The main story starts off with an incident that causes Gagumber to join his daughter Memenpu on an adventure to try and find this tower in her dreams. The first 3 eps are actually a pretty good start, and we get some good action and in general well done moments. Ep 4 and beyond though is when it gets worse. A lot of these middle eps are very mixed in quality. Some are one offs that maybe introduce a new character or element of worldbuilding, but really just exist only to do that. Yuri’s introduction ep is a whole “rebels against le bad government” arc in one ep, and has the worst pacing of any ep in the whole series. What about ep 8 where Zack tries to get revenge on Gagumber and even kidnaps and threatens to kill Memenpu where Gagumber has to just about kill himself to save her, but right at the end he’s immediately ok after an off screen surgery and they both just forgive Zack as if nothing serious happened? She also continues to travel with them for no real reason other than “plot reasons”, and really it felt like this should’ve happened sooner in the series. Yeah in general not at all good pacing. Ending wasn't even remotely satisfying imo.
Ok what about the themes? Well ig it has some half-baked commentary on like controlling government vs free society, protecting the environment, blah blah, it’s rushed and not done well. Oh but what about the main theme of family and a father/daughter relationship?
I’ll have to dive more into the characters for that. Characters in this show are…mostly annoying. Our main duo here feel like they never truly grow even though they have multiple chances too throughout the story. I know that’s…actually a bit realistic knowing how humans can be, but there’s a way of write that without it being annoying and also I feel like that’s not even necessarily what the show is trying to go for. So like, let's start with Memenpu here.
I don’t mind kid characters in anime. In fact the more “realistic” ones that people find annoying or even hate (e.g. the kid trio in eureka seven), I don’t really mind too much. Meme here though just doesn’t work for me. I’m supposed to believe this 9 yo child prodigy that is in college and is shown to be the “smart leader” of the group most of the time, is also this incredibly immature girl that regularly makes reckless and dangerous decisions? You’d think after maybe the first or second near death experiences she’d learn to try and listen to Gagumber a bit more and try to work with him more, but nah even on ep 10 she’s still STILL being stupid reckless.
Ok what about Gagumber? He’s not as bad as Meme, in fact if anything the anime has this weird tendency to absolutely dogpile on the guy. Like yeah sometimes it’s deserved, but a lot of time it crosses the line and just brings down my general enjoyment of the series. There are also times when he could afford to listen to Memenpu more or at least act like a proper dad, and he just doesn’t unless it’s extreme circumstances.
My main point here is that Sakugan are trying to portray these 2 as like “yeah they don’t get along too well, but they still love each other because they’re family”, but that’s not really the vibe I get. More what I see is an incredibly unhealthy, if not outright toxic relationship between these two that’s sometimes interrupted by them seemingly being close together. So no I don’t really think Sakugan handles its familial themes well either, and at worst can maybe even teach the wrong lessons.
As for the side cast, Yuri is a fairly one note anarchist teenage redditor that often does more harm than good. He’s supposed to be the comic relief, but I pretty much just found him annoying. Zack has nothing interesting to her outside of I guess being the attractive action girl, and a poorly done revenge arc that lasts one ep and goes nowhere. Merooro is…actually he’s ok. I mostly liked him, he’s funny a few times. The antags are incredibly generic terrorists that have some incredibly vague, generic goal that tbh I forgot what even was cuz it barely felt like it even mattered.
So is there anything good about Sakugan? Well I can’t really complain about the animation and music. They’re not great, but are pretty consistently good. The mecha design are nice, and cgi animation for them is goodish. Backgrounds are pretty consistently nice, and I feel like I never saw the characters go off model. Kaiju are…ok cgi I guess. VA performance is good, they do the job. The overall soundtrack is good, with a really good OP and alright ED.
Ultimately, I can’t dislike Sakugan too much. It’s sometimes good, mostly average or bad, but it’s ok overall. If anything it’s nice to have another mecha show along with the various others this season. There was an attempt here to make something good that just unfortunately got dragged down by what feels like very amateurish writing. I mean tbf the non writing parts are good enough at least. Sakugan is an average watch, but I will say 2 things if you’re interested in watching. Don’t expect a lot of mecha action, and your enjoyment of the father/daughter relationship may vary.
