Sankarea – 02

It’s either the pedobear or the necrophiliac. Sanka Rea has sucky choices.

Last week’s premiere caught me off guard, with surprisingly great graphics for a DEEN show and a strangely entertaining premise. I was definitely impressed! With that said, anaaga and I are going to be teaming up to tackle this peculiar new series! ´▽｀

Back with the undead, with Hawthorne! Now let’s see whether the animation reverts back to typical DEEN standard or not. Man, both of us are so stuck with the whole DEEN stuff. This is what happens when one has no trust for a studio. Oh, and sorry for the SUPER LATE post. Was busy with Ani-tourney stuff.

Although Sanka Rea might come off to others as a typical bishoujo to others, she locks away the history of her worse than dysfunctional family behind a pretty smile. Together with her new zombie-obsessed friend Chihiro she helps to try and create a potion to revive Babu. Unfortunately Chihiro has run out of ideas for what the secret poisonous ingredient could be to finish the potion, but Rea has an idea and runs off to find it.

An anime is not an anime without a tripping scene

While she’s off searching we learn more about Rea’s troubled past. Her father selfishly treats her as a possession, chasing off anything that tries to get close to her. His love for her goes so far (and so creepy) as to take nude pictures of her every year. Aria, her mother, treats her just as bad, ignoring her own daughter out of jealousy. With age Rea has realized the oddities of her family and accepts them as normal, that is until she meets Juri, a bubbly girl from a similarly wealthy family.

The two girls quickly became friends, and Rea even experiences the normalities and happiness that Juri’s family has, unlike her own. Eventually Rea works up to courage to tell Juri her family secrets, which Juri cannot accept as normal behavior. She convinces Rea to defend herself from her father’s disgusting actions, however Rea’s father learns of what happened and goes so far as to get Juri’s father fired from his job forcing them to move, forcing the two girls to end their friendship.

Notice how this scene cuts the pedobear’s head, but the mirror across shows his face

Chihiro saves Rea from a nasty fall out on a cliff, but she manages to find what she was looking for, a poisonous flower that they haven’t tried. As Chihiro finishes up the potion and retrieves the deceased cat, Rea secretly takes a small portion and hides it in her skirt. They try the potion, but it has no affect on Babu. Later on Chihiro decides to give up and lay Babu to rest, which saddens Rea because she wants to see him more. Still, they part ways and decide to meet up again to bury Babu. Rea’s father sees them from the mansion and slaps her.

“You can’t die now! I need a female protagonist to hook up with!”

Displaying totally normal cousin behavior, Wanko greets Chihiro from the bathroom window, no towels necessary of course, they’re cousin after all! Wanko later tries to figure out why Chihiro has been disappearing every night which leads to her opening Babu’s cooler. Suddenly Babu flies out alive and runs off … or I guess, floats off into the night.

With her father deciding to not let her go outside ever again, Rea chooses to kill herself rather then be his possession. Thinking the potion she took from before is just a simple poison rather then what it actually is (evident from Babu) she drinks the liquid in a suicide attempt.

More Suicide:

Obligatory evil face

NNNNNNNGGGGHHHHHH

='(

anaaga’s favorite scene of this week

“This poisonous leaf is so tasty de geso!”

Possibly the cutest spy on planet

I’m amazed at how entertaining this show is! I was worried that shifting focus to Rea might lessen the experience (since I found her kind of boring last week), but her past was even more disturbing then I assumed. HER DAD IS CREEPY. That’s what I was screaming in my head the entire time I watched this. In a way I’m happy that what could have taken weeks to develop over short, secretive dialogues with Chihiro was thrown out all at once because I feel a lot more connected emotionally to Rea then I previously did, I feel terrible for her and what’s worse is that even her mother doesn’t support her! No wonder she wants to kill herself to escape that prison. Why does it feel like wealthy families are always the most screwed up!? XD

This week we finally got some actual zombies! … Okay, cat zombies … but still, it’s a zombie! (Babu lives! Rejoice!) That obviously leads to the conclusion that Rea herself will become a zombie at some point because of the potion she drank. Which then also means she’ll have to die, and from what we witnessed at the end of last week’s episode a poison doesn’t seem to be what does her in. It’s an odd way to set-up the story with the mixed-up series of events, but I’m enjoying it. Sankarea had me believing it’d be a lighthearted romantic comedy with some zombies thrown in, but besides the scenes with Wanko, it’s pretty intense and emotional … unexpected, but appreciated!

I had no idea last week that ex-Shaft people were working on this series (Shinichi Omata more specifically) which explains why Sankarea has felt so Shaft-y, even more so this week. So did DEEN bump up the budget to cater to Omata? Probably … Once again this episode looked and sounded amazing compared to typical DEEN standards. (Now let’s all cross our fingers that this sells well so we can get more great looking shows like this from them! ><) Anyway, I’m looking forward to some more zombie goodness next week, seems as though Wanko will be getting some more screen time, which I’m sure plenty of people will be happy to hear.

I agree with what Hawthorne said about DEEN. These two episodes of Sankarea has been a surprise for me. Who would’ve thought that they managed to pull off episode two perfectly? The animation was as great episode one’s, but there were improvements made in the angles of the scenes. How the scenes were captured (at least, how they looked as if they were captured), was really captivating. I just love the abandoned building scenes, where Chihiro and Rea only use two dim lights inside the building. The colors are just so clear, especially the ones in the ED’s (though I do realize that ED is just reused animation, I can’t help but love the contrast of the colors in this anime). If change in staff can improve DEEN’s standard, then they should start changing their staff. Now I’m just being a mean bitch.

Rea- I mean, SANKA Rea’s life is such a tragedy. The animation wasn’t helping either because it just made her life seem worse (what I mean by captured). What I see here is exploitation of a child’s innocence for the sake of one’s self. Sanka Rea’s father needs to die in a ditch somewhere and so does her mother. Throwing his responsibility and indulging himself in his own sick pleasure is pathetic and sad at the same time. Pathetic because it just is, and sad because Sanka Rea’s father threw away the so-called norm of society and started living in his own world where it’s ok to “love” Sanka Rea like that, which is not ok at all. The same goes for Sanka Rea’s mother, surrounding herself with gazillion alcoholic drinks and not doing anything about Sanka Rea’s situation. What’s worse, Sanka Rea’s father used the “I’m your father and I know what’s best for you!” excuse to treat Sanka Rea like that. Being ignorant parents by being parents as an excuse is something that people should not do. There might be reasons for their actions. Maybe the parents are not mentally healthy, or maybe Sanka Rea is not their real daughter. However, those are not good excuses. *pant pant* I’m starting to get emotional now. I’m not even going to talk about Sanka Rea’s ex-friend. Gosh, I’m so mad right now. That bitch.

Anyhow, let’s talk very little about Chihiro’s family. It amazes me how the grandfather has been eating those leaves like they’re nothing even though those leaves are poisonous. It’s a little bit weird though, considering how Chihiro’s grandpa is… Old. As far as I know, I don’t think degenerating bodies last long with poison. So why is Chihiro’s grandpa still alive until now? This is getting more and more suspicious. Maybe Chihiro’s grandpa is a zombie? Now that it’s a fact that his body can stand poisons, Chihiro’s grandpa being a zombie seems possible. With more theories about Chihiro, the only thing left is to see Sanka Rea as a zombie. I hope she changes in episode three. I don’t want to see another tragedy in her life. She’s too sweet to have such tragic life.

Preview: Unable to go out, Sanka Rea decided to run away from her father. Will this be the last time?

About Tag Team

We live, laugh, enjoy and strictly believe on "more the merrier". When together, we usually come up with very chatty, conversation-based episodics and interesting posts.