Sakugan

Episode 5

With last week's side-trip out of the way, it's time for Memempu and Gagumber to hit the road once more...after they finish up their community service detail, courtesy of Merooro. Thankfully this sideroad offers a lot more to chew on than the one before it, bringing up even more questions and mysteries about the world of Sakugan, while also letting us mull over our central parental dynamic from an outsider's perspective.

First off, I'm maybe, possibly, sort of considering giving Merooro the benefit of the doubt. I still have an innate distrust of punitive government officials, but he successfully made it through this episode without ever betraying our heroes, and even expressed some seemingly sincere sentiments of his own! I still don't trust him as far as I can throw him, but we'll consider him on house arrest for now. More importantly, the side quest he ropes Memempu into opens up a whole lot of intriguing questions about the Labyrinth and its origins. A metropolis-sized machine that controls the artificial wind of this world is cool enough on its own, but that it's apparently so ancient that humanity at large has forgotten how to even maintain it is awesome in both senses of the word. For now the immediate stakes are simply restoring a small forest ecosystem, but what of any other, similar mechanisms? Are those not yet wearing down? Have some of them already failed, but so long ago that the fallout has just become the new status quo? These are exactly the kind of questions I love to ask about sci-fi and dsytopia fiction, and I can't wait to see more come to light.

Gagumber, however, could care less. We've already seen that he's a simple man – not stupid, but very much somebody who's content to sleep where he lands and not ask questions more pressing than what he's going to do or eat in the immediate future. That leaves him struggling to relate to Memempu, who's absolutely enamored with every new bit of information she learns about the larger world, and who leaps at any chance to use her smarts to fix or discover new things. And while that dichotomy has led to a lot of fighting, the show still takes time to show small moments of understanding between them. Maybe my favorite moment this episode is when he recognizes Memempu's getting frustrated over their journey and makes up an excuse to take a break. It's a clever way to give her a break when she's pushing herself, without letting on that's what he's doing to spare her embarrassment. Gagumber is far from a perfect parent, but he does genuinely care and tries to show it when it counts.

I imagine with some time and distance, Memempu will eventually come to appreciate that side of her dad, but for now she relishes any opportunity to prove her own skills. Considering we learn that she has seven doctorates, that's not surprising. But between her figuring out the shifting maze of the God of Wind and managing to fix its malfunctioning parts, it's clear those skills could be extremely important to the future of the world and humanity at large – something Merooro himself is (perhaps suspiciously) quick to encourage. That's not exactly unheard of for child prodigies in sci-fi, but seeing this kind of adventure partially from a parent's perspective makes it all the more harrowing. Suddenly the near scrapes with death and danger aren't just exciting fantasies, but paralyzing horror stories of seeing your child risk serious harm, and if the rest of this journey can keep capturing that tension, it could be a supremely effective adventure.

This is a decidedly more subdued adventure compared to previous episodes – no high-flying robots or explosions, and the most urgent conflict is turning a big valve wheel. But it's a solid return to the most engaging elements Sakugan has to offer.

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Sakugan is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.