“My love…my happiness…exists only inside of me.”
Wow. This was an intense finale, and not going to lie, I was pretty nervous about it. After awhile, the show in general made me nervous making me wonder just what possibly could happen next. There were many ways this finale could have gone, and I think it took the more disturbing route.
The day comes when Shio and Satou are going to leave their “castle”. They bathe together and Satou does some last minute preparations. She goes to the room where she’s kept Shoko’s corpse and dresses her up. This moment was very telling as when Satou looked at Shoko’s lifeless eyes, her lips trembled and she touched Shoko’s cold cheek. I’ve always had the impression that Satou held no feelings for Shoko because she was able to kill her so brutally, but I think the gravity of what Satou did finally caught up to her and probably in that moment felt some guilt at killing her best friend. It was important, but it’s too late for Satou. She dresses her up and leaves the room and eventually the apartment with Shio, not realizing she left her ring in the room when she took it off earlier. Before they leave, Satou’s aunt gives a final goodbye and I love you. Asahi gets into contact with Mitsuboshi, whose been raped for a second time. This poor kid can’t catch a break. He begs Asahi for help but Asahi brushes him off after telling him off for tricking him and he heads to the apartment complex to find Shio. When Satou and Shio are buying their tickets, Satou notices that she accidentally left her ring behind and Shio says they can go back. She gets it and heads back down to the lobby, and then they come face to face with Asahi. In the meantime, Satou’s aunt goes up to the top floor and pours gasoline all over and sets the whole floor on fire. Which makes me wonder how many people she killed in the end on that floor?!
The rest of the episode becomes this intense chase with a reunion I think all of us have been waiting for. Satou hits Asahi across the face with her suitcase and grabs Shio and takes the elevator. They reach the third floor and find Mitsuboshi half naked, tied up, escaping. He sees Shio and gets excited but they run off and try to find an exit. Asahi goes up to the 12th floor and steps into the apartment (though it’s on fire) and eventually finds Shoko’s corpse burning. Once he stepped into the apartment I knew that he would find her body and my heart broke. He recalled when Shoko told him to promise her to smile in the end, and he pauses to cry for a bit, but then escapes. Eventually, Shio, Satou, and Asahi confront each other at the top floor, the roof.
The next scene between Asahi and Shio was tough to watch. Here he was, happy to finally see his little sister alive and yet he can’t even recognize who she is anymore. Shio is a completely different girl than who she used to be. She tells Asahi straight out that she won’t go with him. He’s stunned and tells Shio about their mother, and why she abandoned her. The night she slapped Shio across the face, she realized how she was turning into her abusive husband. So she grabbed Shio and abandoned her to save her from pain, but in the end Shio still ended up in pain because she was left all alone. Asahi also explains to Shio that she needs to see her mother one last time because she’s most likely going to be arrested. Asahi explains that after she let go of Shio, their mother came back home. She secretly crushed up some poison and put it into a sake bottle. Pouring her husband the sake, he died afterwards. Even though he’s explained everything, Shio is adamant. She wants Asahi to tell their mother to thank her from releasing her from an unhappy life, and that now she’s going to live for herself. Then she picks up a piece of glass and holds it up to her throat and says she chooses Satou, and Asahi looks so heartbroken. Seeing Shio like this was unsettling, but it gets even worse later.
Satou and Shio run to the roof and Shio admits to Satou that she felt like she was dead after her mother abandoned her because of the pain she felt. Now that they were at a dead end, it was Shio that proposed they die together. It would have been one thing for Satou to say that, but a little girl saying this was incredibly unsettling and sad. They agree and both jumped off the roof. As they fall, Satou imagines the happy life they could have had together and then Satou realizes how happy she felt at that very moment. That her love for Shio transcended into something even more, and I think she found herself satisfied. So, she positioned herself differently and took the brunt of the fall to save Shio and let her have her own journey.
Satou dies, Shio lives. The aunt gets arrested for the fire. Her “Hi, yes it was me! :D” at the reporter was hilarious, not gonna lie. The gross teacher gets arrested, Mitsuboshi is completely broken, and we get a scene in the end where Asahi visits Shio in the hospital. Again, he tries to tell her that things will be different, they’ll live as a family, and they’ll be happy. But Shio turns to him and says she doesn’t do that anymore, with an expression and response very reminiscent of Satou. She doesn’t understand why Satou let her live, but she’ll happily think about it as she continues to love Satou forever in her heart.
Now, whatever happens after this is open ended. Either Shio will remain warped and grow up to be as messed up as Satou, or realistically police and therapists will intervene with the family because their mother is going to be arrested for what she’s done, leaving two children without a home. And maybe Shio will get the help that she needs to rid of all the pain she’s dealt with in her life. I don’t know, but the way she spoke to Asahi in the hospital room was terrifying. Shio is only a little girl, I think she’s seven from what I’ve found, and yet she’s matured from all the terrible things in her life. It was also a little unsettling with Shio’s mom watching her from afar. It was an intense finale, and it was neither happy or sad. Shio survived, but is she better off this way? Also, Satou got away scot free of all her crimes, so what can you even call this ending?
Well, what can I say about this show? I was drawn to this show in the first place because of how different and risky the synopsis was. I wanted to find out how and why this “romance” came to be, and let me tell you, it was one hell of a journey.
I’ll be honest, I don’t even know how I feel about Happy Sugar Life. There were some slow and boring episodes around the beginning/middle, but then it really picked up the pace and made me go through many stages of emotions. On one hand, the show made me crack up many times because of how stupidly over the top the characters could get. The teacher’s reactions, Mitsuboshi getting nasty over Shio, Su-chan passionately sniffing Satou’s panties, Satou’s aunt in general. There were plenty of times where the show was stupid, the characters acted stupid that it had me dying of laughter. But there were also many moments in the show where it legitimately upset me, made me angry, uncomfortable, creeped out, and disgusted that I was close to gagging. As a horror title, it did a very good job in making me feel like turning away. Episodes in the second half made me wonder why I even kept watching the show, sometimes making me take a deep breath before watching, and sometimes making me have my hands on my head after watching. The aunt episode was the pinnacle, but the tense build up to her reveal was one of the best suspenseful moments I’ve experienced so I’ll give it that. So in that regard, the show was a success. It wasn’t very bloody or gory, but the Shoko death was extremely brutal and had me raging. The plot was a controversial one but the events that led up to this relationship was interesting.
The characters themselves, like I said, some of them were way over the top but some of their psycho attitudes have a sense of realism to a certain extent. Satou grew up in a terrible environment living with an aunt that would bring men into the home all the time, teaching her niece a twisted sense of love that made her niece sleep around with guys in order to find a different love. That escalated to pain and loneliness until she met Shio, and not wanting to lose Shio, she becomes aggressively obsessive and will do anything to keep her happy sugar life, even if that means killing. Shio and Asahi grew up in terrible homes of abuse. Asahi dealt with the beatings of his father alone when his mother left, and Shio suffered a sheltered life her whole life and felt that her mother didn’t love her, especially when she abandoned her.
Even Shio’s mother is just as broken, and I’m upset the anime didn’t get into her backstory. It’s honestly really tragic what happened to her and I understand why she became a shell of a person. Some of the characters’ actions are understandable, but that doesn’t totally justify some of them. But like I said, some of their situations are realistic and it really makes you think.
The animation in this show was pretty nice. Checking out some of the manga chapters, I felt the art to be a little too cute sometimes. I think the anime did a great job in taking the art from the manga and making it a little creepier. Some of the facial expressions were great and I always love evil glowing eyes in anime. The OST itself wasn’t very memorable, but the OP was amazing. I loved the visuals of the OP, where it was a mix of cute and disturbing visuals. The song was great as well with the singer’s cute voice combined with hectic music. Really enjoyable to watch every week, the ED was also nice. Even though I don’t particularly like Satou, her design is cute as hell. So is Shio’s. Even Satou’s aunt. She was creepy but she made me laugh sometimes, so…yay?
Last night I stayed up and wondered if I actually liked this show. Sometimes it was stupid and hilarious, and sometimes the writing was inconsistent that it was a little frustrating and made some scenes hard to get into. The topic matter sometimes made me uncomfortable and I didn’t particularly like all the characters. But was I entertained? Yes. Was I emotionally involved? Definitely! It was actually fun to watch and I did look forward to it every week. While it made me feel gross sometimes, the show always kept my interest for the most part and honestly I found this show to be the most successful horror anime I’ve seen in awhile. Happy Sugar Life had its ups and downs, some real bad, and some surprisingly great. I can conclude…that this anime is my guilty pleasure. Yeah, I think that’s it. I was conflicted, and I really had to think about what I thought of the show, but for the most part, I guess I liked it?
I guess that’s the only way I can describe this show. And in my four years of writing for this blog, this show was probably the craziest I’ve ever had to blog. So I guess that’s another success for Happy Sugar Life? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
7/10
This episode has everything:sexual abuse of minors, pedophilistic behavior, arson, domestic abuse, gratifying child abandonment, showing a corpse, suicide (double at that) and gratifying suicide as a means of escape and living a “Happy Sugar Life”, did I miss anything?
Need to watch something light hearted after this…. like Goblin Slayer…
Liked the series and it’s messed up characters, liked the directing and how they got away with lots of things without showing but implying, somehow making it un confortabile to watch for the viewer.
It’s anime, many try to convey the message that life is worth living, this one shows suicide as a way of escaping towards what characters see as a happy end. Sadly many things shown here happen in real life especially in my country, society tolerates such things, that is the horror.
The director I think is a genius for showing so many disturbing aspects without showing he is sick in the head or enjoying showing such things. 10/10 for me on this one although has disturbing things in it that I don’t agree with.
Don’t forget murder! 😉
Yes, there’s lot of tough topics the series discusses but I think the worst was Shio and Asahi’s mother’s backstory. I saw someone on MAL say that the anime skipped it, maybe because of how it paints a bad picture of Japan culturally? I’ll include it as a spoiler in case anyone is curious about Yuuna (the mother).
Spoiler
She was raped by their father when she was 16. She became pregnant and her parents found out. Her parents confront the dude’s father about this but in the end, the dude’s father convinces them to not make things too seriously. In order to save face, they all agree for Yuuna and the dude to get married. He’s a deadbeat, she raises Asahi on her own. One day her family suddenly decides to want to be in her life again, but they and the dude’s father end up dying in a car crash. The abusive asshole takes the inheritance and leaves for years. Yuuna ends up pregnant and gives birth to Shio in the bathtub, alone. This time, she’s very alone, can’t hold a job, gets verbally and physically abused when the asshole comes back.
Having to marry your rapist and raise two children basically on your own? Becoming a mom at such a young age? Her parents agreed for this to happen so she felt completely abandoned and scared. Her life turned completely upside down so I can understand why Yuuna became such a depressing person, completely broken. Unfortunately, tragic scenarios like these are very realistic and do happen especially in Asian countries. Of course this can happen anywhere, but it’s usually Asian countries that tend to want to save face.
But yes, I agree that the director did a great job with these topics. In some ways I think the anime did better than some of the pages I’ve seen from the manga so that’s appreciated.
Thank you Berry for the info. Was curious to see the mother’s story, was about to read the Manga. Could you tell me in what chapter this was presented.
Didn’t watch Revue but will pick it up this week, the discussion here and your final impression and score piqued my interest.
Her backstory were in chapters 28-31, with chapter 31 showing us what the anime showed us (Shio being abandoned). And no problem!
Yay, I’m glad! Hope you enjoy it. ^^
Yeah, but at least the deadbeat asshole is dead. Wait, what is Yuuna’s current situation now? Where is she currently? We know Asahi found her after she abandoned Shio, so we know Yuuna is still alive. Can you tell me, Berry?
Heck, the manga is still on-going. We just need to see what happens in the future.
It seems like Yuuna is still living in the same apartment she was living in with Shio, but Asahi explained to Shio that she poisoned and killed her husband so she most likely is going to end up in jail. But for now, we can guess that that hasn’t happened yet and she’s still in that apartment.
I see. The manga is currently translated in English online up to Chapter 38, so there’re still more to the story as of now. Now that I think about it, the manga doesn’t explain that Yuuna poisoned and killed her asshole husband, the anime did. Not only that, but Asahi hasn’t met with Shio yet in the manga. We can only guess at this point for the manga, with Yuuna still in the same apartment she was living in with Shio.
There wasn’t a fire in the apartment in the manga, right, Berry? I believe that was only for the anime adaptation.
All the pretty things are broken.
I’ll be honest, still haven’t watched the anime, but I picked up the manga despite my dislike of yandere. It’s like…you know that nothing will turn out well, but you just can’t put it down. And reading the review of this final episode just confirms that. It’s like how people’s hopes got up when the SeeFood app worked, but then came crashing down immediately after. At least Satou’s aunt live…in the way that like how Harley Quinn always seems to come out smelling like roses.
In a way, with mixed feelings, didn’t the show accomplish what it set out to do in the first place? Certainly things may have been over the top, but I don’t think that we expected anything less from a show clearly labeled as yandere. Maybe it’s just me.
“It’s like…you know that nothing will turn out well, but you just can’t put it down.”
Yup, that’s exactly it. As much as it made me uncomfortable at times, I just NEEDED to know what would happen next. I knew from the beginning that it would be a downward spiral of insanity but I trudged on. And yes, I think the show definitely accomplished what it wanted to do. At least I think so.
Prepare for a jaw dropping finale in Revue Starlight Berry!!
I know Yorimoi is your AOTY, but wait till you see episode 12. You might change your mind.
HYPE IT UP.
Ohh that’s so exciting! <3
I’m super pumped about the finale. Yorimoi is definitely a contender for AOTY but Revue Starlight definitely became another one as well. I can’t wait!
Wait, so Satou dies at the end of the anime by taking the full brunt of the fall so that Shio will live? Shio is alive since Satou died taking the full brunt of the fall. Isn’t the manga still on-going though? Satou could still live in the manga.
Yeah the manga is still ongoing so they had to come up with an anime original ending, so they made Satou die here. Anything can still happen in the manga.
Yeah, anything can still happen in the manga. Considering that the manga is the source material, I want to consider that as canon, so Satou may still be alive. Who knows? Kind of sad that Shio is the way she is at the end of the anime, she’s just like Satou in her mannerisms. Right now, we only have chapter 38 that’s translated. We never Satou’s dead body at the end, correct?
Unless the anime writers worked with the mangaka’s drafts, I think the manga is still canon. I might just pick up the manga and do a quick read to see where the story in the manga is going because I’m trash and I’m curious. Also no they never showed her body.
I see, but they did show a TV news report of the incident, where it showed Shoko and Satou’s pictures. This means that Satou is dead, considering the news reporter stated that the person who fell from the roof was Satou herself. She died instantly when she took the full brunt of the fall, protecting Shio who lived. Shio is alive and well, where she doesn’t understand why Satou let her live on, while Satou herself died. What did you think of Satou dying in the anime?
Let’s see what will happen in the manga, which is nowhere near finished at all.