Forum - View topicMawaru Penguindrum (TV).
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Veers
 Posts: 1197 Location: Texas |
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jl07045
 Posts: 1527 Location: Riga, Latvia |
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Survival strategy is appropriate to every species and there are tons of animals living in groups and colonies. That wouldn't single penguins out nor am I sure that most of the viewers even know about penguin living habits. I'm just going with the simplest explanation. |
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Veers
Posts: 1197 Location: Texas |
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Yeah, it's not anything unique to penguins in particular; I think your list of reasons is a sufficient answer to damien's question.
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Dorcas_Aurelia
 Posts: 5344 Location: Philly |
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Transexual. Transvestite means cross-dresser, and I don't think anyone was suggesting that Yuri was a guy pretending to be a girl. |
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Spastic Minnow
 Bargain HunterExempt from Grammar Rules  Posts: 4617 Location: Gainesville, FL |
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Well, that thing about her body being "strange" was dropped unceremoniously. I guess they could say she was scarred thanks to her father's abuse- or if it's more of the metaphor mixing with reality, that her body really was altered by him. I mostly think that mixing of the metaphors with reality got out of control in the show. Most of the time things are normal but occasionally you get things like the Child Broiler or a building shaped liked David that are supposed to be "real'? and the symbols and the real world get annoyingly mixed up. I mean, why should people be surprised by a girl possessed by a penguin-hat when an assembly line that drops children into a hole to make them "invisible" is portrayed as a "real" place that multiple people have concrete memories of? So, mostly I enjoyed the show but thought Ikuhara ended up going just slightly too far with his symbolism (Imagine that!) |
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damien007
 Posts: 180 |
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Thanks for the correction 
But the thing is, those images where never meant to be interpreted literally and that's kind of what me and others have been saying since the start of the show. That's just how this director does things, If you didn't the level of symbolism in this then you probably wouldn't like any of his previous works like Utena either. |
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Spastic Minnow
Bargain Hunter Exempt from Grammar Rules Posts: 4617 Location: Gainesville, FL |
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I'm already a harsh critic of Utena.
Although the overuse of symbolism in Utena was even more insane and ultimately obtuse in interpretation it at least had the advantage of being more consistent. the fault of Penguindrum is its supposed grounding in some form of reality. Invisible cartoony penguins, hallucinatory sequences in alternate dimensions and ghost doctors are supposed to be abnormal because they run contrary to what everyone knows but when the back story of people that apparently inhabit the "real" world is so dependent on metaphors taken as actual events then I see a fault. |
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penguintruth
 Posts: 8467 Location: Penguinopolis |
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The flaw with MP is that it begins telling a narrative and has symbolic flourishes but then completely falls into symbolic flourish, all but leaving narrative entirely. If you can call it a flaw. As a conceptual treatise it works, but as a narrative, not so much. It's still very interesting.
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damien007
Posts: 180 |
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Why do you insist on making a distinction between the "real" and "symbolic" in the first place. There is absolutely no reason within the context of this show for there to be a distinction between the two. The symbolic and the real are for all intents and purposes the one and the same. Albeit some events may be more grounded in reality then others, that doesn't mean they are any less "real".
Similarly why do you classify "symbolic flourishes" and narrative separately? The symbolism in the show contributes to the narrative just as much as anything else. Just because it's symbolic doesn't mean it isn't a part of the narrative. Not every event has to be grounded in reality. And just because some parts are more "realistic" then others, doesn't mean there any more or less valid. |
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Aylinn
 Posts: 1684 |
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I agree with damien007 that symbolism is an integral part of Ikuhara's series and that all those images shouldn't be interpreted literally. It's pointless and futile. The best way to watch Ikuhara's series is to figure out what sort of story he tried to tell. Utena is about growing up. MP deals with the same themes as Night on the Galactic Railroad. If you know and understand NotGR, it will not be that hard to figure them out.
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Spastic Minnow
Bargain Hunter Exempt from Grammar Rules Posts: 4617 Location: Gainesville, FL |
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Why?
for exactly the same reason I I noted. Consistency. Utena was always consistent because the otherworldnees and symbolism was always inherent in the world. Penguindrum lost it when everything weird and otherworldly became one. Consider the library as an example. Himari had to basically wander into another world to get there, using a special door - because it wasn't normal. But about 2/3 into the series that sort of thing simply stopped being the case- The Child Broiler simply "was." I enjoy the show, I like what was said, I consider it it one of the vbest of the season and the year, but I consider it a fault when story consistently told one way is suddenly switched for another. |
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Aylinn
Posts: 1684 |
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It's also not normal to be followed by penguins that can be seen by no one and to have a dead sister brought back to life by a penguin hat. I don't see any problem with the otherworldnees and symbolism. The world in MP is strange and unlike our own from the very beginning. Symbolism is there form the very beginning. The director tried to make this kind of story, so I think whether or not it's a good show should only depend on whether or not symbolism makes sense; otherwise it will be like bashing a mystery show for having many mysteries, instead of trying to evaluate how good it is in its own class. |
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Spastic Minnow
Bargain Hunter Exempt from Grammar Rules Posts: 4617 Location: Gainesville, FL |
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Exactly, they're abnormal things that only happen to the protagonists, they can't explain them and no one else would believe them. From their reactions these are the first abnormal things that had ever happened to them.
No, the accepted world itself WAS normal, penguins in the aquarium looked liked penguins. Himari thought her library visit was a dream. The doctor only accepts scientifically plausible explanations. Then there was a hyper unrealistic child-broiler that was taken as rote by all these people who were otherwise surprised by every other odd thing in their normal world - they didn't have to explain it away as a dream, although they had trouble remembering it they did remember it as something real, not a hallucination, or invisible, or something they went into a magic door to find- it was a bad place but wasn't abnormal in the same way that the penguins or the library or the hat were. These were the changes the end of the series made that caused some consternation. Suddenly the whole wold was strange instead of just the people in the narrative. I'm not saying that the symbolism was bad, I'm saying it got a bit out of control and logic applied to the beginning of the story didn't fully work the same at the end.. |
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Aylinn
Posts: 1684 |
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I see your point. I didn't pay attention to the fact whether or not the accepted world is normal. I am more interested in the abstract notions like happiness that MP deals with, and I think the normality of the world is irrelevant.
And I really like the idea of the child-broiler.  It has left a great impact on me. Just telling that this and that child feels unneeded would never do it, since it would be a mere statement of fact, but the vision of children crushed into pieces is disturbing. It makes it easier to relate to those characters on an emotional level.
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ZenAmako
Posts: 92 |
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I had hoped this show would be licensed. As a big Utena fan, I was excited to see the new work by Ikuhara. But as newer shows are announced, it's starting to look like this one fell through the cracks. As far as I know, it isn't even available for streaming. I wonder if there is a problem, like the license being too expensive right now.
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