Penguin Highway

For a child, Aoyama has knowledge comparable to an adult. As such, he is often teased by his classmates. He also has a crush on the friendly woman he recently met at a dental office. One morning, penguins start mysteriously appearing around his neighborhood. Nobody knows where they came from and how they managed to get there. Aoyama is determined to find out more, and he joins his new crush in researching the penguins.

As time passes, they discover a levitating sphere which they nickname "The Sea." Whatever goes into The Sea does not come back out, and the only things that can destroy it are the penguins. However, something horrifying is created when the penguins do...

Penguin Highway follows Aoyama and the woman's research on the mysterious penguins' origin, as well as the many difficulties Aoyama faces throughout his investigation.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

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Background

Winner of the Excellence Award on the 22nd Japan Media Arts Festival.

Episode Videos

Episode 1

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Adaptation:

Penguin Highway, Penguin Highway

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Characters & Voice Actors

Lady

Main

Aoi, Yuu
Japanese

Aoyama

Main

Kita, Kana
Japanese

Hamamoto

Supporting

Han, Megumi
Japanese

Uchida

Supporting

Kugimiya, Rie
Japanese

Aoyama, Sister

Supporting

Kuno, Misaki
Japanese

Aoyama, Father

Supporting

Nishijima, Hidetoshi
Japanese

Suzuki

Supporting

Fukui, Miki
Japanese

Aoyama, Mother

Supporting

Noto, Mamiko
Japanese

Hamamoto, Father

Supporting

Takenaka, Naoto
Japanese

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Staff

Satou, Junichi

Producer

Takei, Katsuhiro

Producer

Nakatake, Tetsuya

Assistant Producer

Ishida, Hiroyasu

Director, Storyboard

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Opening Theme

No opening themes have been added to this title. Help improve our database by adding an opening theme here.

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Ending Theme

"Good Night" by Hikaru Utada

Reviews

Aug 24, 2018

-HippySnob-

Recommended

"Penguins inexplicably appear in a suburb some distance from the sea, and a grade-school boy seeks to solve the mystery, in this humorous and at times philosophical novel for young adults that puts author Tomihiko Morimi's playful sensibilities on full display."

Adapted from the most finest work since Tatami Galaxy, The Night is Short, and The Eccentric Family

"As the wind blew, the grass sparkled, wet from the morning dew. There was a squeaking noise that sounded like the school’s floors creaking. In the middle of the huge empty lot, there were a number of penguins waddling around."

Going embark into superstitious child-oriented but with eccentric wholesomeness from ...

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Nov 12, 2018

fillyy

Mixed Feelings

Penguin Highway is an anime film about a boy who is mature for his age but still has some things to learn as a growing boy. He is a genius kid who finds great interest in researching new and bizarre phenomena. The film is structured quite well and uses a lot of metaphors through the animation and storytelling to represent the coming-of-age of his character. This film does have a bloated run-time of about two hours and it compromised some of my enjoyment. The dialogue is poorly written and attempts at humour in the film don't quite cut it. I do appreciate the representation of ... the mystery behind the penguins and the phenomena as a metaphor to discovery, exploration, and learning. This film is good to analyse as it presents metaphors in an effective way to tell a story.

The animation is decent for the most part. There are moments of extremely fast motion and travel that are depicted in this film which ends up being poorly animated. The animation in these select few scenes felt lazy and sloppily animated. The animation still deserves some praise.

The soundtrack is quite good. I liked the transition from the introduction to the opening theme. The songs used throughout this film fit the scenes' moods and added a sense of joy. I love the ending theme as the credits roll after a satisfying ending.

The characters were written and developed well in this anime film. The sense of the boy's determination and excitement of further developing his research is portrayed well. Some of the characters' actions felt a little forced but there was one scene where there was a conversation with the boy and his sister which tied up to the ending and connected all the dots. This film doesn't fully explain itself until the very end but it is satisfying to see the films ending scene nonetheless.

To be honest, there were moments that I didn't enjoy watching but I did enjoy the ending quite a bit. The lead up to the ending wasn't enjoyable and this film takes its time to fully explain itself. The humour in this film along with a lot of the dialogue didn't feel like it quite fit in the film which impacted my overall enjoyment of this film.

I'm not sure if I would recommend this anime to anyone but I do have to say that it's an anime film that has a lot of metaphors and imagery that can be analysed and interpreted differently to discover a completely different and beautiful meaning behind its message of growing up, the reality behind maturity, and overall life events that occur when maturing and growing up. You might like this anime film if you like interesting coming-of-age tales.

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Sep 28, 2019

Zergneedsfood

Not Recommended

I really disliked this movie. I merely thought it was disappointingly mediocre when I finished it a few weeks ago, but the more I've thought about it, the worse it's become.

Coming from someone who loves some of the previous works of the author (Tatami Galaxy, Uchouten Kazoku), I was pretty stoked for this. A more recent movie, The Night is Young, Walk on Girl wasn't my favorite anime movie of all time, but it had some decent pieces that was really just hampered by Yuasa's over indulgence in his artistic ego. I felt like a different director this time could really bring this movie to ...

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Poll: Penguin Highway Episode 1 Discussion ( 1 2 ) campa_ - Aug 17, 2018	79 replies	by JarlMiraak »» Oct 22, 2023 11:10 PM
Wit Studio ???? ZXEAN - Jun 18, 2022	4 replies	by MagicPolly »» Jun 18, 2022 4:03 PM
North American Theatrical Release zamandzoe - Feb 5, 2019	1 replies	by LeviArbalest »» Apr 24, 2019 5:55 PM
PV DatRandomDude - May 15, 2018	3 replies	by CurryBunYT »» May 18, 2018 9:47 AM

Penguin Highway

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Lady

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Hamamoto

Uchida

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Penguin Highway

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