Sakuna-hime of the Lofty Realm may look like a child and act like a child, but she’s actually a genuine grown-up adult goddess of the harvest. Or at least she should be. In reality, she’s been loafing around her whole life, deep in her cups, relying on the hard work her parents—the previous goddess of the harvest and god of war—put in to fill the storehouse with an incredibly tasty abundance of rice, which she’s been drawing on for her annual offerings to the high goddess of the Lofty Realm ever since, and securing a pretty cushy position in the divine hierarchy as a result. But all that sake means that she’s not on her game when some humans stumble across the bridge from the Lower Realm, and although she thinks she’s dealt with them by kicking one of them off the bridge into oblivion, turns out they were more persistent than she expected. Mayhem ensues when the latest creation of the goddess of invention, a robotic security “puppet“, identifies the intruders and begins blasting away. In a desperate effort to chase out the humans, Sakuna accidentally sets the storehouse on fire, destroying her means of maintaining her position in the divine community. The top goddess is not pleased and exiles Sakuna to the island her parents used to farm and from whence they disappeared when she was but a wee thing. The humans go with her. Cue boat bobbing into the sunset.
The latest series from dramatic slice-of-life kingpins P.A. Works is…not what I expected. It’s more along the lines of The Great Jahy Will Not Be Defeated—with which it shares the lead VA in Naomi Oozora—and screwball comedy slice-of-life than the “action” tag it’s sporting on MAL, or anything I’ve seen from the studio before. The animation is likewise not what I would expect: there’s nothing particular to criticize (the compositing on the 3D animated rice and other elements is fine), but nothing really stands out either, apart from the characters’ lively hair (which literally stands out—in an almost cat-ear way, in the case of Sakuna). The lush backgrounds usually seen from P.A. Works are absent so far. As for the characters, the band of humans is a mildly interesting mix: a rotund, weak-kneed samurai; a foreign nun whose catchphrase has already been established (“subarashii!”); a young boy and girl from different classes (I suspect); and a toddler with two tufts of hair. So far though, we don’t really know anything about them—they aren’t distinguished as individuals in this first episode. Instead, this premiere sinks or swims on Sakuna and whether you, as the viewer, find her humorous or annoying. I’ll admit to being in the latter camp, though to be fair, her starting point as a self-centered, lazy loafer provides an excellent starting point for character growth, and surely that is exactly what we’ll see as she is forced not only to start putting in some gold old-fashioned hard labor in the rice paddies but also learning how to get along with others as peers (and maybe even the family she’s never had?) rather than servants. If you enjoy slice-of-life with a dash of mythology, an agricultural setting, and a lead with the potential (and desperate need) for wholesome character growth, this may be the series for you! For my part, though I do love a good character arc, Sakuna and crew didn’t catch my interest enough to warrant sticking around to see it through.
Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin is streaming on Crunchyroll.
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