Kamba and Syoma Takakura, twin brothers, live with their ill sister Himari. On the day she is allowed to leave the hospital for a while, they take a trip to the aquarium. Unexpectedly, while there Himari collapses. They are led to revive her by having her wear a penguin hat from the gift shop which apparently temporarily staves off the illness. This is due to a mysterious entity that inhabits her body while she’s wearing the hat. This entity tells the brothers that they must find the PENGUINDRUM to revive their sister or all hope will be lost. Unfortunately for them, there are others seeking to use the Penguindrum for their own ends. Will the brothers be able to push back the hands of fate that seek to rend their family in twain?

RE:cycle of the Penguindrum Movies 1 & 2 are essentially summary films that splice together scenes from the Penguindrum series with new animation to produce two ~2.5-hour movies. Also for those not aware, Penguindrum is directed by Kunihiko Ikuhara, director of Revolutionary Girl Utena, and there are indeed similarities in tone between the two series. Both are very heady, esoteric works that operate in absurdism and surrealism at times to push their themes of fate and maturity. To be honest, the movies may not be the best way to experience Penguindrum if you have never seen the series before. At times it blasts through the incredibly dense and layered plot and you can’t help but miss context on certain things. Instead, I may actually suggest that these films are something you may elect to return to once you’ve seen the whole series as a way to pick up on certain elements of the story that may not have popped out on the initial watch as well as to provide some additional framing with the new animation that was added. Having said all that, if you want to veg out on some supreme brightly colored, well-animated weirdness and don’t care to even attempt to understand it, then these films will certainly provide what you are looking for.

On the video transfer front, these films really pop. The combination of them being recent productions with vibrant color palettes and Sentai’s usual professional work make these movies a pleasure to watch. The audio is also done up proper as one would expect of theatrical features in both English and Japanese DTS-HD 5.1 tracks, and they both sound quite good. These films aren’t just wall-to-wall action but they do have more sound immersion and creative use of audio cues than one might expect. As such, the 5.1 tracks are definitely appreciated. On the other hand, extras are quite skimpy with just clean OP and ED animations and some Japanese promos.

Penguindrum is a bizarre and fascinating series worth checking out for fans of more “out there” anime. While these films may not be the best introduction to this series in its most involved state, they do provide a relatively shorter experience that still hits the weird button pretty hard. And returning fans of the series will be interested in the new animation and getting another reason to chew on some of the headier themes of Penguindrum.