Introduction
Thanks for joining me for another episode analysis. In the 11th installment, we have insane stalker girls, love potions, emotional trauma, and farting penguins – a typical episode of Ikuhara’s crazy anime, Mawaru Penguindrum. This episode also dealt with some pretty dark content (for example, Ringo drugs Tabuki to make him fall in love with her, and Tabuki almost rapes Ringo.) Regardless of its dark content, I’m continuing to enjoy analyzing the story, characters, and themes in Penguindrum.
Disclaimer:
This analysis contains spoilers and was written by someone who has seen the series before, incorporating knowledge of later events.
Content Warnings:
Stalking, emotional and physical abuse, incest, drugging, attempted rape
Part 1: Masako The “Love Hunter”
This episode began with Kanba visiting the Natsume estate to get the diary from Masako, as well as confront her about the balls she fired at his girlfriends to erase their memories. Kanba now remembers that he’s twins with Masako and grew up with her. However, he’s understandably furious at her for being an incestuous creep and a nuisance in his plan to save Himari. Kanba will definitely never return Masako’s affections.
Masako is a piece of work. She views the world as a wilderness in which she is free to “hunt” people in a game of love. Anyone could be a target. She doesn’t actually seek to have healthy, loving relationships with others, but to feel like she possesses them romantically and sexually. In other words, if it wasn’t clear already, Masako is a dangerous, manipulative person who may be sociopathic and/or narcissistic.
Kanba asked if the mysterious memory-canceling balls were from “that place.” He figured that Masako was getting help from his parent’s company, AKA terrorist group, Pingroup Inc. Masako then made the analogy of the emperor penguins on the iceberg. The implication is that Kanba is getting pushed to edge because he won’t push anyone else into the water. But others are bound to push him in, making him food for seals. Masako said of the terrorist group, “It’s that kind of place.”
In addition, Masako mentioned that Kanba’s secret will become public eventually. She probably means that the Takakura children would soon be publicly recognized as the family of the culprits behind the 1995 terrorism attack. Kanba was probably also stressed during this scene because his family was falling apart. He couldn’t keep the pieces together much longer. In the end, Kanba returned empty-handed after Masako explained that she was trying to save her little brother Mario.
Part 2: Ringo’s Insanity
The rest of the episode focused on Ringo and her storyline. In the previous episode review, I wrote that Ringo was undergoing positive character development. That’s still true, but she has a long way to go. In this episode, she relapses back to her insufferable, psychopathic tendencies. I think it’s more realistic this way, with characters having major ups and downs in their progress, rather than becoming “good” overnight. That being said, Ringo really is an utterly soulless, selfish brat in this installment.
Much to Ringo’s rage, Shoma refused to continue helping her with stalking Tabuki. When Shoma said that Ringo was herself and nobody else, it had a big impact on the teenage girl, but she didn’t want to admit it. Nobody had ever recognized her value as a person that way, and she never dared before to think of herself as anything but Momoka’s replacement. Ringo was too stubborn to accept her own new feelings. Thus, she went to drug Tabuki with a love potion made from sweat and magic frog slime. Disgusting.
Since this is Penguindrum and not a more realistic or consistent anime, magic actually works sometimes. The cursed love potion made Tabuki fall head-over-heels for the teenage girl. Apparently, the potion also overrides your moral principles and good sense. Otherwise, I don’t believe Tabuki would go after a minor and a friend of the family. But as things were, Tabuki brought Ringo home and, in one of the more serious moments in Penguindrum, attempted to have sex to with her.
Ringo could not go through with it and tried to leave. It’s interesting how it took this much to get her to realize something so simple: that she wasn’t truly in love with Tabuki. As Yuri patiently pointed out, Ringo was in love with Shoma. Speaking of Yuri, I wonder what was going through her mind when a mentally unstable sixteen year-old tried to steal her fiancé? Yuri acted patient and wise in this instance, but from later, we know she’s also unhinged and will eventually abduct and rape Ringo. So, don’t go admiring her.
Side Note: Tabuki under the influence of the love potion was genuinely terrifying, especially when he acted like a frog-man-monster and tried to force himself on Ringo. WTF Ikuhara!
Ringo left Tabuki’s apartment safely and met up with Himari and Shoma, who made fresh curry cabbage rolls as a way to make amends for the fight earlier. Ringo again acted completely unreasonable, knocking the food to the ground and hitting Shoma repeatedly, unfairly angry at him for her own feelings. When Himari became the Princess of the Crystal and insulted Ringo, it was highly amusing. The Princess calls Ringo a “monkey bitch” (Japanese: mesu saru) and that makes me laugh every time I hear it.
Part 3: Realizing The Truth
In a rare moment of honest communication, Ringo told Shoma that she believed she was the reincarnation of Momoka. She also explained that Momoka died in the terrorist attack on the day of Ringo’s birth in 1995. Shoma immediately started feeling ashamed and bitter. He told Ringo that his family was to blame. The episode ends here and marks a change in the tone of Penguindrum. After this point, the Takakuras’ happy family act begins to crumble and the show gets darker and more dramatic.
It’s saddening to think how emotionally traumatized all the kids must be in the Takakura family. Their memories of their own younger years are vague. That’s why Kanba forgot he was adopted and why Himari and Shoma forgot their earlier experiences with each other. It also seems like the kids might have tried to “block out” what they learned a few years earlier, that their parents were terrorists. It’s common for people to forget portions of their lives when under severe stress or during a traumatic time.
Now, despite his best efforts to forget, Shoma was suddenly faced with a cruel reminder of what his parents did. He already considered Ringo someone he was connected to, and now it seemed that he ruined the life of this poor girl. Shoma feels deep shame and believes he is somehow partly responsible for the terrorist attack. Penguindrum deals with many concepts related to families – including the belief held by some that children are accountable for their parents’ actions. Shoma is proof of how wrong and damaging this philosophy can be to thoughtful children who internalize stress.
We’ll discuss the theme of “family sin” further in the next episode analysis. This was definitely a crazy episode, but that’s all my notes for now. If you watched Penguindrum episode 11 recently and have more thoughts to add, please tell me about them in the comments. I love learning more about this series and the different perspectives people have on it. Sayonara until next time!
~Thanks for reading~
Written by 7Mononoke at Anime Rants
Anime Rants 