Saturday 9 March 2013

Sasami-san@Ganbaranai - Episode 9

Confusing those last week's adventures might have been, facing off against a nine-tailed demon fox (no, not Naruto) is a pretty clear focal point for Sasami-san@Ganbaranai's ninth episode as it kicks off.

Thankfully, exactly what is going on is explained in short order, as it's revealed that said demon fox actually attached itself to Sasami over a decade previously, waiting for a moment of sufficient regret on Sasami's part to unleash its powers by feeding from the Amaterasu within Sasami with a view towards changing history, the effects of which we can see before us.  Can Sasami alone confront and stop this monstrous presence with plans for world domination?


Luckily for her she doesn't need to, as her mother is brought back into the picture and, thanks to Tsurugi, we take a jaunt through both Sasami and (more specifically) Juju's past - it's a journey that gives Sasami more context and knowledge about those feelings of regret and what she should do with Amaterasu's power moving forward, which in turn gives them the upper hand when it comes to defeating the enemy currently facing them.  Thus, the day is won, Sasami and her mother are back on good terms, and all is well in the world - at least, until some new "friends" for Sasami turn up...

After such a muddled episode last week, this latest instalment of Sasami-san@Ganbaranai at least feels a whole lot more satisfying when taken as a whole - parts of its narrative were (necessarily, perhaps) jumbled and some of its supernatural elements are still far from being particularly compelling, but there was enough humour and verve to offset that to at least some degree and some of the important core points of the show's wider story were also resolved reasonably well.  I guess what I'm trying to say is that I prefer it when this series is trying to be a comedy with supernatural elements than a supernatural story with comedy elements, but the series seems determined to go down the latter path.  I'm not sure that it has an interesting enough premise to succeed in convincing me that this is the right path traverse, but at least the show has enough flair to make me want to watch it while it tries to do so if nothing else.

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