The universe doesn't give you Himari back without taking something else first, and the show spends 24 episodes proving that every choice to save someone is also a choice to destroy them. Kanba and Shoma learn this the hard way, one impossible decision stacked on top of the last, until you realize the penguin hat was never about resurrection at all. By the end you'll need to watch it again, because Ikuhara buried the actual story under so many symbols and mirrors that the first time through you're just drowning in it.
Twin brothers Kanba and Shoma Takakura live alone with their terminally ill little sister Himari, their parents gone. On a day out at the aquarium, Himari collapses and dies, only to be brought back by a strange penguin hat from the gift shop. But miracles demand payment. Her revival is only temporary, and a spirit dwelling in the hat will keep her alive only if the twins track down a mysterious object called the Penguin Drum. Three penguins that only the siblings can see join the search. What begins as a rescue mission becomes something far more tangled. The trail leads through a puzzling diary, a chain of linked riddles and a string of strangers and near acquaintances, each with hidden motives and their own reasons for wanting the Drum. It also pulls the brothers back toward their own startling past. A psychological mystery with supernatural touches, Penguindrum treats fate like a tangled knot, asking whether destiny comes down to chance or choice, and what one family must give up to change it.
