Sarazanmai, final judgement

I'm not going to try to review this in detail, because Sarazanmai it is what is is.

The good: It's a wild ride of utter absurdity and somehow you still end up really emotionally invested in these kids turning into kappas and diving into the butts of sparkly gigant monsters.

The bad: The purported "plot" just collapses in the end, possibly because the episode count doesn't leave enough time to go into it but I suspect it's because Ikuhara never cared about it in the first place. As a consequence, the secondary cast never becomes anything more than pretty shallow vessels driving the emotional development of the kids, and the philosophical message comes across as somewhat pastede on yey.

But the good by far outweights the bad, so if you've liked Ikuhara's previous shenanigans, you'll probably like this one too. It's a far easier watch than Yurikuma or Penguindrum, even if Penguindrum at least will give you the better payoff in the end.