It’s a strange thing in anime. I saw the end of episode 3 and felt that I’d only be doing half a review if I only did that. And the same thing happened with the end of Episode 4. And I didn’t want it to go on even longer so here we are…

Let’s go!

This is a shivering pure love psycho horror story of a girl named Satou Matsuzaka, who has someone she likes. She experiences a sweet feeling when she sleeps with her, and thought it must be love. Everything will be forgiven as long as she protects this feeling, even if she tricks, commits crimes, steals, or even kills, she thought.

Let’s get down to the main review.

Artistic Choice

Since most of Episode 3 and 4 take place at night, there’s not much color to put out but we do find a lot of purple used with Shio’s mother especially with the glow of her eyes. Then again we can also say that glowing eyes seems to be a constant in this anime because it’s constantly used with Satou as well as other people to enhance the feeling of their sanity slipping.

I could be wrong but with the red of Satou’s eyes as well as the yellow Sumire’s eyes(the kohai from the cafe) is supposed to evoke fear as well as the predatory nature of having red or yellow eyes. I think it’s a pretty good choice because once again we’re not dealing with the entirely sane here so we need to give off that feeling of unease when seeing them. And that feeling of unease as well as the actions depicted are the driving force of the anime.

Story

The stories of Episode 3-5 are woven together pretty well in my opinion. The events of the last few episodes have had the biggest effect on Shio with her finally remembering her mother. What’s also strange that we also saw Asahi’s memories of their mother and they’re completely different. with Asahi it feels like she’s sorry for failing him as a mother since she left him behind to be abused by his father while she ran away with Shio. While Shio’s memories of her are mostly frightening her. I’d guess that being on the streets with a 5 or 6 year old girl without any money with be stressful for an abused runaway mother so she probably said some things without thinking. In this situation I chose to believe Asahi’s interpretation of their mother rather than Shio’s.

But then that leads us to the question of why did she leave Shio and where is she now? We can probably guess that she’s not looking for her otherwise we’d see her putting up missing person posters as well as Asahi. It’s one of the mysteries of this story.

Satou I find is slowly getting more and more possessive as well as deranged in regards to Shio. While yes her fear of where did Shio go is a natural response for someone that was taking care of a child her response to it afterwards was not the best. It wasn’t ‘comfort and then teach Shio about how disobeying is wrong’. It was more of ‘the outside world is dangerous but this is the only safe place so stay here and trust that I’ll be here’. Granted a child should trust their caretakers but Satou’s response to nearly getting caught with Shio is to put a lock on the outside of the door so Shio couldn’t get out even if she wanted to leave again.

Satou really reinforcing the idea of the Gilded Cage with actions like this.

And finally we have the poor people that either affected by Satou or in the case of Mitsuboshi a general victim.

I’m trying to understand Sumire, the kohai from the cafe, seeing as she’s dealing with a lot of very common problems that teenagers go through but she goes right into creepy with the clothes sniffing and the locker picking. Along with asking some very aggressive questions, Satou’s way of ending the conversation is by kissing her, playing with the little girl’s need to be accepted. I guess it’s a lot easier to manipulate people’s insecurities to make them do what you want rather than killing them. It sure is a lot less messy.

As for Mitsuboshi, he’s still lost in his own way…I really do feel for the kid. He should be in some type of therapy after that…but is not for some reason or something. I just hope that he can turn it around someday. He looked to feel a little better after meeting with Shio but we all know his obsession with her is not healthy.

Characters
Satou Matsuzaka

Seeing Satou become more manipulative and violent is always a interesting sight along with her flashbacks to her aunt make me wonder what kind of person she could have been if she was given to such a bad guardian for a little girl who lost her parents. I’m not saying she’s evil or anything but she’s really just a little girl that doesn’t understand what love really is.

Shio Kobe


Remember what I said about Satou being the first good thing that Shio ever had. It really sucks that Shio’s first healthy relationship is essentially a kidnapper that keeps her locked in an apartment all day and night. I’m hoping for a better future for her but the real question is what is the better future for Shio? With Satou? With her brother Asahi? With her whereabouts unknown mother? Shio’s life isn’t a really easy thing to talk about.

So that’s all I’ve got. Happy Sugar Life has so much interesting stuff in there that I find myself itching for the next episode.

So until the next episode,
Later Days

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