Mawaru Penguindrum 7

Plans are being accelerated left and right. Yuri the Orca aims to marru Tabuki, who is firmly under her spell cast upon him by really tacky singing (so to speak). So Ringo takes more and more drastic measures (dragging a hapless Shoma along for the ride) to ensure that what is written in the diary will become reality. There are lots of bathroom signage extras this week; I personally think they work as a money-saving device: they enable the core cast to have a very impressive wardrobe (i.e. not just school uniforms).

Last week showed that Ringo truly has more screws loose than tight, and this week only reinforces that. Not only are there more period daydreams, she tries to get a seasonal frog to lay eggs on Shoma’s back for a love potion (Penguin #2 gobbles them all up, perhaps by design?) She’s also not above fully exploiting Shoma’s love for his sister by ordering him to do increasingly strange things. But after everything these two have been through, it’s really fun to watch them interact, despite the fact Shoma is totally submissive to her. His resistance is limited to complaining.

When the occult fails her (in a gross egg-laying scene), the diary tells her the M in plan M is for “maternity”. Combine this with Kanba and Penguinhead’s suggestion they simply get the two in bed together, and Ringo decides to break into Tabuki’s house and somehow get pregnant with his child. That is a survival strategy, after all. However, we don’t actually see who’s under the covers when Ringo enters the bedroom…

Meanwhile, the shifty redhead continues tailing Kanba, who gets more rent cash from the trenchcoated stranger on the train. Also, this is the second straight episode where they don’t even bother showing HImari in her non-possessed form. The survival strategy song-and-dance happens rather randomly. I would hope at some point they shorten it. It’s starting to remind me of Star Driver’s Tauburn summoning…we don’t really need to see it in its entirety every week.

Rating: 4

No. 6 8

The hall is rented. The orchestra engaged. It’s now time to see if Sion and Nezumi can dance. This week is an overture to the big prison infiltration and Safu rescuing – if Safu is still alive by the time they get there. Men in medical masks keep talking about how excellent her “synch rate” is and how many elites died to get this result. She needs to get out of that tube, pronto.

Nezumi apparently thinks Safu can wait a bit longer…at least with their current level of information and preparedness. He leads Sion down a canyon and into a massive cathedralic cavern full of blue water like the kind Safu’s suspended in. It’s a colony for No. 6 exiles, led by a scientist who, along with Karan, helped build No. 6 (I didn’t catch his name). Like Sion, he survived being host to a parasite bee, and was rewarded with the same white hair and pink scars.

He proves to be a font of information, telling him the song Nezumi, Sion and Safu can hear is in fact the voice of Elyurias, a god-like being who watches over the world and only talks to those who listen. The song turns blue water amber (we don’t know why yet). He also reveal’s Nezumi’s past: he’s the last survivor of a tribe of “forest people” slaughtered by No. 6 with fire. His scars are from burns. He hands a Computer Chip Full ‘O’ Answers to Sion for later perusal and sends them on their way. Rikiga and Dogkeeper are waiting for them when they return home, ready to lay out a plan to save Safu.

Rating: 3