Title: Sasami-san@Ganbaranai, ささみさん@がんばらない
Producers: Shaft, Aniplex, TBS, Sentai Filmworks
Genres: Comedy, Romance, Supernatural
Duration: 24 min. per episode
The Japanese call them hikikomori—people who’ve become so withdrawn socially that they refuse to leave their homes for weeks and even months at a time. Fortunately though, she lives with her older brother Kamiomi, who just happens to be a teacher at the school Sasami is supposed to attend. Not to mention, her “Brother Surveillance Tool” which lets her view the outside world via her computer and will, theoretically, allow her to readjust to interfacing with people again. What it mainly does, however, is let her view her brother’s interactions with the three very odd Yagami sisters, who inexplicably seem to have had their ages reversed and have various types of “interest” in Kamiomi. And then things start to get really weird… Magical powers?
Fansubs watched: FFF
Being a girl with magical powers is kind of hard when chocolate tentacles and monsters start attacking and consuming the world, but at least we have an explanation this episode. It begins with Sasami writing a report, detailing all the important bits we need to know. Apparently there are gods within everything but there is a hierarchy with the higher gods being able to transform any other gods. The supreme god is called Amateratsu and resided inside Sasami a few years back, but currently it is inside her brother. Which explains why she has to monitor him constantly, and the chocolate world. Though, she has no information on the Yagami sisters and how they are able to suppress the transformations. At school, most of the class is missing since they are busy playing a classroom MMO- kinda weird if you ask me. The Yagami sisters and Sasami’s brother intend to play the game to catch the students skipping school. They go inside Sasami’s room and use her computers, which she does not like and tries everything to get rid of them. They start playing the game and are given their classes; Tsurigi is a delinquent, Kagami is a nurse, Tama is a chef and Kamiomi is a naked loser. But after playing a while, Sasami and Kagami are sucked into the game, where a large monster is wrecking havoc. Tama and Tsurugi also enter and explains that the monster was created when Sasami still had powers. Sasami embraces the monster and destroys it, ending the MMO.
This beginning of the episode explains quite a lot of the background of the series and how the supernatural existed in the previous episode. Though, despite this explanation the rest of the episode felt lackluster compared to the first. There are a few funny moments, with the random faces that Sasami has- typical Shaft- and the over the top nonsenses that Sasami must deal with since she is a shut-in. But there is nothing overly enjoyable, maybe the scene where Tsugiri comes onto Sasami’s brother Kamiomi, but over than that the supernatural stuff as well was dull. Maybe it wanted to paint a more tragic side of things to the series, rather than pointless random moments and comedy, but it isn’t done well. There are some funny moments in the episode, with Sasami going overboard in her task to get rid of everyone, which changes her face quite often. Though, those little flashes of Shaft are probably the only amusing part of the episode.
Episode 2 is a step back from the first episode, despite explaining a lot of background, which is actually rather interesting. But the rest of the episode fell short on expectations (if any) and lacked an engaging execution. But there were some bright moments with the faces that Sasami has, but that’s about it.
