First Impression: Sarazanmai

Two boys that are wildly different end up connected as…kappas? Sarazanmai opens with Kazuki telling about the important parts of his day – texting a girl, carrying a box, and watching the daily fortunes. We then see Toi, who is robbing a “Kappazon” car. The two get into a scuffle and destroy the statue of a Kappa King. What happens later is a whirlwind of weird where the Kappa King removes a fake anal organ which transforms these two enemies into kappas together. When the Kazuki’s friend Enta finds them, this fake organ is removed from him too. The fake organ stores human desire and is transported in…Kappazon boxes to some central location. They have to fight kappa zombies in order to eventually be returned to normal. Also, there’s a song and dance number in the middle of the episode, where the newly transfromed kappas use the power of music and dancing to defeat a kappa zombie and reveal their secret…shames? Including the secret that Kazuki also takes selfies as a cross-dressing idol. The episode ends with us finding out the reason behind Kazuki’s cross-dressing and them apparently returned to human form…for now.

Sarazanmai is a weird show steeped in…pseudo-mythology and over the top ridiculousness. The series is from director Kunihiko Ikuhara, who also served as director for the Revolutionary Girl Utena series and film. There are a lot of butt references and…butt based attacks. It gets gross at times as they enter a monster’s anus to remove it’s power, restoring their humanity temporarily from the butt of a monster. No, I’m not kidding. I have no idea if I’ll keep watching this show and I have no idea how it is going to treat it’s main cast from what I saw in this episode.


Sarazanmai can be streamed legally at Crunchyroll

mdmrn

3 thoughts on “First Impression: Sarazanmai

  1. It’s a Yaoi show, I don’t think much a Christian who still holds an Augustinian view of Homosexuality can get from me.

    Fortunately I’m a Christian who’s devoted my life to informing people that The Bible doesn’t condemn Homosexuality, that is a Platonic Heresy.

  2. MithrandirOlorin – The show absolutely has queer symbolism. There is an overarching theme about that which is kept in secret. It will be interesting to see where it goes and how they handle the characters. Also, how far it goes as I am not looking to watch anime with excessive sexual content as a general rule.

  3. idk if I saw definitive queer themes yet (besides…butt stuff(joke)…) but judging on this director’s past works there is a big chance there will be. Guy loves lesbians.
    This aesthetically and surface level wise felt very much like Penguindrum but it was somehow 10x weirder and had all that weirdness thrown in your face at once. It was a lot to take in.
    I must mention because you said you didn’t like excessive sexual content, that Ikuhara’s works always have themes of sex. But it’s not there as mindless audience titillation and is not that frequent. (Well, Yuri Kuma was kinda raunchy…but it was literally about lesbians and their sexuality and had yuri in the title…)

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