Sasami-san@Ganbaranai – 05

Sasami returns to school, but she has no friends, and so she chooses Kagami to be her first. Kagami seems unenthusiastic and annoyed, and a series of mishaps befall her. She tries to limit her contact with Sasami, telling her to leave her alone. Dejected, Sasami encounters Tama. After playing tag, Tama tells her how excited Kagami is about being friends, but has something to take care of. Sasami realizes the myriad gods are punishing Kagami for becoming her friend, and races to school, where Kagami is rooting out the evil gods who had amassed. Sasami reiterates their friendship and assures her she can one day become a human.

In this, the third-straight episode of something we’ve watched involving Hanazawa Kana, her character Kagami takes center stage as Sasami’s first friend since leaving her house. But Kagami proves a tough nut to crack, prompting us to conclude that befriending a devine robot isn’t the best way to reintegrate into society. Kagami is still coming to grips with having emotions at all, and the naive and socially inexperienced Sasami interprets Kagami’s demeanor imprecisely. Though when we saw Kagami chatting and walking off with a group of other girls, even we were wondering what was up with her.

Her coldness was in stark contrast with Tama’s warm, pet-like unconditional affection for Sasami. But as lovely as Tama is, she’s a child; Kagami is Sasami’s age, and she chose her. Just when we thought Tama was useless, she reassures Sasami (out of the mouth of babes indeed). Turns out, in a very roundabout but very efficient way, Kagami is only protecting Sasami, which is her (and her sisters’) raison d’être. When Sasami chose her, she forgot that every choice she makes has consequences – both good and bad. But when she does realize this, she makes sure Kagami knows she doesn’t just see her as a loyal protector, but a real friend…her first, no less!

Rating: 7 (Very Good)

Sasami-san@Ganbaranai – 02

Tsurugi notes that an unusual number of students are skipping school, including her colleague Kamiomi’s sister Sasami. Kagami believes they have become addicted to an MMORPG, so the Yagami sisters travel to Kamiomi’s home to investigate, using Sasami’s many computers. Worried they’ll shut the game down and erase all her progress, she attempts to sabotage their efforts, but fails. Eventually, everyone is sucked into the game, where a divine monster is keeping the game alive. Kagami deduces that the monster is the produce of Sasami’s wish for the game to never be shut down, as it was when the company was in financial trouble three years ago. She bids the monster rest in peace and the MMO is shut down.

After primarily showing last week, the beginning of this episode is all about telling. Specifically, that Sasami is most likely “unmotivated” beause she once possessed the powers of Amaterasu, the most powerful of the myriad gods that inhabit the world (In the Shinto religion, sheis the goddess of the sun and universe, from whom the Emperor of Japan is directly descended.) Emphasis on once. Now, apparently, her faceless brother Kamiomi has that power, and he accidentally used it to turn the world into chocolate last week. This week Sasami must deal with something accidentally done in service of her wish for an MMO game to never be shut down.The game was her escape three years ago, and all the other lesser gods heard that wish and made it come true.

It resulted in an unpopular game suddenly becoming all the rage, and that game’s central monster trapping the 10,000 players inside, thus the game will never end as she wished. From what little we see of it, it’s not the best game, and Sasami seems to realize that when the time comes to free all those people. Keeping the game alive was nice and all, but she didn’t need it anymore. And so we have another instance of the entire world being altered because of a misinterpreted whim made by those who just happen to have the powers of Amaterasu. or was this just the three Yagami sisters inviting themselves into Sasami’s house, messing up all her shit, and playing video games in the dark? It was both, and more.

Rating: 8 (Great)