Sanrio Boys Ep 12 – “Sparkle” is Obviously a Double Entendre (Winter Games 2018 )

• Genre : Comedy, Drama, Slice of Life
• Studio: Pierrot

This is IT you guys. Final episode of the entire  Winter Games. I made it. You made it. WE Made it!!!! You know, the term “Hero” gets bandied a lot nowadays but I think this time we’ve truly earned it. We watched some shows!

OK, straight talk just for a second. I usually take notes for series reviews but not for episodes. Despite my best efforts, I do still have a few working brain cells and I can manage to remember to content of 20 minutes long enough to put together a post about it. This said, I have sheets full of minute and second markers for when Sanrio Boys have a creepy screen shot!

As predicted, by me, *cough*, the final wrap up went for sunny hopelessness. The deliciously painful depths of despair in which each character was plunged, all the while smiling and prancing, was a pure illustration of misery in anime form. I’m not sure whether to be impressed or terrified. Just to be on the safe side, I’m going with both.

As the episode picks up on a darkened abandoned street, in the middle of the night, with all the characters going through dramatic public breakdowns, I realized for the first time that the dialogue was in code.

Obviously heavy use of analogy and surreal imagery was employed throughout as both a narrative tool and I suspect a practical means to avoid and R rating. But this is the first time it dawn on me that words simply were not used for their proper meaning. Looking back on past episodes, this redefines everything we thought we knew about this show.

Now I know my wonderful readers are smarter than I am, so you probably picked up on this a while ago but for me it was a revelation. To think that THAT’s what Hase was talking about with the crazy sparkles rhetoric, all along. Man this is a sick show…

I must say, it was a very odd thing to watch Yuu make some very logical and reasonable arguments while delivering them in the most unreasonable way possible. The Pres hung back letting the boys and emotionally drained and physically exhausted before moving on to his master plan.

Back at school, realization dawns that there is no more helping any of the boys as their various relations seem to have given up on trying to free them. Family and friends sadly look on and gently acknowledge their loved ones, having come to understand that these boys are now beyond reason, they simply support them at a loss for anything else to do.

Even Ryou’s father, who, and this cannot be a coincidence, looks unnervingly like the Prez, is forced to play along despite his better judgement.

By the half way point, the show abandons all pretense of an earnest narrative and goes into full blown surreal candy coated nightmare as glimpses of the Sanrio play are intertwined with vignettes of the abuse and mind control each boy was subjected to throughout the course of the season and how they have now resigned themselves to their sad faiths. Naturally, the Prez is the only one who did not have such a montage.

The very moment the last remnants for reality get swept away is marked by the literal death of the Hase character. I know the show is usually not that obvious but it was quite worth it as what followed bordered on Uta no Prince Sama 2000% Love Episode 13 greatness. It was like drowning in sugar. The mix of kitsch and frighting is probably going to remain an unparalleled experience in the minds of the audience.

This brutal and tongue and cheek experimental tale certainly took a lot of chance. It wont be for everyone but it’s unblinking grimness was something to behold.

Ok…can I be real for a minute with you guys. Sanrio Boys isn’t a very good show. Some elements are passable but overall it is a commercial and nothing more. I would be quite surprised if actual writers were involved in this as I’m pretty sure an intern just turned some market research into a fanfic and got that animated.

But, there’s something oddly innocuous about the whole thing. It feels like people didn’t mind putting this show together. Sometimes, you can see the stress and pressure of the production team on screen. Or you realize with a shudder halfway through exactly what creepy corner of the human psyche is being exploited and manipulated. None of that here. Superficial and uncomplicated to a fault. You will not think this is a good show but it may make you curious about what a good show of the genre could do.

For the last time, please go see what Astral Gemini, Leap and TPAB, thought about this final installment of the winter games. We will be announcing the results shortly as well so please make sure to check those out. For those of you that stuck with us throughout this experiment. Thank you!

And because I really can’t get over that final scenes – here are more screencaps in all their kitschtastic glory!