Streaming: Crunchyroll
Episodes: 12
Source: Original
Episode Summary: Gagumber and Memempu are a father-daughter pair who are constantly at odds with one-another. Despite being a kid, Memempu is extremely precocious and a genius inventor; it’s her goal to become a Marker – an adventurer who explores the underground labyrinth connecting the various remaining human colonies that exist beneath the planet’s surface. Gagumber, despite being a bit of a goofball, still has his fatherly responsibilities to think about, and he doesn’t want his only child to run off and be needlessly killed by one of the terrifying kaiju roaming outside their city’s protective dome. The result of this is that the two consistently find themselves butting heads.
But Memempu has been seeing a mysterious place in her dreams, a white tower above the surface surrounded by beautiful fields. During a visit from Lynda and her father, both current Markers, Memempu receives a mysterious package that suggests her dream might be real. As she begs her father to let her go on a journey to find this place, the city is attacked by kaiju breaking in from outside. Despite the terror of the situation, Memempu still longs to explore. Gagumber decides that there’s only one thing for a father (and retired Marker) to do – go along on his daughter’s journey in order to protect her.
Impressions: Where have all the mothers gone?
It’s no longer really en vogue to comment on the lack of positive mother figures in the overall Disney canon, partly because in some cases it’s a bad take and in others it kind of misses the point. That said when I look at anime I often have the same thought – why do we seem to be in love with the idea of single fatherhood in anime, when the opposite seems to be much less common? As someone who’s often enjoyed the wave of stories involving single dads and their daughters (or mysterious tanuki children) I still have that little thought tickling the back of my brain as I watch their drama unfold – what about mothers?
Sakugan doesn’t yet seem to have an answer to that question, but that’s not necessarily to its detriment; Gagumber’s and Memempu’s lovingly-adversarial relationship does a lot to differentiate itself from series that have come before it. What’s also different and striking is its sci-fi setting, which seems to synthesize its visual inspiration from places like Gurren Lagann and Made in Abyss, with a little bit of Blade Runner cyberpunk tossed in for visual flavoring. These are all rich sources from which to draw forth the sense of mystery and danger inherent in the unexplored underground wilderness of the Labyrinth, about which we’ve only really been presented with hushed stories of its terrifying nature.
I’m a big fan of stories that speak to the human race’s apparently innate urge to explore; whatever the dangers that may exist out in the world, for whatever reason there are always a few of us for whom the potential knowledge and experience gained by traversing those unknown places is never quite outweighed by the threat to life and limb. It’s the reason why there are research stations on Antarctica and flags planted on the Moon. While I’m not the person to do the exploring – my status as an anxious ADHD-affected human makes me better suited to reacting to strange situations than to planning and initiating them – I appreciate the stories of the people who are more suited to it. I think that’s why Memempu’s drive is so relatable – even after witnessing the deaths of two people close to her and finally coming to terms with the danger that all Marker’s face, she simply can’t force herself to quash her inner desire to escape her confined life.
And to his credit, Gagumber’s decision to go along with his smart, driven daughter on what may very well become her life’s journey, speaks to his effectiveness as a father. While he might seem bumbling at times, his decisions seem to come from a confluence of sadness for things in his life that he can’t control, and love for the daughter whose care he’s been tasked with providing. And that’s something special.
Pros: The background artwork in this episode is extremely rich and lived-in. The underground city of Pinyin is a mélange of Asian-style architecture, neon signage, and lived-in, grimy workspaces and homes. It’s a fantastical version of cave living that feels like a logical endpoint of what that might actually be like.
Memempu is also a really charming character. I think she’s a good representation of what it might be like to be a child genius. She’s spent her short life being labeled a genius for her ability to succeed in school – at this point, she’s literally run out of school to attend. And yet, she’s so deeply emotionally inexperienced and hasn’t yet developed a sense of the dangerous realities around her. The contrast between the perceived invincibility of youth and the dawning of one’s sense of mortality is something that’s both worthy of being celebrated and grieved; I think Memempu’s transformation from impetuous kid to somewhat less impetuous kid is a good way to cap off the first episode.
Cons: As an American I’ve grown up around TV sit-coms, and if there’s one takeaway I can speak to after hours upon hours of mediocre formulaic family comedies is that the archetype of the bumbling, ineffectual father and husband needs to go. Gagumber is well-meaning and I think his heart is in the right place – he clearly cares for his kid pretty deeply – but he’s still a drunk and acts like a child himself throughout the episode. I don’t recall if it was stated how long he’s been a single father, but one would think that he’d be better at the parts requiring him to be responsible about it by now. Or, perhaps that’s not quite the angle that I’m trying to express. I think that there are parents out there who think more about themselves than the children they’re supposed to be taking care of. But the fact that we continue to return to this image of ineffectual fatherhood in fiction as if it’s a given, a basic assumption of the differences between the sexes, is a problem for me.
Content Warnings: Violence, including large-scale destruction of buildings, and character death by explosion. Some slapstick-style interactions, including cartoonish traps being sprung on characters.
Would I Watch More? – I think overall this show seems very cool and extremely creative, and I already have a bit of an emotional investment in Gagumber’s and Memempu’s story and relationship. I’m definitely planning to watch more.