Mawaru Penguindrum / 輪るピングドラム: Ep 01 – 06
As usual, random comment with spoilers in no particular order:
1) Initially, I thought the stars in Himari’s bedroom were just some kind of decoration for cuteness’s sake. But what was I thinking? Every fan of Utena ought to know by now that in the world of Ikuni’s animation, nothing (and I mean nothing) ever appears on the screen by accident. I finally got what he was getting at when Ringo’s bedroom appears at the beginning of Episode 3, because the “theme” there is the sea. Himari is associated with the sky, whereas Ringo is associated with the sea.
Whereas the stars are really a shorthand for ideals and guiding hopes for the future, I think the sea is really a shorthand for “a past world sealed intact as it was”. If you ever watched La maison en petits cubes (an animation short I highly recommend), you would what I mean.
So it seems fitting that Ringo’s Fate Diary also has a picture of an underwater palace on the cover. I think the underwater palace is really an allusion to the Japanese folklore of Urashima Tarou (see Wikipedia entry here). It is an allusion to an individual emerging from an unreal world where time is suspended, to the real world where time finally catches up to that individual.
Also, Ringo’s dead sister’s name is Momoka – meaning “peach”. In addition to the Fate Diary stamp, the peach also appears on the main entrance of the apartment building where Ringo and her mother lives. They are literally living in a kind of construct in memory of Momoka.
2) I think the conversation between the two passing children will be referred to time after time, so I may as well have it written down once and for all:
A: Therefore, the apple is the universe itself. The universe in the palm of your hand, the thing that connects this world to the other world.
B: The other world?
A: The world that Kanpaneru and the other passengers are heading.
B: So how is that related to the apple?
A: It means that the apple is also a reward to those who choose death out of love.
B: But it’s all over if you die.
A: It’s not all over. On the contrary, it is the beginning of everything – that’s what Kenji is saying.
B: I don’t understand at all.
A: This is all about love. Why can’t you understand?
Obviously, Miyazawa Kenji’s short story Night on the Galactic Railroad was heart of that conversation. Go and read it if you have not read it already, though I personally think (at least up to this present moment) that Night on the Galactic Railroad and Mawaru Penguindrum are quite separate stories (just as Utena and Hermann Hesse’s Demien were quite separate stories). The only key theme that really connects the two is the train heading to death / the other world.
But speaking of apples and choosing death out of love, naturally the Eden myth of Adam and Eve springs to mind. Adam chose death out of love. Likewise Ringo (whose name means “apple”) has had near brushes with death at least twice out of “love” (I have a huge question mark over that) in these few episodes: first in nearly falling off a building to take a photo of a swallow nest, then in drowning in a lake. Note that both actions are associated with “falling” – falling from the sky and falling into the sea.
3) Note that the train in this story is called “Tokyo Sky Metro” and messages of “thou shall” and “thou shall not” (courtesy of Double H) appear all the time. Somehow, it reminds me of something I once read from either Natsume Soseki or Shiba Ryoutarou (I can’t remember very clearly). It was an allegory of modernity being like a packed train; everybody just boards the same train and passively lets the train take you somewhere… and one wonders where the train is actually headed…
4) The Hat speaks to the Takakura brothers in a unique space which seems metaphoric of the womb. She also says she came from “a place that leads to Fate” (運命の至る場所). Since all human fate leads to death, it seems safe to assume that she indeed came from some higher sphere that governs life and death.
In fact, when The Hat walks down the skeleton-like path (possibly symbolic of the vagina), I can’t help but be reminded of a line from the libretto of Richard Strauss’s opera Die Frau ohne Schatten - it was something to the effect that “a woman’s body is the path through which the dead travel to life”.
In the first episode, she gets rid of the black skirt halfway down, and when she finally reaches the bottom where Kanba is standing, she undresses completely. It seems fair to say that the white body and the black body connected by the skeleton-like path are symbolic of male/female or yin/yang. In fact, if you look at the penguin symbol on the KIGA Apple, it is strangely reminiscent of the Taoist symbol of yin/yang:
On a passing note, the same yin/yang penguin symbol also appears in the paper bag where Kanba got his money:
And also appears on Kanba’s father’s jacket:
As well as Masako’s “bullet”:
Also on the skunk called Kiyon-kun:
5) Note that the penguins at the aquarium are drawn in a very life-like matter – so much so that you wonder why they don’t just stick real photos of real penguins here or something. But then like I said above, nothing that appears in Ikuni’s animation is there for no reason. I think these real penguins are shown to emphasize how “unreal” are the three penguins that follow the three Takakura siblings. (Otherwise, how can you tell what is “real” and “unreal” in anime?)
Personally, I feel that the penguins are really shadows of their owners. No 1 is “lust”. No 2 is “gluttony”. No 3 is “vanity”.
We don’t really know much about Masako’s penguin yet, though my guess would be “hubris”.
6) In the world of Ikuni, if an adult character works in school environment, it is most likely a shorthand way of saying that the adult character is imprisoned by something beautiful lost in his younger days and is desperately seeking to recover it. (Think Akio as acting chairman of Ohtori Academy.) So it seems no accident that Tabuki-sensei is associated with the symbol of a caged bird.
For the record, the caged bird also appears in his living room:
The bird-viewing trip in Episode 4 is an interesting parallel to the aquarium trip in Episode 1. One is to see birds that don’t fly (penguins), the other is to see birds that do fly.
We now know his story with Ringo’s elder Momoka (whose name means “peach”). He has kept the ritual of Curry Day for many years since her death, and now shares Curry Day with Yuri. On the surface, he seems to be quite resigned to her death, although my guess is that he will turn creepy at some point.
7) I always say that time does not flow at the same speed in the minds of individuals – each person has his or her internal clock that is quite separate from the objective time. That is why I really like the slogan of Shinkai Makoto’s anime Byousoku 5 Centimetre: “At what speed should I live so that I will meet with you again?” To meet in this sense is not just a matter of physically meeting up, but also a matter of being in mental unison and sharing the same values.
To come back to this story, it’s not that Ringo’s mother is completely stuck in the past – she too moves on eventually, just at a much slower speed than Ringo’s father. It does not matter that couple was eventually headed to the same direction – the difference in speed was enough to destroy their marriage.
Also, I quite like how the couple’s wrangle is dramatized with Ringo’s stuffed dolls. Interestingly, the animal that crashed into stuff dolls has been identified as moray eel – frankly, I have never even heard of moray eel until now.
8 ) Now, a word on Ringo’s fixation that if she becomes Momoka and completes all the actions in the Fate Diary on Momoka’s behalf, her family would be brought back together. I suppose girls of a certain age are prone to that sort of thinking in circles and believing in some kind of absolutes – the only difference is in the degree to which they are indulged in that sort of thing. Perhaps in times ancient, the extreme behavior she exhibits would be deemed by medicine men or wise women alike as signs that she is “possessed by the devil”. These days, “being possessed by the devil” would probably go under the name of “neurosis”.
I once wrote about what if Utena were a novel of the Hyakkiyagyō series (you can also find my longer review of the Hyakkiyagyō series here); I said that the whole concept of “The Prince” in Utena would probably be considered a kind of tsukimono [憑き物] (ie. a “spiritual thing that attaches itself to an individual”), which only someone like Chūzenji Akihiko can “let fall” [落とす] or exorcise.
If what Ringo has is not tsukimono, then I don’t know what is. She lives on the other side.
Regarding her shoya [初夜] (meaning “the night in which one loses one’s virginity”) – I suppose the picture above speaks a thousand words. The creepier thing is that the stuffed dolls symbolic of her parents are also “watching”. The fact that she draws a stick figure above her shows that she is not so innocent about the sexual act itself.
9) I really like how Ringo’s drowning scene is choreographed. First, it shows No.2 diving after the sinking Ringo, but as soon as No.2 catches a fish, it swims back to the surface, indicating that No.2′s purpose was only to catch a fish to eat – ie. for its own survival. Then Shouma dives in to save the sinking Ringo – ie. putting his life in danger to save another’s life. This is not part of his native instinct as mirrored by No.2. In other words, something other than his native instinct drove him to save Ringo.
Whatever “Survival Strategy” turns out to mean in this series, I think this scene would be crucial in understanding it.
(Also one must say that Ikuni sure has a thing about a princess drowning and being saved by a prince or something…)
10) If you look at Episode 13 of Utena carefully, you will see that the globe on which Dios sits on bears an uncanny resemblance to the globe in Himari’s transformation scene.
And surely I am not the only not the only one getting a feeling a deja vu with the bicycle scene? Doesn’t it make you think of Akio’s infamous car driving scenes?
11) The law of anime dictates that some sort final boss figure usually appears towards the end of the OP, and there we have this pink-haired person – and my guess is that this is a man.
As for the below objects, my guess is that they are drugs – and drugs that cause you to experience in a twisted fashion something like happiness which had been lost to you in the past.
Any other guesses? The comment section is all yours.
RELATED POST: Episode 7: Tamahomare-suru Onna / タマホマレする女
Fantastic post. There’s a lot of symbolism to be mined here, and my partner and I have done our best to try to parse some of it as well on our own blog. Other blogs that havve been doing admirable jobs are catchercatch.wordpress.com, and snippettee.wordpress.com.
Your comments on the underwater imagery specifically are fascinating since I was having some difficulty understanding that. But the link to the legend of Urashima Tarou is incredibly helpful.
I’ll make sure to give you a shout out on our next post. Cheers!
Really glad you’re blogging this. I’ve been meaning to watch Penguindrum on account of it being directed by Ikuhara, but I’m still trying to catch up with some older series. But after reading your post, I think I will watch it sooner!
Really nice post with a lot of symbolism to be picked up on. Hope you continue this.
Thanks Wabisabi for the many excellent musings in this post. It’s so intriguing. The inverted peach at the entrance is quite potent, and I’m wondering how many times we’ve seen it before learning of Momoka. I wanted to pass Ringo off around episode four, when she was really bending her perception to match her actions with the diary, but the most recent episode has drawn me in to find out what will become of her.
Actually I had mentioned in a comment to Vucub about my tire of Ringo, and he was keen on seeing Ringo come to a “realization.” In light of this underwater framing, I think it’s now a waiting game to see how/when Ringo will open her eyes to the present.
One thing that Vucub also spotted was the tokens which appear with certain characters (the father’s cellphone charm) and how they also appear in the end theme sequence. I believe each token represents a role or piece in a game/puzzle (separate from the seven sins), but I’m curious about your thoughts on these items.
Cheers!
I am rather uncomfortable to equate the fall of Man as something Adam did out of love. While Adam’s actions could be construed as a form of “love”, it probably is the insipid Hollywood version that does nothing for people.
Though while we’re on apples and the symbolism of the fall, good call on the falling.
Some additional comments added on 22 Aug 2011:
1) You would have thought that a young girl who goes out of the way to dream up stuff in the Fate Diary would write about a big wedding before getting into “shoya” (see above). But somehow the wedding is skipped and Ringo/Momoka jumps right into “shoya”.
Now recall Shouma’s reaction when Ringo mentioned the word “Project M” – he immediately thought “M” meant “marriage”. But then Shouma is a good boy, so that may be why he thought of marriage first. “M” might actually mean “mating” or “maternity” – quite independent of the marriage ceremony itself.
2) The Hat said that in exchange for Himari’s life (albeit it is only temporarily extended life), she would take something away from them as a trade-off. Then we see Shouma being rejected downward and the Hat drawing a red circle from Kanba’s chest etc.
What exactly was the trade-off?
My guess is “conscience” – or the moral brake in one’s mind that says “thou shall” or “thou shall not”.
That may explain Kanba’s incestuous kiss on the sleeping Himari right afterwards.
~~~~~~~~~~
VucubCaquix:
Noted with thanks.
humbug:
Which series are in your backlog? Yes, Mawaru Penguindrum is worth prioritizing.
Other than that, I would also suggest:
1) Yondemasuyo Azazel-san <- haven’t laughed so hard in ages
2) Level E <- read the manga over ten years ago
Seinime:
Well… I will continue as long as it interests me. A lot of fans on 2ch complain that the story is moving too slow and the whole stuff with Ringo can be condensed into 2 or 3 episodes (apparently it will continue to at least episode 9 judging from spoilers). I would agree.
RyanA:
I knew about Momoka because I have been reading too much spoilers from the first novel volume (there will be three in total) on 2ch anyway. So I wasn’t surprised by the facts per se and instead watched for how they choreograph the story. I think from around Episode 10 onwards the anime will mostly precede the novel, so hopefully I will feel the full impact of things.
I think that token on Ringo’s father’s cellphone is actually the moray eel that crashed into the living room where the stuffed dolls were having an argument. The moray eel may well be a symbol of Ringo father’s new partner.
drmchsr0:
I don’t know about Hollywood movies since I never watch them.
It is said of John Milton’s “Paradise Lost” that if it were a Greek tragedy, Adam’s fatal flaw would probably be his love for Eve. Such is the western literary tradition and who am I to argue with that?
I’m very much behind on Tiger & Bunny, Aoi Bungaku, Kuragehime, and Senkou no Nightraid regarding recent series. For older stuff, I have yet to complete Banner of the Stars II and Night Head Genesis :|
Yondemasuyo Azazel-san – I forgot about this series. This is actually one of the series I need to finish, too. And you’re right, the comedy here is great. Normally, I’m not a big fan of Kamiya, but he fits Beelzebub here quite nicely ^^
Level E – I heard about this, but never got around to checking it out. Will add it to my list.
humbug:
I just did a post on Level E. The anime follows the manga closely in terms of plot, so you do get some sense of how magnificent the original manga is. I would strongly suggest reading the manga first if you could, but failing that, I suppose the anime version would do.
I read your post! I’ll look for the manga, though it’s only translated in Chinese, so it’ll be a bit difficult to find :S
Oooooooh you are back~~~ blasting our minds again! I can’t help but admire your cunning mind that interpretes symbolism so easy.
My two pennies:
1)The prince saving someone from drowing seems to appear in Night of Galactic Railroad (see how Campanella died)
2)Indeed water is associated with death and this was a very good remark. But I’m not pretty sure about the stars and Himari. After all we get to see stars in 2nd ep in the beginning over the toilet seat and spreading towards Ringo’s direction.
3)What do you think the otter and kappa was used for? I mean, why these animals and not others?
4)I didn’t get to pay attention to the bicycle until you pointed it out. But I thought of the bicycle Touga and Saionji shared rather than the Akio’s car. And if you think the relationship those two shared, the admiration of the latter towards the former, it’s pretty safe to conclude that Tabuki and Momoka shared a deep friendship with sexual vibes and a slight rivalry. After all, Tabuki like Saionji was always behind, following the person they liked. Bicycle is also a good symbol for a journey and repetition- the wheels spinning always in the same way.
5)What’s your opinion about the cats appearing in Tabuki-Ringo scene, while talking about Momoka? It was like deja-vu of the Mikage scene with Tokiko. It just creeped me out…
Can’t wait for the next time you’re going to blog this series :D
ayame:
1) I see your point.
2) I wrote about the stars in Episode 7 just now.
3) Kappa is a youkai. All the rest are animals. You get a sense that there must be something wrong with Ringo’s mom.
4) I still think Akio’s car scene is a closer parallel in the sense that The Experience (whether it is the loss of sexual innocent in Utena or falling in love in Mawaru Penguindrum) changes you before and after.
5) I don’t really have any opinion on the cats as of now.
One: good to know you’re still blogging; it’s always a joy to read what you have to say. Really. Two: I have a feeling this is one of those ‘better when you rewatch’ series in that you only fully appreciate what it’s trying to do when it’s all done and you have the clarity of hindsight to look back on it all.
A lot of stuff has already been written about this show, and for the most part people are clutching at straws…not that their theories aren’t fun to read or intelligent though. I’m bookmarking your Penguindrum posts for future reference! ^_~
The symbolism that I find most striking – and unsettling in a number of ways – is the sexual imagery in the transformation sequence. Amidst all that is some person – or spiritual force – manipulating three siblings, one of whom is in an outfit that would make her brother(s) want to look the other way (I have two younger sisters, so yeah. It looks pretty weird).
I’m taking your Utena parallels on pure faith here sadly, because I’m possibly the only person who hasn’t seen that show yet. Given the distinctive and striking visuals on show here it wouldn’t surprise me if the writer/director is making use of recurring plot devices/themes in Penguindrum too.
Anyway, apologies for the lengthy comment and welcome back. Following the series and reading your thoughts are going to be a lot of fun from now on, so thanks!
Martin:
I totally agree that the this series would benefit from hindsight, so anything I say is really subject to revision. On the other hand, this is part of the fun of watching an ongoing series and guessing where it is headed next.
One thing I would like to see from blogosphere at large is people making bold guesses from their intuitions, instead of relying on merely what they are shown and trying to reason it out with logic. Not that there is anything wrong with the latter – modern education seems to validate it and it is the way a lot of people are trained to think, but in the end it makes a lot of commentaries you see on the web read like school essays and you get the feeling that they are afraid to “get it wrong”. I think intuition is just as good a vehicle to arrive at a conclusion as logic, and a largely under-utilized vehicle at that. So guess, people, guess! It is not a big deal if you get it wrong.
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I do believe, in that last picture, those are bullets still in their casings. Hmmm… Unsure what type exactly… Not an expert.
To add to the symbolism, I’ve heard some bullets be called ‘lipstick bullets’ because of their similar appearance and the red tip they were given for the color coding. Well, that’s how some were labeled at the airshow, anyway.