Over the past few years, anime fans have grown accustomed to Science Saru putting out banger after banger. Their recent projects include DanDaDan, Scott Pilgrim Takes Off, and The Colors Within. Nobody ever expects a Science Saru project to be anything less than great, but I had no idea they were doing the anime adaptation of Sanda until recently. Then I learned that it was by the creator of Beastars, and I began to question why I hadn’t been paying attention to it sooner. But even with that much firepower, is the series worth watching?
First Episode Synopsis
The first episode begins right in the middle of the action. Middle-school student Shiori Fuyumura is trying to kill her classmate Kazushige Sanda right in the middle of their classroom. We later learn that she’s doing this to get Sanda to reveal his secret identity. He’s actually a descendant of Santa Claus in a world where the concept of Christmas has been forgotten decades ago. Sanda is actually aware of this and has spent his whole life trying to keep this a secret from everyone else.
But by doing a very specific series of tasks, which includes stabbing Sanda, she gets him to accidentally turn into Santa. She reasons that her best friend, Ichie Ono, went missing and was presumed dead, but she wants Santa’s help in finding her. We also learn that Fuyumura is very desperate to find Ono. Not only does she stab Sanda to get him to turn into Santa, but she straps dynamite to herself and threatens to blow up her classroom in an attempt to get Sanda to quickly learn what his abilities are.
The first episode paints Fuyumura as a certified psychopath, but that made her the most interesting aspect of the episode by far. Sanda is the opposite. He was just a kid who was trying to live a normal life while trying to keep his ancestry hidden. We learn that putting on something red will turn him into Santa, who in this world looks more like a cross between All Might and Hulk Hogan than what people normally think Santa looks like. We also learn that eating jelly beans reverts him to his normal self.
By the end of the first episode, Sanda has a better understanding of what his abilities are and pledges to Fuyumura that he will help her find Ono.
Worth Watching?
MAYBE – Based on just the first episode, I can’t give a definitive answer. There’s a lot that I liked, but this isn’t one of those episodes where a single episode is enough to figure out if you’re going to like it or not. The episode is good, and the concept is very interesting, but the episode only gave me one aspect that was interesting enough to keep me coming back for more.
At the start of the episode, some pretty high stakes are set, and viewers get a brief introduction to how society works. We also learn about Sanda and his powers, and we’re promised a story that surrounds Ono and her disappearance. None of the overall story is explained in the first episode, other than knowing that Sanda wants to help Fuyumura. This episode is predominantly geared towards the characters and setting up some semblance of action instead of the story, which I’m assuming will eventually come around.
Fuyumura starts off looking like a psychotic killer while she tries to stab Sanda. Then she gets emotional when she thinks that she actually killed him before blowing up their classroom. I have no idea how she survived the blast, but since she’s already the best character, she better have. I have no interest in Sanda yet, and no other characters have really been introduced, but Fuyumura is actually a very cool and interesting character. If she weren’t the way she is, I probably would have dropped the show after the first episode before waiting for the story to develop.
But she’s not going to be enough to keep me invested long-term. I’m hopeful that the overall story development will kick off within the next episode or two so that it can create something that really keeps me invested throughout the season. Other than that, the action is pretty decent, and there is some humor thrown around as well. I definitely think the first episode is worth watching, but you might need two or three episodes to figure out if the series is right for you.
