Best known for its cute characters, Sanrio has partnered with Netflix to deliver a children’s adventure mini-series centered on their laziest egg yolk Gudetama. If you’d like to know how an egg like Gudetama can exist, this show conceives of a world where once out of their shells, all eggs have sentience, from regular chicken eggs, to eggs of other species, and to various forms of egg dishes like omelets and flans. While it’s slightly horrific to imagine eating these kawaii creatures, the show embraces the absurdity of its premise, depending heavily on food-based puns, as well as contemplating the purpose of raw eggs. This show may not be to everyone’s taste, but it’s certainly one of a kind, and short and sweet enough to swallow.
Gudetama, the lazy egg, reluctantly embarks on an adventure of a lifetime with Shakipiyo, a newly hatched chick, who is determined to find their mother.
After cracking out of their shells, a lazy egg yolk and an energetic chick gain sentience. The chick Shakipiyo wants to find their mother, much to the chagrin of Gudetama, the disgruntled egg yolk.
This eggcellent adventure series inherently has a weird premise, but the show goes even further by putting the disgruntled egg yolk into different wacky situations. All this egg wants is some soy sauce, but for some reason, even after being dragged across the city in multiple days, he stays impossibly fresh and intact in their adventures. It’s easy to accept this because of the show’s humor. Beyond the egg-related puns, the series evokes the seriousness of other genres, most notably through the film noir-esque egg named Hardboiled, only to pull back, relax, and remind us that this is a children’s show about eggs. The series casually questions the egg’s purpose and fate, consistently keeping its audience aware of what’s at stake here– Gudetama either goes rotten like spoiled egg Guretama, or eventually gets eaten and dies. Because of this, the series strikes at the heart of what makes this egg yolk so popular. The yolk captures that fatalistic millennial acceptance pervasive in public opinion today.
Eyeing my breakfast omelet heavily, right now…
