penguin hat. While he buys it, Himari wanders away and passes out in the aquarium proper. She’s rushed to the hospital with Kanba and Shouma following suit, only to witness her formally die. While the two brothers grieve, she rises, inexplicably wearing the penguin hat that Shouma bought for her. There was evidently some kind of entity in that hat that prolonged her life, the purpose remaining unclear.

With the doctor confirming her stable and ready to be discharged from the hospital, a true miracle, the three return to their everyday lives filled with joy. This would normally constitute the entire episode in any other series, but we still have an entire second half to cover.
The next day, as Shouma heads off to school, an odd package arrives. It contains three frozen blue lumps of what will soon be revealed to be penguin in a cooler. Running late enough as is without worrying about strange packages coinciding with his sister’s discharge, Shouma leaves Kanba and Himari to deal with the blobs.
On the way back from school, Shouma is accosted by one of the frozen penguins, who is sent to help in any way possible. When he finally gets home, he learns that both Kanba and Himari have also adjusted to having the penguins around, the penguins helping out with housework and cooking and the like. Everything seems back to a stable place before Himari inexplicably has the hat back on her head again. With the mere shout of “Survival strategy”, she transports herself and her brothers to a pocket dimension in one of the most memorable, baffling sequences of the year.

While in this dimension, Possessed Himari informs Kanba and Shouma through the magic of strip monologuing that she needs a penguindrum. When Shouma objects, he’s dropped down a hatch Excel Saga style and Kanba is given the Utena treatment by having something pulled out of his chest, shown in the screenshot above, by an assertive woman symbolic of… something.
Then the episode finally ends with Kanba standing over his sister, about to kiss her. Hey, to complete the weirdness, incest had to be thrown in.

Reaction

To say that Mawaru Penguindrum starts off perplexing despite its simple premise would be an understatement. What started as a tragedy with prevalent deterministic themes and a dash of fairytale sensibilities (Which becomes an underlying theme, particularly the story of Snow White. I’m not too familiar past that, but E Minor has compiled a decent list of fairytale references, if you’d care to peruse his first impressions post) ended up a comedy with literary references pouring out of every figurative orifice.
I’ll say this now, if you just follow the plot without paying attention to many of the details, it’s fairly straightforward and you most likely won’t have a hard time following. You will be confused by the development, but everything leading up to the odd finale will be easy to follow. However, if you stop to take a look at the scenery, you’ll find that there’s a lot to get hung up on.
Again, Snow White is the most obvious parallel to the events transpiring here. From the apple flashed across the screen every so often to Himari’s miracle return to life because of her true love’s kiss, played in this episode by the possessing penguin hat just inexplicably chilling on her head, allusions are abound.

I also doubt the penguins are there just to provide a dash of cuteness to an already colorful tale, some symbolic purpose in line with the penguins’ nature most likely playing a part in later episodes.

Since I’m not here to speculate for several pages as to the nature of upcoming episodes, I’ll say now that this episode almost gets wrapped up in itself at times. As such, it felt like it got much too carried away at a certain point that I’m sure very few people who follow airing anime aren’t aware of. It looks great, but it ultimately ends up going a bit too far before realizing that there are only a few minutes left, pulling itself to reality in a jarring manner.
The animation is certainly trademark of one who’d design something as eye catching as Revolutionary Girl Utena, with near immaculate art design for important details and people, and barebones minimalism for everything else. This is pretty obvious when Shouma is shown walking home from school, with everyone who he didn’t interact with being represented by a bare white figure of a person slowly gliding along the street. It may not be perfect, with hiccups in character designs from time to time, but it’s a style that jumps out at you and remains lodged in your memory. Mawaru Penguindrum will be a very visual story, much like Utena was.

As far as sound goes, there hasn’t been much to comment on beyond the characters’ voices and the music that played during the odd dimensional transport scene. The seiyuu do their parts really well, though the doctor sounded like he was overcoming a brutal monotone when saying how shocking it was that Himari recovered. Since that’s a bit part though, I can’t knock the voices in general. The OP and ED didn’t really strike me as anything special, though they definitely weren’t standard fare, and that song that played during Himari’s transformation sequence was an addicting up tempo piece that really complemented the bizarre mania of that scene.
Finally, the characters are given enough room to develop to offset any lack of real development in this episode, which is a nice change of pace from the superficial development in other series, where a character’s behavior is changed very little, if at all. In this, there’s enough room for the characters to grow more optimistic, pessimistic, closer, further apart, up, down, left, right… the point is, they have the capability to form interesting character dynamics that break pre-established molds.

This penguin disproves the stereotype that penguins can't cut cucumbers.

I could go on for quite awhile about this, but that would constitute much more than a first impressions post. Mawaru Penguindrum started off on an entertaining, yet very odd note that didn’t do much of anything other than piquing interest through confusion. It’s a show with a purpose for sure, and definitely one of the most interesting first episodes of the year so far.
Really, anybody with a tolerance for strangeness should check this out. It isn’t absolutely perfect by any means, and I’ll admit to letting it tint my lenses horribly in its favor, but it’s a worthy watch that remains entertaining throughout.