Sasaki and Peeps

Sasaki and Peeps (佐々木とピーちゃん) is a 12 episode fantasy anime based on the light novel series of the same name by Buncololi.  The series originally aired during the Winter of 2024

    Sasaki is a low level salary man facing down forty.  He's unmarried, has no children and scrapes by in an unfulfilling and meaningless existence.  Out of pity he decides to get a pet.  Unable to afford a dog or a cat, he settles on a Java sparrow.  When the bird begins to talk to him, he questions his own sanity.  The bird proves to be quite persistent and informs the bewildered man that he is a great magic user known as the Star Sage Piercarlo.  In exchange for being saved, he agrees to impart some of his power into Sasaki.  He agrees, nicknaming the bird Peep's and the two are transported to his home world.  Sasaki, having learned a thing or two while working as a salary-man, realizes that the ability to transport freely between disparate worlds can come in handy financially for him and gets to work setting up and import/export business.  Both he and Peeps seek to set themselves up for a carefree, worry-free, life after a little bit of work.

    Things don't work out as smoothly as either of them would expect as the import business into Peeps world leads to them being ingrained in one countries political issues due to the interest their goods have stirred in the aristocracy.  He soon finds himself embroiled in political intrigue and outright war with a neighboring kingdom due to the alliances he establishes for the trade of merchandise he's transporting from modern day Japan.  Peeps is able to teach Sasaki some magic, lessening the burden on himself in that field.  This presents its self with problems when Sasaki uses magic to rescue a girl back in Tokyo.  The girl, Hoshizaki, reveals that she works for a secretive government organization that tracks down and suppress ESPers.  Not wanting to reveal the nature of the magic he used, he tells the young woman that he too is an ESPer, causing her to force him to join the ranks of the organization.  As a newly minted government agent he has to investigate and combat ESPers that are unwilling to bend to the will of the agency, causing a greater workload on him, just when his import business in the other world is picking up.  To further complicate things...a strange dumpster diving girl with magic powers starts hunting ESPers.

    There is a lot to unpack with this show.  It defies genre classification as it checks off a large swath of story styles.  Slice of life, reverse isekai, mercantilism, psychic powers, magic girls, historical politics...the list goes on.  A new genre is introduced into the story with almost every new episode, further expanding the workload Sasaki has to endure, as all he tries to do is build up a nest egg.  Sasaki works even harder to obscure portions of his new reality from others.  In the other world he tells everyone hes from a far off distant land.  The attempt to hide his growing magical abilities by telling people who know hes actually an ESPer.  The only one who knows everything he's doing is Peep's, his partner in crime.  Invariably juggling so much secrecy would lead to a series of calamities but the story activates Sasaki's plot armor quite effectively and does a really good job of maintaining the suspension of belief.  The complexity, world building and progression of the story are all really well done.  In the end this was a really satisfying story, checking all manner of story lines I wouldn't normally seek out.

   While the characters, plot progression, world building and insane genre mashing is brilliantly handled, the artwork is another story.  Once the insanity of whats going on becomes acceptable by the viewer they are able to take in the scenery.  There is a noticeable lack of quality and attention to detail through out the show.  A prime example of this is the less than realistic hand artwork.  There are segments where a characters blocking is unrealistic given their perspective and placement.  The action sequences as well cut plenty of corners so don't expect something flashy like Jujutsu Kaisen within this story.  The quality of the story far outweighs the uninspiring artwork though so don't let that stop you from enjoying this crazy show...which doesn't have an ending or any hint of a second season.  The series has covered a good portion of the light novels that exist and we will probably never see anything else animated for this weirdly satisfying show.

The series was simulcast on Crunchyroll.