サクガン

SAKUGAN

ANIME

STATUS
COMPLETE
EPISODES
12
RELEASE
December 23, 2021
LENGTH
24 min

DESCRIPTION

In the distant future, humankind lives shoulder-to-shoulder in a cramped "Colony" divided by bedrock. Outside the colony extends a dangerous undeveloped area known as "The Labyrinth." Those who risk their lives to explore the Labyrinth and mark undeveloped areas are known as "Markers." Memempu is a young girl who wants to become a Marker, and Gagumber is a man who quit being a Marker. This rag-tag father and daughter team are about to take on the Labyrinth! "If there is no path, then dig one!

(Source: Crunchyroll)

Note: Episode 1 had an early screening during Virtual Crunchyroll Expo 2021 on August 5, 2021.

CAST

Memenpuu
Kanon Amane
Gagumber
Hiroki Touchi
Yuuri
Toshiyuki Toyonaga
Zackletu
Kana Hanazawa
Linda
Minami Tsuda
Merooro
Yoshimasa Hosoya
Muuro
Misaki Watada
DJ K
Hiroshi Kamiya
Walsh
Hisao Egawa
Fidelio
Kouki Uchiyama
Don
Daisuke Ono
Rufus
Hikaru Midorikawa
Trevi Gakuchou
Jin Urayama
Boss
Tsuyoshi Koyama
Sina
Saori Hayami
Roujin
Atsuyoshi Miyazaki

EPISODES

Dubbed

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REVIEWS

SpiritChaser
25/100
So plotless and bad you can watch the first and last episode and not miss a thing.
Sakugan feels like you could watch the first and last episode and not miss a thing because the middle was so meaningless and terrible. It showed promise as being a great emotional journey through mysterious underworlds towards a strange land, and the fun and comedic dynamic of a father daughter duo. Instead, it's silly and bland adventures and a story with not just so many things left unexplained, but meaningless villains that make strange decision that take away any kind of stakes or risks.

After a strong first episode it felt like the staff gave up and the series would consistently decline after that. The world building was there, you could say, but it wasn't explored or shown as good as in the first episode as the cast didn't do much wherever they went besides blowing things up and constantly running away from authorities. A shame because I enjoyed the jazzy soundtrack glossing over the rough looking cities, but the effort to show the world of Sakugan was just suddenly dropped early on.

The animation was average, and the CGI ugly. Big Tony and the rest move in silly ways, and the kaiju's looked ugly and worse. The Lego looking CGI fights didn't help. Nearly the entire cast, the little there is, weren't enjoyable or memorable. Merooro is one of the few likeable ones, but gets reduced to a character who's appearance indicates there will be some plot this time. Constantly, the series decides to add seconds worth a plot at the end of some episodes.

Once this made it clear it was going to be episodic, I knew it wasn't going to end well because episodic anime is mostly hit or miss with their episodes. Even Legends like Dirty Pair have this issue, but it doesn't stray from the fact Kei and Yuri are some of the best and well written characters in anime, and can even carry bad episodes with their hilarious actions. Sakugan took this role, but Gagumber and Memenpu were never near this type of level of greatness.

A lot of what happens just doesn't make sense. One of the cast suddenly tries to kill another, fails, and everyone moves on like nothing happened. Someone might die and they build it up to be emotional, but it turns out everything's fine which takes the emotional meaning out of it. By the end of it, I just didn't find anything emotionally meaningful anymore.

This is a series that desperately needs a season 2 because it failed to explain or conclude anything. That's not to say I'd like for one after the bad performance of the first season. There's nothing really known about the big bad guys and nothing is revealed about what they are trying to do besides acting like mindless terrorists and obsessing over special kids. Oddly enough, when they do try explaining things, it adds more mystery rather than clearing anything up. I really would not have minded if the episodes were at least done well since the plot mostly went out the window. The comedy, that gets worse as the series goes, was really all it had going for it.
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