Sasami-san@Ganbaranai - Episode 2

The Internet was filled with a cry of "what the Hell did we just watch?" after the opening episode of Sasami-san@Ganbaranai - thankfully, Sasami herself is on hand to explain it all as this week's instalment kicks off.

In short (and according to Sasami, who could well be a decidedly unreliable narrator of course), the world of this series is one in which gods reside everywhere, and in everything to varying degrees and levels of power.  The most divine of these gods is Amaterasu, a god which currently resides in Sasami's brother after previously being attached to Sasami herself.  As the most divine being, Amaterasu can influence any gods below it at the whims of its holder, the result being "alterations" - alterations such as turning the entire world into chocolate, for example.  This brings us to the three Yagami sisters, unknown entities seemingly charged with stopping these alterations, thus squaring the circle of confusion that surrounding last week's episode.

That brings us to this week, and news reaching said Yagami sisters of an online role-playing game-cum-social network that seems to have tens of thousands in its thrall, to the point where a lot of them are no longer even turning up at school.  Determined to investigate this phenomena, they enlist the help of Sasami's plentiful stock of computers to jump online and take a look, much to the dismay of Sasami who neither wants to admit that she's a long-standing player of the game in question nor have the game shutdown by the Yagami sisters.  Is it simply a good game, or is an alteration ensnaring so many players?  You can probably guess the answer to that.

Ironically given the fact that it was referenced in episode one, the synopsis of this series now reads a little bit like The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya Lite, albeit with a few twists.  Thankfully, that barely matters when the series continues to display such an enjoyable streak of humour - the IT guy in me got a kick out of Sasami's frustrations when it came to taking care of laptops, and there were plenty of snappy lines or great moments of visual comedy to take in as well.  Mind you, that doesn't really cover up the fact that, stripped of the "what the '#$*?!" factor of episode one, in terms of actual content there wasn't anything all that much to get excited about other than the explanation of those events and the wider world in which the series is based.  This does leave me worrying that the series is going to run out of steam rather fast in terms of its wider narrative (in that grand light novel tradition) now that the cat is out of the bag; then again, if it can carry on having fun with its setup then maybe that won't even matter ultimately.