Episode 5
After an unsuccessful date with Keiju, Ringo is left trying to look on the positive side of things.
Elsewhere the mystery of who pushed the lady down the escalators...... Why would they do that? Who could it be?
We'll find out in another exciting episode of Penguindrum!
***SPOILERS***
We open with a flashback of a major storm and Himari with a fever. this is the first time we've ever seen the children's father and he gives up on the ambulance and goes off in the storm to get her help. Kanba chases after him and is hit but what looks like a plate of glass.
Back to present day and Himari is in the hospital having a check up, the doctor is telling Shou that his sister is a miracle and Shou tells the doctor he thinks the penguin hat is the savior of his sister and that it is a extraterrestrial organism. The doctor thinks he's joking and tells him to keep his sister laughing.
The girl who was pushed down the escalator is alive and in hospital being visited by some strange women who seems to be in charge of the Kanba hating group. Suddenly the other women gets out what looks like a cross between a cross bow and a slingshot and hits her in the head with some red ball with a penguin on the front of it. On the news Kanba hears that she remembers nothing before or after her escalator fall.
Bad news comes with a visit from their uncle who tells them that he is going to sell their house. Kanba tells him that he'll buy the house.
Ringo has a date with her father, it doesn't seem to go well, she goes to visit Tabuki with Mount Blanc... Yeah that doesn't go well either as she see's him having Mount Blanc in a restaurant with Yuri. Walking in the rain she meets Shou and Himari (if only she could see the full picture with the Penguins!)
We go back to the flashback at the beginning, Kanba is saved by his father who is hurt by the glass but on they still go to get help for Himari.
Back to the present and Kanba is on his way somewhere... He's given a package by a figure dressed in black and that is it. The rest are waiting at home for him but decide to eat without him. They have beef stew flavored with curry and Shou notices Ringo's diary. He decides the best way to go about it is just ask to borrow it and when Ringo says no he points out he knows that it is an agenda which seems to set Ringo off. I love how Himari just sits there eating with a blank face like she's watching TV. Ringo tells them that the diary is her fate diary and tells Shou that he has to explain himself now that she's told him the truth so he attempts too. He tells her that the hat wants the diary but she thinks he's being stupid and slaps him.
Suddenly though the hat is on Himari's head and we get a Survival Strategy with Ringo! After being a total bitch to Ringo Himari sends her down the shoot that Shou usually falls through but unlike Shou Ringo is able to claw her way back under and breaks through the handcuffs and takes the hat off of Himari and throws it away. Shou runs after a truck that the hat is attached to and runs into Kanba who steals a bike to chase after the truck with. Whilst Kanba does his best holding on we get another flashback, this time of Himari finally in hospital, his father tells him he's done a good job and telling him to protect the people he loves.
Of course Kanba saves the day with the hat. And also the house it seems.
After so many really fun stories this one suddenly hits you as being so serious. It was needed as well, we could grow used to the idea of Himari being alive but we have to remember that whatever is possessing her is only allowing her to live, without that hat her life is forfeit and that is what makes what the boys are doing so important.
The big question will be how Ringo now deals with the knowledge that she was denying at first.
I like the flashbacks, they don't go on for so long that they hold up a story but they are needed in their own way. It is also the first glimpse of their real younger selves we've got and a story behind their parents. So far the flashbacks haven't been that far back in their pasts, their parents have already disappeared, so this was the first time we really delved outside of the three children and into their wider family. It is also the first time we see Ringo's father outside of flashbacks.
I think it hits home that you have four very lonely children, OK probably teenagers, but still. Ringo has now kind of been accepted into a new family after seeing hers slip away from her, Himari, Shouma and Kanba seem to have lost theirs as well.
There are now quite a few story lines and questions running through the series.
Who is possessing Himari? What do they want? Why is Ringo's diary so important? What is Ringo's diary? How do you get a "fate" diary to begin with? What is this "organization" that seems to have it in for Kanba? What is Kanba up to? What happened to both families to get us here in the first place?
The episode on its own merits was a little boring, it kind of stuck together a few "moving forward" plots and bunged them altogether. That isn't bad and it isn't an unwatchable episode, but it is forgettable and it isn't an episode you'd pick to watch on its own. It really is just a transition from "here we have a story about two boys stalking a girl stalking a teacher" to "the shit is about to hit the fan and now we're getting somewhere with this story".
Still the penguins rule the day though and I wouldn't mind an actual explanation to them to be honest. They seem to be invisible to people other then the owners but you can touch them, people who can't see them can feel them, they effect the world around them. So what are they?
It isn't an important question to be answered but now I'm paranoid I'm sitting next to a penguin I just can't see!
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