Sasami-san@gambaranai: B+
Our seasonal offering from Studio Shaft and Akiyuki Shimbo, who, as you will recall, I have an Akiyuki Shimboner for. Despite that, grading this show was difficult because it's SO WEIRD. Like, makes Bakemonogatari seem coherent in comparison. "Sasami-san is a character, the @ is never adequately explained and 'gambaranai' is a word which literally is a negative form of the verb 'to do your best', probably best translated as 'lazy, slacking' or sometimes 'not trying'.
It's... well, let's start with this: In the first episode, clearly for a reason, but without explanation, the entire world turns into chocolate, and three sisters, whose names are very clearly references to the Three Treasures of Imperial Japan (the sword, the mirror and the jewel) have to fight a giant demon dragon thing made of chocolate.
I mentioned Bakemonogatari, and another reason that's a valid comparison is because if Sasami-san@gambaranai is about anything, it's about Japanese mythology, in a very interesting way: the idea of generations of gods, and transitional periods between old gods and new gods, and holding on to the past. That's a very poetic way of talking about the series, which is also a lot about being a shut-in and never going outside, and also is a lot about the Japanese as a people and how weird they are (and by extension, how weird their gods probably are).
At the very least, it's solid evidence that the Japanese don't just treat Christianity as being fun to twist into knots for the mythology, they'll do it to themselves as well.
If you'd like a very odd look at Japanese mythology which manages to be, by turns, very light and meaningless and also very deep, dark and thoughtful, Sasami-san is a strange but fun watch. Really the only reason I would think people couldn't get into it is because it's just so weird and out there, and because to really fully understand what's going on you'll need to do a bit of reading up on wikipedia about some of the more obscure shinto mythology.
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