Sankarea

Title:Sankarea
さんかれあ
Overall:Watch
Keywords: , , , , , , ,
Notables: Animation - Studio DEEN
KIMURA Ryohei
Chihiro Furuya, who loves zombies above all else, meets the sweet girl Rea Sanka by chance, and he ropes her into "resurrecting" his dead cat. But then Rea claims she actually has become a zombie, and asks him to take responsibility for it.
(Summary Courtesy of Anime News Network)


Started airing on April 5, 2012.
Animated by Studio Deen
0:31min Series PV - YouTube Video
OverallArtAnimationCharacter Design MusicSeries StoryEpisode StoryReviewer
Watch 8 9 7 0 6 KBanger1 [series:2546#1694]
What can I say about this one? It starts off with a very unusual boy who's main hobby is zombie movies but also has a deep desire for zombie women in particular. Our protagonist, Chihiro Furuya, is such a person who's almost like the characters in other anime who like '2-D girls' instead of real life ones (ie: Keima Katsuragi in The World Only God Only Knows) but not as overly obsessed. His fascination with the subject gets put to the test when his cat dies from getting hit from a car. He took matters into his own hands and tries to concoct a potion that he discovered in a book he had in his possession that contained information about the dead. One day while working on his potion, a young girl about his age shows up unexpectedly and that's where I'll leave the rest of the plot.

After watching the entire series (including the OVA episodes), I felt that it left me with this emptiness I never really felt when watching anime. If it was a really bad anime, I'd go straight to the bad points but this just left me with a bland taste in my mouth. The series starts off well with the characters, mind it being a sort of slow build. When it came to the climax of what the story was about, it felt that there was a lot left to be said. It was almost a 'cut and dry' moment being that I saw the climax of the plot and it was over. Nothing special to be said and nothing being noteworthy. The rest of the episodes felt way more of a slight inclination to being a light-hearted slice of life (even though it's clearly a zombie/supernatural anime). I didn't expect it to be a full-fledged horror story, but I certainly didn't it to be this slightly cheery kind of series. It did show signs of it's seriousness in the latter part of the anime but it also left a lot of unanswered questions towards the end of the story. The last episode really did not help the series because it was way to open for questions. There really no resolution to the series and it left such a cliffhanger that it made me feel like I was cheated for even buying the anime with such a base plot.

With that said, it's overall animation is good. It's hard not to admire certain episodes where the art and animation stood out. That in itself was the saving grace for me. I guess since I have an aversion to how certain movies are made for example how vampire movies/books are now being fantasized as more of a romantic type of genre than what it's original tendency was straight up horror. 'Sankarea' left me with just a rating of 'meh'. It had nearly far too much of a campy love story vibe, although it was really not that much romance involved. I probably wpu;d give it an 'Avoid' rating but I see it as a niche anime for a small percentage of avid watchers/collectors. It really didn't leave much to desire. I would've like to see a resolution or an actual continuation but like most released anime, not much thought was put into it and therefore ends up catching dust on my collection. I don't see myself re-watching this for a third time for a long time.

Last updated Sunday, August 06 2017. Created Sunday, August 06 2017.
Watch 8 8 8 7 5 5 Ggultra2764 [series:2546#1552]
Gotta say I got quite disappointed with later episodes of this series. When I first started off Sankarea, I assumed the series would be some sort of romantic drama mixed with supernatural elements compliments of its zombie theme and subtle comedy serving to balance out the title's more darker elements, especially in regards to Rea's disturbing back story. How wrong I was! There were hints of the title's more conventional trappings of romantic comedy that I didn't pay much mind to, such as some fan service moments with Rea and Furuya's cousin. The elements become more prominent in later episodes when Furuya's cousin starts to get meddlesome as the cliched jealous relative with a crush and we get the cliched predicaments of Furuya trying to hide Rea's unique circumstances from his family while the girl stays with them. The middle section of the series with focus on Furuya's family life does slow the main plot of the show involving Rea's twisted father, Dan'ichiro, to a halt and even when it does resume at the end of the show, it remains unresolved alongside the fate of Rea and Furuya's budding relationship, obvious lack of resolution due to the series being based on a currently ongoing manga series. Speaking of Dan'ichiro, he now stands among one of the worst characters I've come across in an anime with the twisted and disturbing fixation he has on his daughter Rea and I was very irritated at the open-ended nature to Sankarea not allowing me to see him get punished in any major way for his behavior. With all these glaring problems I came across with Sankarea, it is quite easily the weakest of the Spring 2012 titles I completed. Unless you are a complete sap for fetish-themed rom-coms as predictable as this, I wouldn't waste any time with Sankarea.

Last updated Friday, June 29 2012. Created Friday, June 29 2012.
Watch Stretch [series:2546#628]
(All episodes watched)

Sankarea had a novel premise which sounded like it might be fun, and I had high hopes for it. But the actual first episode seemed unexceptional. The plentiful fanservice suggested that this show wouldn't exactly be counting on quality to attract viewers. It was hard to take this seriously, since the characters weren't developed nearly enough to trust each other in the manner that would be required to do something drastic like one of them did. Furuya just lusts for zombie chicks, apparently; we have no idea why a person would have such a bizarre taste yet otherwise behave in a seemingly normal manner. Sanka goes from being traumatized by sexual abuse to trusting Furuya wholeheartedly in a matter of minutes. This seemed like the all-too-common curse of shallow characters. Also, was this show trying to be humorous, or disturbing and dramatic? Sometimes it seems to take a grim, dark tone, but mostly it is relatively silly.

Fortunately, in episode two the show shaped up somewhat. Pretty much all of episode two was required to fill all the holes in episode one. Rea got a good deal of development and her actions make more sense now. So, Sankarea seemed more complex and interesting than it had appeared to be at first. To a certain extent, my high hopes for this show were restored. One thing which I still didn't understand was just what the implications of becoming a zombie are. How much of a mind of her own will Rea have now? Most of one? A little of one? None at all? I don't know what to expect. It's like we're supposed to be thrilled and entertained that one of the characters is a zombie—but it turns out that being a zombie has little in common with what we had expected. So, essentially it's unclear if Rea really is a zombie at all—or if the plot of Sankarea really needed the zombie element.

I can't help feeling that this show could have been tightened up a good deal. It feels like bits and pieces of a story have been hastily lashed together instead of made to flow smoothly. Furuya and Rea haven't gotten enough development for their romance to be truly moving. Rea's state as a zombie is odd, to say the least; she feels no pain, but can still be happy? Does she feel this way because her life was so awful that death seems like a relief? If so, not much has been done as yet with this interesting angle. Instead of a tragedy or tragicomedy this show seems half-hearted. And Furuya's grandfather and friend aren't funny at all. I guess what kept me watching was curiousity about how the strange premise would work out, since the rest of the show is unexceptional. Halfway through I was impatient about where exactly this would go. No doubt Rea's father will cause trouble for Furuya, but I'm more interested in what Rea's fate as a zombie will be.

Episode seven, which was all about the relationship between Ranko and Furuya without any appearance by Sanka, was boring. I don't care at all how the romantic triangle works out, because there are no signs that Ranko stands a chance or that the climax will be particularly interesting. She is the generic childhood sweetheart who is thrown into the story just so that she can be nonplussed by an unusual rival, and we can feel a little uncertainty that the new girl will win out in the end. But Ranko's personality has about as much life to it as that of a zombie.

Just when a cliffhanger arrives, the series takes a break from its usual plotline and inserts omake episode nine. At first I was annoyed and nonplussed by this, but this episode turned out to be funnier and more touching than usual. It was a pity that this episode marked the only appearance of the nutty middle schoolers who investigate reports of zombies.

In episode ten we return to the main plotline, and learn a good deal about Rea's family ties. I thought it fleshed her previously wooden parents out a good deal, much like episode two helped Rea herself. Maybe it should have been done earlier. The climax (in episode 11) was kind of neat, and salvaged the series to a certain extent. But the twist which saved Furuya's life didn't make a whole lot of sense; I think either going all the way, for a tragicomic conclusion, or having him be killed tragically would have worked better. And what was the deal with what happened at the very end of the final episode? It had seemed that something really moving was about to happen. Sankarea as a whole struck me as a confused, unfocused show which nevertheless had its moments. But somebody else ought to produce a 'my girlfriend/boyfriend is a zombie' series, because this one didn't reach anywhere near its full potential.

Last updated Sunday, July 08 2012. Created Monday, April 09 2012.

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Official Japanese Series Web Site http://www.tbs.co.jp/anime/sankarea/

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