They’re going hard with the beast wordplay, which we have done our best to turn into understandable and equivalent English. For example, the word for a resident of a city is 住民 (juumin), but here they change the first kanji to 獣 for beast, and it’s pronounced exactly the same. You can only see the difference when it’s written out. This happens a few other times, but your viewing experience should be exactly the same as a native speaker.
And we’re back with Trigger’s newest anime, this time about what it means to become an animal in a world still dominated by humans. Looking back, we’ve actually done quite a few from their studio, haven’t we. Although half the series was already released on Netflix, I’m personally taking it one episode at a time as we go. This was a good start, and already you can tell the themes are going a different direction than the recent Beastars. It’s also always a pleasure hearing Morohoshi Sumire in a leading role. You can feel some of Trigger’s signature style all over the episode, so here’s hoping for an exciting ride.
To connect, or not to connect? Love, or desire? What is inside you, and what do you want? Although personally I liked Ikuhara’s previous series more, this final episode was the best of Sarazanmai. We all make choices, and it’s our responsibility to see them through. Because they are our beginning. They are our end. And they are our connection.
Not all families are made the same. I also just realized that I think I haven’t been mentioning that all the kappa zombies’ names are puns on their desires. There’s nothing deeper than that, just saying exactly what they want. There’s also a minor detail of the name of the building the event is at, where 5656 is read as ゴロゴロ, the sound of rumbling thunder.
Thus, the importance of what is said and what is not becomes clear. We’re really in the meat of things now, and the untranslatable puns™ keep getting more difficult to integrate easily. With all these visual metaphors, subtle hints, and unknowable foreshadowing, how is one to keep up? Well, that’s just par for Ikuhara’s course. Couple things to mention this time.
Tooi and Chikai
Their names mean far and near, respectively.
I want to soba you
And here we go. Soba (蕎麦) is buckwheat noodles, and the food shown throughout the episode. Soba (側) means next to, so “そばにいたい” means “I want to stay by you”. We did our best, but regardless of how so badly we wanted to integrate it, it’s nigh impossible. In other words, just learn moon.
Erratum: The episode title was the major fix here. It was supposed to be “I’m not by your side” instead of “I want to stay by you”. While that may sound like the opposite (and it is), in Japanese it’s the difference of only a single character. They did a last minute swap on me and I missed it.