Mawaru Penguindrum is a show where two brothers are doing everything in their power to save their sister from death.
What would you do to save someone you love? Would you give up everything to change their fate? Would you go against everything you believe in? Would you die for them? In Mawaru Penguindrum, you get to see exactly how far Shoma and Kanba would go to save Himari. When they find out their sister is going to die they make a deal to find an object called the Penguindrum. The show follows them trying to find it and story behind how this all happened.
First thing I need to say is that Mawaru Penguindrum is not for people who don’t want to think while watching something. This is a show full of symbolism and a lot of things will be important later on. I am not going to go into all of it, but it is not the easiest show to watch. Also it is not just going to give you answers to things right away, you have to watch until the end and even then you might not be totally satisfied.
The best part of this show was the penguins.
Not that kind of penguin, although they did show up quite a bit.
This kind of penguin is what I am talking about. The penguins are a good comic relief to what could be a terribly depressing show otherwise. They each reflect their owners and have their own little quirks. Shoma’s penguin loves to eat and sprays bugs a lot. Kanba’s penguin likes to look at dirty magazines and exercise. Himari’s penguin likes to dress up. The penguins can also reflect what is going on in the show in a more amusing way. Seeing what the penguins are doing is always a highpoint of the show for me.
The music and visuals for this series are all pretty good. The original opening for this show what far superior to the second though. I wish they had stuck with the first one the whole time. Towards the end of the series they frequently change the song played during the ending. They are all nice songs and appropriate to what is going on in the series.The visuals for the show are quite striking with the bold use of color they use most of the time. Considering the darker tone of the show I would expect a different color palette, but it seems to fit with this show.
Overall I like the complexity of the series and how things mostly fall into place at the end. The show has a darker tone, but they manage to keep it from being too dark with comedy with the penguins. The music and art fit with the tone of the show very well. I think this is all around a pretty good show. Things could have been altered to make it better, so I wouldn’t say perfect.
Score: 4/5
Can you change fate? What price would you pay to do so?
