Sasaki to Pii-chan

Sasaki, a 39-year-old corporate employee, has resigned himself to live a modest life without dreams and dangers. To his great surprise, his fate takes a brutal turn after he decides to adopt a Java sparrow that he names Pii-chan. The talking bird not only happens to be a reincarnation of a famous magician from another world, but it decides to grant some of its powers to Sasaki—along with the ability to traverse between worlds. Sasaki begins a lucrative business of selling technological items from his world to the less advanced civilization of the other.

However, Sasaki's life becomes more chaotic when he stops an attempt on a woman's life with his new powers. Unfortunately, the woman Sasaki saved also happens to be a government agent named Hoshizaki, who is tasked with tracking down gifted individuals like him. Forced to join Hoshizaki's secret agency, Sasaki partakes in dangerous missions to find other gifted criminals. He does not even have the luxury of hiding in the other world, where a war is about to break out. If he wants to protect peace in both worlds, Sasaki will have to become the hero that no one expects him to be.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Pii-chan Main

Yuuki, Aoi Japanese

Sasaki Main

Sugita, Tomokazu Japanese

Otonari-san Supporting

Kitou, Akari Japanese

Futari, Shizuka Supporting

Oozora, Naomi Japanese

Hoshizaki-san Supporting

Takahashi, Rie Japanese

Elsa Supporting

Tomita, Miyu Japanese

Mueller Supporting

Yasumoto, Hiroki Japanese

Magical Pink Supporting

Minase, Inori Japanese

Mary Supporting

Nohana, Yuuka Japanese

Marc Supporting

Iwata, Mitsuo Japanese

Kaneko, Hayato Producer

Tokumura, Kenichi Producer

Nishimae, Shuka Producer

Kuwayama, Yukari Producer

Reviews

Mar 22, 2024

Marinate1016

Recommended

Funny

Sasapi came out the gate with one of the most original pilot episodes I’ve seen, implementing aspects of 4-5 different genres, a cool magical system, a talking bird, hot girls, I was wowed. Sadly, it never really matched those highs again. Still, I enjoyed it for what it was and would recommend it. There’s definitely more than enough to separate it from your run of the mill fantasy seasonal. It does have a fun cast of characters and an interesting world, it just felt underutilised at times and chaotic.

Sasapi doesn’t really do anything new. Just recently, we’ve had shows like Roukin8 that featured working age ... MCs going back and forth between worlds to make money selling goods. But, Sasapi is the first show to have that element mixed with magical girls, a secret government organisation and science fiction. While it sounds crazy, all of this stuff just really works in the confines of the story. The problem is the show introduces so many concepts that it has trouble balancing them all. Some cool characters like Hoshizaki or the neighbour girl get introduced and then kind of fade away as the show goes on, which is a shame because they were the best parts for me. That’s done in favour of a political negotiation arc in the isekai world, which I personally could not care less for. I’m not sure if this was just how it was in the books or an issue with the adaptation, but it felt like it needed 3-5 more episodes to really do justice to everything, either that or reduce the time spent in that arc. The story is at its best when it focuses more on Sasaki and Pii taking on magic users on earth with the government agency and selling stuff to the other world on the side.

Sasaki himself is a cool character. He’s not a generic degenerate otaku, but just a regular salaryman who’s standing still in life. Not able to advance up the ranks in his company or get a raise, he’s stuck in a cycle of overwork and exhaustion until he finds magical talking bird , Pii in a pet store. Their relationship is the cornerstone of the series and I liked seeing them come to understand one another and support the other’s weaknesses. Despite coming from different worlds they’re able to form an unbreakable bond over mutual pain and good old chateaubriand steak. The slice of life moments with them are authentic and tender. It reminded me a lot of a buddy cop dynamic which I’m a big fan of.

The production values also took a step back after the premiere episode. It was an hour long premiere and you could tell a ton of time went into it. But the action scenes after that felt half baked and even character models didn’t look as good. It’s not horrible, but definitely a noticeable downgrade. Luckily, this isn’t an action heavy series so it’s not always apparent and you can still enjoy the show.

I enjoyed Sasapi despite its flaws. The characters were fun and Sasaki and Pi’s banter was a great way to end my week on Fridays. I went out and bought the Light Novel as well so I’ll be reading that too. I’d recommend this anime for fans of urban fantasy, Japanese toxic work culture, or just working adults who want someone you can relate with as a protagonist for once.

Sasapi gets 7, out of 10.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Mar 22, 2024

MarlsMarsBars

Mixed Feelings

Sasaki and Peeps is definitely something. This anime tries to be so many things all at once: a supernatural, a fantasy, a slice of life, a gourmet, etc. To be brutually honest, I don't think this show knows what it wants to be. The main selling point behind Saski and Peeps is the fact that the MC, Sasaki, travels between his world and the fantasy one, thanks to his Peeps, his magical pet. This anime is at its best when the two worlds actually have some benefit to one another, whether that be Sasaki taking his business expertise from the real world into the fantasy ... one, or when he uses the magic he learns in the fantasy one to fight other magicians in the real one. Outside of that, Sasaki and Peeps struggles to balance the plotlines that happen in the two worlds. There's very little cohesion in this show, which leads to awful pacing since the writing has to just pull stuff out of its ass in order to move things along. Sasaki and Peeps really feels like if someone took two completely different anime and clogged them together without putting in the effort to justify the contrasting themes. It's not bad, but it could've been better.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Mar 22, 2024

SanaeK10

Not Recommended

Sasaki to Pii-chan started out interesting enough: You have a first episode that looked like typical isekai slop only for it to shift gears completely into urban fantasy with espers in the second half. Count me sold I thought at the time. But no, alas, it's yet another case of "interesting premise, bad execution".

Actually no, it's worse than that. Bad execution can sometimes lead to amusing trainwrecks, this is just overly bland. I had just finished watching the last episode a few hours ago and already I'm forgetting plot details.

One of the main issues with this is how it lacks any sort of ... focus. Even within the Isekai stuff which takes up like half of the season, it jumps between slow life, business management, (boring) political intrigue, and there are some battles in there too. I could not give less of a shit for most of these, and Marc-san's Mild Ride taking up the bulk of the Isekai segments made me wonder why Sasaki is involved with any of this at all.

It's not like the other segments fare any better either. The Real World segments are even more messy. You have the show juggling between many plot threads with his supernatural spy agency and evil espers, then suddenly they throw in Mahou Shoujos who use a different magic system altogether. I wouldn't have minded any of this if the show have given proper buildup, development, and payoff to these sudden shifts in the narrative, but the original author seemingly just dumped them whenever he got bored of a particular plot thread.

But the biggest crime in all of this is how boring everything just ended up being. Even Sugita and Yuuki Aoi sound like they're phoning it in most of the time. But even if the voice acting was good it still wouldn't save the show from siphoning away your life energy the more you look at it. There is just way too much boring expository dialogue that don't contribute much to the mess of a plot and just serves to bore you even more.

In short, if this was like your very first show after watching nothing but Netflix, then yeah, maybe you'd find some kind of enjoyment from how different it is, but just don't bother with the show.

I guess the one saving grace is that the OP is unintentionally funny. Though that is immediately negated by its creepy ass ED.

Reviewer’s Rating: 3

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	Poll: Sasaki to Pii-chan Episode 4 Discussion ( 1 2 ) LunyRem - Jan 26	64 replies	by Endl8ss »» Nov 18, 8:13 AM
	Poll: Sasaki to Pii-chan Episode 1 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 ) KANLen09 - Jan 5	181 replies	by Ambeon »» Nov 15, 12:53 AM
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