Sasaki And Peeps Ep. 13 “Mother And Child”: Jeepers, This Is Getting Creepers [Review]

Sasaki and Peeps begins the new second season by making the story increasingly creepy in Ep. 13 “Mother and Child”. It’s creepy in some good ways, but a lot of the creepiness is in bad ways too. With a lot of the creepiness occuring because of Sasaki’s teenaged neighbor, who gets a disturbing plotline throughout the 47-minute long episode. Honestly, I feel like this episode could do without some of the bad creepiness, but alas, this is what we get for now.

Sasaki and Peeps Ep. 13 “Mother and Child”: Details in Brief

Sasaki and Peeps Ep. 13 “Mother and Child” is the first episode of the second season of this anime series. You can read my reviews of the first season here. Said anime is the anime adaptation of the light novel series of the same name by writer Buncololi.

Silver Link (Brave Witches, Bofuri, Mission: Yozakura Family) is the animation studio behind this anime. Yūshi Ibe is the director of this second season of Sasaki and Peeps, taking over from Mirai Minato. Deko Akao is the writer, with Nippon Columbia as a whole claiming credit for composing the music you hear in the anime.

Speaking of which: the first opening theme music in Sasaki and Peeps Season 2 is “Unbroken” by Madkid. Meanwhile, “Sukipi no Okage!” (すきぴのおかげ！) by Nonfic is the ending theme song for the same.

Sasaki and Peeps Ep. 13 “Mother and Child”: The Good

At its heart, what makes Ep. 13 “Mother and Child” good is the same reason why I liked the first season of Sasaki and Peeps: the story. It’s so rare to see a middle-aged character feature as the main character in any anime, let alone an isekai fantasy. And to top it all off, Sasaki (voiced by Tomokazu Sugita (JP) and Tyson Rinehart (EN)) has no grand ambitions the way you’d expect out of an isekai protagonist. Even his partner in crime Peeps (voiced by Aoi Yūki (JP) and Erin Nicole Lundquist (EN)) doesn’t have any ambition of his own despite being a powerful mage reincarnated into the body of a Java sparrow.

Instead, their goal is just to simply live a comfortable life. The fact that this results in them engaging in what amounts to interdimensional smuggling in order to achieve that is part of the comedy of this story, as well as the fact that they see the problems they encounter as obstacles to that relaxing life. The prime examples here is him treating Elsa’s kidnapping as a minor setback to be negotiated over.

However, much of this episode doesn’t actually focus on our main man and bird duo. Instead, Sasaki’s next door neighbor, known only as Otonari-san (voiced by Akari Kitō (JP) and Taylor Murphy (EN)) is the one taking the spotlight in this episode. A large reason for this is the fact that this episode reveals that she has had a most disturbing and traumatic childhood. She had essentially been neglected and emotionally and physically abused by her mother for her entire life, to the point where she’s locked outside of their apartment for hours at a time and she has resorted to scavenging for food because her mother refuses to feed her. The only reason she’s still alive is because Sasaki has been regularly feeding her, which creates its own problems, but that’s a story for later.

Between the PTSD and malnourishment, it’s hard to tell which is worse for her, but then it gets worse when she’s basically forced into agreeing to be a demon’s soldier girl. You know, because the demon refused to help her fight off a rapist unless she agreed to be his soldier. I wouldn’t call that consent in any fashion, but then again, this is clearly a dark fantasy story here. Emphasis on the “dark” part. It even includes criticism of Japan’s child social services on top of that, given that they are absolutely useless in getting Otonari-san away from her abusive mother.

Same Ol’ Animation But More of It

Silver Link’s animation team continues to provide decently good animation for this second season of Sasaki and Peeps. Indeed, the overall quality of the animation seems to be roughly the same as in the first season. The only difference here seems to be slightly more detailed backgrounds and objects. It does make watching Ep. 13 “Mother and Child” a fairly aesthetic experience, especially since we’re getting twice the usual amount of animation in this episode.

For some reason, Ep. 13 “Mother and Child” is 47 minutes and 20 seconds long. This makes this debut episode effectively twice the length of a normal anime episode. Did Silver Link combine two episodes in one just for this premiere? It effectively makes this anime 13 episodes long if the remaining episodes are the usual 24 minutes long, and even longer if any of the future episodes also have this twice-as-long-as-normal format. We’ll just have to see what the next episode brings us.

Sasaki and Peeps Ep. 13 “Mother and Child”: The Bad

Unfortunately, the dark fantasy storyline that Otonari-san stars in is also the undoing of Ep. 13 “Mother and Child”, in my honest opinion. The episode also delves into some very creepy vibes in her relationship with Sasaki. In particular, the depiction of that relationship as being sexual on the part of Otonari-san is quite disturbing given that she’s explicitly stated to be in middle school. The fact that she even goes so far as to try to seduce Sasaki with magic only makes it even more creepy, and definitely in a bad way.

Honestly, the only thing that makes this story not go completely off the deep end is the fact that Sasaki clearly has no interest in her that way. It’s completely one-sided on Otonari-san’s part, and that’s why this story is still somewhat salvageable. It’s still a really bad look though, but I will wait to see what the story does with these disturbing elements.

Anime Recommendations

If you want some action-packed anime to wash the taste of the creepiness out of your mouth, then you might want to check out Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, Kaiju No. 8, DDDD, DAN DA DAN, Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online II, Zenshu, Blue Box, Solo Leveling, Black Butler, Nyaight of the Living Cat, May I Ask for One Final Thing?, TRIGUN STARGAZE, Daemons of the Shadow Realm, and / or Kagurabachi. On the other hand, if you want an anime with a great story that isn’t creepy like this, then you might like Spy x Family, Senpai is an Otokonoko, Apocalypse Hotel, Spice and Wolf: Merchant Meets the Wise Wolf, The Ancient Magus’ Bride, My Dress-Up Darling, This Monster Wants to Eat Me, Hana-Kimi, Journal with Witch, Witch Hat Atelier, Jaadugar: A Witch in Mongolia, and / or The Apothecary Diaries.

What do you think about this week’s premiere of Sasaki and Peeps Season 2? Did you find it as creepy as I did? Tell us your dark thoughts in the comments section below.