Sankarea – 07

Ranko might not be a living corpse, but she deserves some love too. <3

Sorry for not replying the comments, guys. Last week was pretty busy. See, this is why I like Tag Team. Hawthrone is such a dedicated tag partner. I should book for him next season. Oh, and sorry for the late post too. No internet yesterday.

Ahaha, tagging with you has been fun anaaga! ;D So, another week of Sankarea and now we’re finally getting a Ranko flashback episode! For a character who has had only minor importance to the story up until now, I wonder how this will turn out …

As Wanko walks to Chihiro’s house with Rea’s spare clothes, she becomes the sad Wanko who laments over her missed chance. Determined to help her cousin + childhood friend, she slowly runs to Chihiro’s place.

Time skip after few weeks/days/any day after Rea being caught. Chihiro helps over at Wanko’s inn with bonus of people (Wanko’s mom) shipping Chihiro with Wanko. Wanko reminisces about her first meeting with Chihiro as she goes doki doki for him at the same time. Chibi Wanko thought that Chihiro is her prince since he helped the lost Wanko in the graveyard. However, lone wolf Chihiro’s “unique” hobby disappoint Wanko to no end.

SAFE!

Romance is in the air, with a hint of death and flowers.

Chihiro and Wanko deliver deliveries (geddit), and Chihiro’s friend thinks that they’re having a date. Wanko goes into another reminiscence mode as Chihiro argues with his friend. After two years, Wanko’s family moved into Chihiro’s area. Once more, Chihiro’s zombie fetish got in the way of their friendship. Fed up with Chihiro’s ignorant attitude, Wanko took the rented DVD and ran away, wanting to give it back to the rental store.

My reaction exactly.

On her way, Wanko met a mean and ugly-looking dog. Chihiro managed to get away from it, but Wanko wasn’t. Wanting to save Wanko, Chihiro tried to shoo the dog (and was successful). After both of them cried together, Wanko and Chihiro made up. As they watched the zombie movie, Chihiro revealed her taste in women: zombie girl.

Back to the present. Wanko asks Chihiro to hold her hand while making the last two deliviries. To Wanko’s surprise, Chihiro actually remembers the very first time they held hand, which is the time when they were at the graveyard.

Chihiro to the rescue!~

After they’re done making the deliveries, Chihiro and Wanko part ways. Until Chihiro waves his hand. Feeling as if Chihiro will get away, Wanko pulls Chihiro and try to kiss him. Seeing Chihiro’s face, Wanko ends up not kissing him and gets mad at Chihiro, repeating the same sentence she said when they were kids. Wanko runs to some isolated place and shouts her frustration away. Not wanting to give up on Chihiro, Wanko promises herself that she “won’t lose to her [Rea].”

Hot topics: Hand-holding.

Kissu~ … or not.

More Mini Chihiro and Ranko:

The real question: Who wins the contest for cuteness!?

“Afraid of zombies? Well I want one as a girlfriend, get on my level.”

Ehhhh, this episode fine, just like the previous episode. Somehow it failed to impress me. I find Wanko’s affection to Chihiro to be too cliché. I see Wanko’s romantic affection as nothing but admiration that’s falsely being seen as romantic affection. I mean, c’mon, liking Chihiro because of the graveyard incident, with the addition of the dog incident? If that’s love, then huh, it’s such a shallow love. There has to be more than that! … Actually, there is. This is where I feel conflicted. I find Wanko’s “love” for Chihiro to be shallow and deep at the same time. Shallow because the affection was formed because of such trivial matter, but deep because… Just look at how Chihiro is! A “loser” who happens to be a zombie freak too! Chihiro’s hobby might sound amusing in a movie, but it’s something that’s not really accepted in the society right now. Knowing all of that, Wanko is still willing to accept Chihiro as how he is. That’s dedication right there. It’s still disappointing though, how Wanko’s affection was formed because of such petty thing. So shoujo-ish. I wish it has a more solid foundation *sigh*

The second reason of my disapproval of Wanko’s romantic affection is because of their relation: cousins. Are Japanese into this kind of relationship or something? Somehow someone will always be in love with her/his cousin. Now, I don’t like to judge one’s preference. In fact, I am very open when it comes to love. Date whoever you want as long as it doesn’t harm anybody. Unfortunately, the idea of cousins being in love with each other is too repetitive now to the point where it’s annoying. I might be being too demanding right now, but this repetitive concept is giving the impression as if it’s impossible for cousins to be friends only. Dude! I have a hot cousin who happens to be friendly too, but I have no intention of spending my life with him. Ick. So yeah, I hate to say this, but I prefer Wanko and Chihiro to be strictly friends only. Heck, even being a mother figure to Chihiro is fine too (I prefer this idea more because Wanko moved two years after their first meeting. I suspect that’s the time when Chihiro’s mother died. Probably the reason why Wanko’s father decided to move). Anything but being lovers.

Now, for the little things. I like how the anime crew didn’t spend the whole episode on flashback only. It was creative of them to go back and forth with the timing, from the present back to the past then present again. I find that to be pleasing for my eyes. I don’t like the amount of orange/yellow color being used in this episode because that somehow hurts my eyes. But except that, I have no problem with the animation. It wasn’t that great too though. Or maybe I’m just Rea bias? I’m shipping her with Chihiro so much right now, hehe. I hope that Rea could change Chihiro. Somehow I can’t help but feeling as if Chihiro needs Rea by his side.

Before I say anything I should probably mention that I love flashback episodes to no end, so I’m completely bias on the direction this week’s Sankarea took. Rather than being solely a flashback episode however, the two periods of time (current day and their childhood) were weaved together, crossing the line between past and present. Like anaaga, I enjoyed that creative interaction between the younger and older versions of the same characters. For an episode completely lacking in Rea, this was surprisingly not all that bad.

Since back in the first couple episodes I’ve been back and forth on my opinion of Ranko. She’s never been all that important story-wise and her “cousin in love” status annoyed me to no end, but over the weeks she’s shown an oddly charming way of interacting with Chihiro. I agree with anaaga that her feelings seem to be more of a mix of admiration and actual love, but what’s wrong with that? I mean, besides the hints of incest … which I’ve read isn’t the least bit common in Japan anyway. It’s not the dark, gruesome type of love relationship started with Rea, but a cute relationship like the one she’s shared with Chihiro since childhood can be just as emotionally entertaining, and frankly completely adorable. I have to disagree with you anaaga that their connection was petty, because some of the strongest bonds can be formed with something as simple as saving someone from harm or being a friend to someone whose never had one. After all, not everyone can be so tragically lucky as to fall from a cliff, get gutted, and live as a zombie like Rea! ><

Even so, I wasn’t overly impressed by the actual development for Ranko, who I expected after this episode might gain a larger role in the story beyond the second love interest. (Which at this point doesn’t even look like a romantic possibility.) I fully expect her to play the same role she always has, just with somewhat more screen time now that Rea’s secret is known to her. Not that it’s necessarily a bad thing, I’m looking forward to some crazy moments between Ranko and Rea. Anyway, with her back story out of the way, maybe we can start digging into the plot a little more with all these questions still surrounding Chihiro’s grandfather, his mother, the suspiciously absent parents of Rea, and of course her slowly dying body.

Preview: Rea’s back and it looks like it’s time for the first date! … but they won’t be alone.