Sasaki and Peeps Ep. 1 “Real Life and Fantasy” is an anime that keeps giving you unexpected twists and turns. I came into this anime thinking that it was just a comedic take on an isekai fantasy anime. To be fair, that’s what this anime adaptation of the novels of the same by Buncololi starts out as, and is to a pretty decent degree. However, by the time this first episode is over, I came out of it realizing that this anime is also a dark fantasy thriller story. Honestly, the closest thing I can compare the story to is Disco Elysium just due to how quirky it is combined with the mundane fantasy elements.

Sasaki and Peeps Ep. 1 “Real Life and Fantasy”: Details

Sasaki and Peeps NA key visual.
You can tell just from this key visual that this is going to be a chaotic anime.

Sasaki and Peeps Ep. 1 “Real Life and Fantasy” is the very first episode of this fantasy comedy isekai anime. Said anime adaptation of the novels series of the same by Buncololi. Silver Link (Brave Witches, Bofuri, My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom!) is the animation studio behind this anime.

Mirao Minato, Yamato Oouchi, Haruka Hirota, and Yuushi Ibe all co-directed Sasaki and Peeps Ep. 1 “Real Life and Fantasy”, with Deko Akao as the writer, and Mirai Minato and Mina Okita doing the storyboard. Mirai Minato is in fact the director of the anime overall. Kousuke Arai, Shun Oorui, Akihiro Narita, Shuka Nishimae, Yukari Kuwayama, Kenichi Tokumura, Hayato Kaneko, and Shunichi Uemura all co-produced this anime. Deko Akao is also the overall writer for this anime. Nippon Columbia collectively composed the music of this anime.

Speaking of music: the opening theme song for Sasaki and Peeps as a whole is “Fly” by Madkid. Meanwhile, “Aimai Girl” (曖昧ガール, “Ambiguous Girl”) by Aguri Ōnishi is the ending theme song.

Voice Cast

Sasaki and Peeps Ep. 1 “Real Life and Fantasy” features the voices of Tomokazu Sugita as Sasaki and Aoi Yūki as Peeps / Pii-chan. Other notable voice roles for this episode include Akari Kitō as Otonari-san, Mitsuo Iwata as Marc, Hiroki Yasumoto as Viscount Mueller, Daisuke Namikawa as French, Rie Takahashi as Hoshizaki-san, and Ryōtarō Okiayu as Akutsu.

When and Where to Watch

Sasaki and Peeps Ep. 1 “Real Life and Fantasy” made its streaming premiere on January 5, 2024. You can watch it only on Crunchyroll at the moment.

Sasaki and Peeps Ep. 1 “Real Life and Fantasy”: Synopsis

I have to admit: this anime fooled me hard with the plot twists.

Normally, this would be the part of my review in which I give you all a spoiler-filled plot summary. However, this is the spoiler-free version of my review on Sasaki and Peeps Ep. 1 “Real Life and Fantasy”. Plus, the anime literally only just came out last week as of this writing. Thus, I will give you the official synopsis from Crunchyroll instead. You can check that out below:

Sasaki, a lonely office worker pushing forty, adopts an adorable bird to brighten up his life a bit… Little does he know that the Java sparrow he picks, Peeps, is a powerful mage who’s going to bring him a whole lot more than he bargained for.

Sasaki and Peeps Ep. 1 “Real Life and Fantasy”: The Good

Sasaki and Peeps Ep. 1 "Real Life and Fantasy" screenshot showing Sasaki with Peeps on his shoulder.
Just look at that little birb face. Just look at it!

The story is definitely the big draw of Sasaki and Peeps Ep. 1 “Real Life and Fantasy”. I went into it thinking that it was just a fun comedic take on an isekai fantasy. I came out realizing that it had shifted genres into a dark fantasy thriller by the end. The sudden shift in genres should’ve been disorienting, and yet, the mood whiplash made it exciting instead. Basically: I came for the fluff, and stayed for the drama.

Not only that, but Sasaki and Peeps Ep. 1 “Real Life and Fantasy” reminds me strongly of an entirely unrelated video game: Disco Elysium. Disco Elysium is a RPG video game that had that same style of weird quirky story and sudden genre shifts. Sasaki and Peeps is almost as if Disco Elysium had an anime adaptation. The only thing missing here is Sasaki having his personality traits talk to him. And really, Peeps fills that role just perfectly. He is, after all, a talking Java sparrow that everyone else believes is just a Java sparrow. If that’s not a talking personality, I don’t know what is.

I would also like to point out that Silver Link did a pretty good job with the animation of Sasaki and Peeps Ep. 1 “Real Life and Fantasy”. The battle scenes have very smooth motion, and even the everyday slice of life scenes had a pretty high animation quality. It certainly looks like Silver Link put as much work into this anime as they did in their previous work.

Plus, Sasaki and Peeps Ep. 1 “Real Life and Fantasy” is 48 minutes long. It seems that they decided to cram two episodes into the pilot. I call that a good thing, because it means double the fun even on the anime’s premiere.

Sasaki and Peeps Ep. 1 “Real Life and Fantasy”: The Bad

Sasaki and Peeps Ep. 1 "Real Life and Fantasy" screenshot showing Sasaki giving a creepy smile during a business deal.
It’s definitely a bad thing when Sasaki is giving you that kind of a face.

If you don’t like comedy slice of life, then you might find the first half of Sasaki and Peeps Ep. 1 “Real Life and Fantasy” a bit boring. Once you get past that though, then you get the action. Thus, if you stick it out until then, you will definitely be rewarded.

Honestly though, my one complaint might be that it doesn’t quite stick to comic fantasy. It does remain comedically light-hearted for much of the episode though. The dark fantasy parts are just brief enough to avoid bogging down the comedy, while just being long enough to give this episode a nice zest to it. All in all, I am pleasantly surprised by Sasaki and Peeps Ep. 1 “Real Life and Fantasy”, and I eagerly await more.