Colloquium: Mawaru Penguindrum Episode 23

“I’ve had enough of listening to your bullshit you stupid bitch. Hurry and hand over your rotten, delusional ambition, this ‘Fate Diary’ to that dumbass.”

-The Princess of the Crystal (Momoka Oginome) to Ringo Oginome, Mawaru Penguindrum Episode Five

Colloquium: Mawaru Penguindrum Episode 22

"Coming to see you...right now!"

ajthefourth: Towards the end of Revolutionary Girl Utena, director Kunihiko Ikuhara and his writer Yoji Enokido decide to re-introduce the audience to its Greek chorus element, The Shadow Girls, by showing them briefly out from behind their customary screens and shadow puppetry, talking to the main character, Utena Tenjou, in class. The Shadow Girls then proceed to put on a play for Utena and the two other main characters. In doing so, they present what has come before and recontextualize it a bit; setting the stage for the series’ final arc, The End of the World.

Colloquium: Mawaru Penguindrum Episode 21

The "Takakura Family" admires the new paint job on their house.

ajthefourth: This episode was a visual feast, especially for anyone who pays any sort of attention to color, color saturation, and basic blocking and storyboarding. As a general rule, we tend to adjust the light/darkness levels on images before putting them into blog posts to make more striking or well-lit images; however, for this part of the post, I feel it necessary to note that I have changed nothing (light/darkness, or color saturation levels) in these images and they prove my point magnificently. This episode was beautiful.

Colloquium: Mawaru Penguindrum Episode 19

"I remember now...the person who shared the fruit of fate with me was..."

 “Am I not good enough?”

-Seiya Kou, Sailor Moon: SailorStars

Colloquium: Mawaru Penguindrum Episode 17

"The sins of the parent aren't shared by the children."

vucubcaquix: I was honestly a bit at a loss for words for last week’s post. I didn’t dislike it and found it quite funny, but the animation was a bit weak in places and there wasn’t much to visually parse amidst the gags and slapstick. That’s not so for this week. In fact, halfway through I had to remark to my partner how absolutely beautiful some of the compositions for the scenes were. It’s not just the beauty that struck me, but also what’s being communicated through the imagery.

Colloquium: Mawaru Penguindrum Episode 15

"Stop!!"

ajthefourth: In what appears to be a pivotal episode in the series, I’m going to start us off with something simple, but nuanced: characterization.  Once again, we’re presented with Shouma’s inability to do anything, even when he tries to act.  In a way, he’s reverted back to his self from the beginning of the series: an inept and fairly useless person.  We see his penguin spraying for bugs, this time around being beaten to the punch by a nearby frog.

Colloquium: Mawaru Penguindrum Episode 14

"I wonder, I wonder, do you know what I wonder? Multiple choice. Which of the following three things is eternal? 1. A diary. 2. Momoka Oginome. 3. Canned peaches."

“The next day, she’d come out of the coffin, and there was something about the look in her eyes…however, I thought for sure that he must have shown her something eternal.”

-Kyouichi Saionji, Revolutionary Girl Utena

ajthefourth: What exactly in our lives is eternal?  With such a fleeting, time-bound existence, it’s no wonder that humanity constantly seeks for eternity.  The concept itself is a bit daunting to wrap one’s head around, since all one has to go on are their own limited experiences.  If something eternal does exist, then surely it would be outside of the worldly parameters of time and space as we know them.  In other words, surely, it would be God-like.