Happy Sugar Life

At first I thought this is a veryy twisted and bizzar show (and it still is) but as I was watching I realized that this is not about the extremely controversial story but something else entirely. It's a show that gets you thinking about love. what is love? what it means?
while the characters and situations are completely fictional, the depth of the characters, their decisions and way of life is extremely real and resembles pieces of reality. And it really gets you questioning the lines between desire, sex, love and right/wrong. What love makes you do and what is defiantly not love.
The ending gave ... me some AWE experience when I realized how deep love can be internalized. I felt like I now understand my place in the world better. because I'm of course non of these characters but the differences makes you thinking about who are you in this mess. giving some clarity from a very Chaotic place

This anime is bad, but have a special place in my heart.

When judging an Anime I take the following factors in consideration "characters likebility", "visual quality", "Audictive quality" and "story quality". Because of that, sometimes an Anime may go very well in some of this factors, but terrible in others. Happy Sugar Life is perhaps the greatest exemple of been brilliant in some aspects but totally trash in others.

Visual Quality: the anime is gorgeous, character designs are cute, animation is fluid, and the construction of the scenes are well done.
Audictive Quality: The anime have a great OST, the op and Ed are bangers, the bgm ... is well placed in occordance with the feeling of the scene.
Character Likebility: That is where things start to sink. The little girl, Shio, is super cute and wholesome it's impossible to not like her. The protagonist best friend is also a sweetie. The little girl's older brother have an interesting thing going on. Now the main character is unpleasant, it wouldn't be as bad if her background story was convincing, but it isn't, we will talk more about it in the next factor. And EVERY SINGLE ONE of the rest of the cast are THE LOWEST KIND OF GARBAGE, it's like society was made of cartoonish evil people, everyone...
Finally, Story Quality: The premise had some potential, but the author had no idea how to work it. Instead of working something reasonable to make the plot go forward, she just relay on the maniacally evil characters that she created to trigger random events in the story. Needless to say that the story struggles in keeping your disbelief suspended, every couple of events you see yourself thinking "wtf is wrong with those people?". No human interaction feels normal. The end is somehow decent... that is, considering the nature of events that happen through out the story, the ending at least gives a satisfying closure, safe for a single datail, but I won't spoiler.
I must to say however that it falls in the category "so bad it's good" watching it as a joke is actually quite funny.

In conclusion, Happy Sugar Life have enough qualities to keep you entertained until it's last secounds, but you will know that it is crapp through it.
It's like a cheap jellybean, you know it doesn't taste great, but if you are bored you may find yourself shoving a handful in your mouth.

I recommend it? Well you have nothing to lose, you will probably not like it, but it's just a couple of minutes if your life so... Whatever.

Happy Sugar Life flirts with two core audiences that it fails to deliver to.

The first audience is those looking for a dark, mature story about irredeemably flawed characters being punished for their sins. Happy Sugar Life sets itself up as though it may be that kind of story, but it doesn't have the teeth to commit, nor does it actually condemn the main characters.

The second audience is those looking for a cute, twisted romance between a yandere lolicon and the object of her affection. Happy Sugar Life doesn't seem at first, to court this audience genuinely, but if you keep watching, you'll probably come to ... the same conclusion as I have: This is the true core of the story, but it fails in execution.

Happy Sugar Life is a really, really poorly told love story. It is the story of Satou, a high-schooler in search of the meaning of love, and Shio, the little girl who teaches it to her. It's the story of two girls, victims of their own unique abuse, with deeply concerning ideas of what a relationship is. And, despite their traumas and their complexes and their immaturity, their relationship IS somehow perfect. There is no apparent condemnation of their age gap, and the major structure and climactic dialogue all compound the message at the core of their relationship: Their love is the only thing in their lives that matters. Without it, they are empty people, and no amount of connecting with other people or going to therapy can fix them. The only hope they have is each other.

The love story between Satou and Shio, (which, I stress, is what the writing clearly treats as Important and Good) is interrupted, strained, and broken up by poorly-realized adult themes and juvenile edge-for-the-sake-of-edge. Child predators, rapists, and stalkers roam every corner of Satou's city, for the express purpose of interrupting her life with Shio, and providing "fair game" for her manipulative and murderous tendencies. But, and this bears repeating, the story is not really ABOUT these darker things. They are simply plastered on top of the obvious focal point - the romance - for the sake of introducing conflict and appearing mature and morally complex.

The views of human nature expressed by Happy Sugar Life are bleak and immature, as is the eventual ending. The writers believe that people can be broken, and not fixed, and simultaneously that there are no emotions worth living for besides full-hearted devotion to your love. There are no characters with pure intentions except for Shio, and, if you take the side that the writers take, Satou as well.

(PLOT SPOILERS IN THE NEXT PARAGRAPH)

You see, the major, important twist of the story is, ultimately, that Satou is "innocent." Not that she never does terrible things, but that all of these things are, ultimately, justified. They are all self-defense, for the sake of protecting Shio, or done to people who "deserve" it by the metrics applied by the writers. Satou is not a serial killer, nor is she a kidnapper. She is a child, backed into a corner, who does what she has to for the sake of the one thing in the world that is considered Good and Pure. The ultimate climax, and the unwinding of the plot, hinges on Satou being driven to finally kill someone who doesn't "deserve" it like the others do.

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TL;DR:

Before you decide to watch Happy Sugar Life, ask yourself why:
- If you want a mature story about Bad People receiving their Divine Punishment, you should find another anime.
- If you want a twisted love story about a yandere lolicon being driven to her limit, stop watching after episode 11. It makes a much better ending, and you can fill in the gaps however you wish. Episode 12 will only ruin what little Happy Sugar Life has going for it.

In the end, Happy Sugar Life is a deeply flawed and poorly executed idea, with no courage to stand by its morals and an immature desire to play at "tragedy" without meaning.