Sabagebu! – 06

Miou and the Student Council President Isurugi Yayoi clash, except Miou is too dense to notice this and Yayoi’s revenge plots are utterly ineffective against the various members of the Survival Club. Yayoi’s plans are so crap that, without fail, she must be rescued by Miou each time she gets in over her head with another club member.

By the end, the evidence of these ‘saves’ convinces the whole school that Miou and Yayoi are an item, which serves as a finishing blow and, for the first time in her life, Yayoi is forced to skip a day of school. (end of act 1)

Act Two: Miou, Momoka, Kaya, Urara and Maya watch a B-rate Yakuza film. Momoka thinks it was stupid and shrugs off ‘the silly ending’ which involves everyone in the clan betraying each other and the winner being shot dead by a previously fallen, assumed to be dead ally.

Then Sakura rolls a fancy office chair into the club room (which she’s presumably earned by sleeping with the school principal) and everything goes sideways. Suddenly dressed as Yakuza, the girls launch into gunfight mode and everyone is gunned down predictably by Momoka. Momoka even manages to avoid the ‘last man standing gets shot at the end’ moment…

…Only to be killed when she sits in the office chair which suddenly falls over. (end of episode)

Sabagebu! mixes up its formula this week with an extra long opening arc dedicated to a new character in Yayoi and the decadent crazy that is Ootori Miou. From the opening scene in a Student Council meeting, where Miou responds to the Prez’s call for questions with “Why do our teeth squeak when we eat Spinach?” we see how difficult it is to be a sane person in this show. You either turn your brain off like Miou’s followers among the other club presidents (who consider her antics “pure”) or you get made like the Yayoi and Momoka.

Unfortunately for Yayoi, her veins contain none of the ice-fire-blood violence fuel that propels our dear Momoka.

“Remember viewers, there’s nothing a machosist hates more than a fake sadist.”

Starting with Urara, because beating on a masochist should be easy, Yayoi launches a string of plots to snipe away members of the Survival Club and ultimately ruin Miou’s happiness. Each plot is reasonably funny, though none match the final show down, where Yayoi discovers Miou’s weakness is the zen-like kindness of an elderly lunchlady and a hatred of cafeteria veggies.

Seriously! How could anything top a young woman’s decent into madness leading her to physically and mentally become an old woman obsessed with tea and kindness? Yayoi is so into her role that, by the end, she can’t even deliver a finishing blow and is only ‘saved’ by relentless gossip that she works in the cafeteria to be closer to Miou each day.

The yakuza arc was smirk-worthy but predictable and, honestly, we’ve seen this set up before. Without the context for bad yakuza films, which I don’t have, there wasn’t much going for it.

Over all, this was a great episode! It delivered tons of chuckles and character development (through the Prez’s dossiers on each girl) and Yayoi is a reasonable opponent to throw at the club. It even closes post credits with an unexpected zoom in on Yayoi taking a bath and being appalled that she’s being filmed!

Break that fourth wall baby! Break it good!

Sabagebu! – 05

Miou becomes a monk and the club gets abused by a sadist Buddhist monk, who turns out to be a con-man after Miou’s money; Urara hides on the ledge outside the 4th floor bathroom window and refuses rescue because she broke the toilet and was unable to flush her donkey turd away, and Momoka does battle with her inner demon and angels over stealing a valuable air soft gun. 

Miou’s decision to jump into Buddhism is probably the weakest of the three arcs. It was kinda funny to see the Monk so blatantly enjoying smacking anyone who moved—to the point that he and Momoka start pestering the other club members in order to get them to move—and it was great to reveal that he was just a con man at the end of the arc but it was fairly one note. In the key of Thwack!

In contrast, Urara’s arc was non-stop, totally insane hilarity.

The gist: Urara breaks the toilet handle before she can flush and, to her horror, friends come to her rescue. Driven out the window in shame, she only draws more attention, which culminates in Miou calling in air cavalry to Urara’s rescue.

This results in helicopters being shot down, and a mournful salute to six soldiers/pilots we’ve never even been introduced to. It’s fantastic and requires no previous understanding of the show to get into (I don’t think anyway) and is worth a nervous peek if you’re curious.

A Master Airsoft-Smith creating a “national treasure.”

The final arc pits Momoka against her inner good and evil, which are presented as typical angel/devil girls in skimpy clothing, plus side arms. It’s a good little piece, but kinda out of left field since Momoka hasn’t been presented as having sticky fingers before but there are plenty of gags to be had. My personal favorite is pictured above. (love the idea of throwing an airsoft gun on a pottery wheel)

Even by Sabagebu!’s standards for random and bonkers, this week was RANDOM AND BONKERS…In a good way!