Sasaki and Peeps Ep. 3 “The War and the Young Lady” deviates from the anime’s usual formula in some very interesting ways. The previous two episodes have been a delightful mix of slice of life comedy and dark fantasy thriller. This third episode still has slice of life comedy in it, but there’s no more of that dark fantasy thriller for now. Instead, we get a more melancholic episode in tone, complete with a sad bird for added effect.

Sasaki and Peeps Ep. 3 “The War and the Young Lady”: Details

Sasaki and Peeps NA key art.
The melancholy is real in this episode.

Sasaki and Peeps Ep. 3 “The War and the Young Lady” is the third episode (you can read reviews for Ep. 1 and Ep. 2 here) of this first season of this isekai comedy fantasy anime. Said anime is the anime adaptation of the novel series of the same name 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.

Mirai Minato is the director of Sasaki and Peeps 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. 3 “The War and the Young Lady” features the voices of Tomokazu Sugita as Sasaki, Aoi Yūki as Peeps / Pii-chan, Hiroki Yasumoto as Viscount Mueller, and Miyu Tomita as Elsa Mueller. Other notable voice roles for this episode include Daisuke Namikawa as French, Mitsuo Iwata as Marc, Ryōtarō Okiayu as Akutsu, Akari Kitō as Otonari-san, and Tesshō Genda as Sebastian.

When and Where to Watch

Sasaki and Peeps Ep. 3 “The War and the Young Lady” made its streaming debut on January 19, 2024. You can watch this episode only on Crunchyroll. In fact, you can watch this entire anime only on Crunchyroll for now.

Sasaki and Peeps Ep. 3 “The War and the Young Lady”: Synopsis

This is the episode where we get to see sad birb.

I want to say that this is normally where I give you all a spoiler-filled plot summary of Sasaki and Peeps Ep. 3 “The War and the Young Lady”. As is the case for a while now though, this is a spoiler-free review, especially due to how recent this anime is. Thus, you will all get the official synopsis from Crunchyroll instead. You can check that out below:

Sasaki catches wind of an unsettling development in the other world that could spell trouble for the entire country, let alone his trading operation. When called upon to help, can he use his modern business skills to make a difference?

Sasaki and Peeps Ep. 3 “The War and the Young Lady”: The Good

Sasaki and Peeps Ep. 3 "The War and the Young Lady" screenshot showing Elsa frowning in the shadow of a painting of her and her father.
Well, not good for her, but plenty of melancholic enetertainment for us.

The tone shift in Sasaki and Peeps Ep. 3 “The War and the Young Lady” is definitely the best part of this episode. At least, compared to the two previous episodes. Said previous episodes consisted of isekai slice of life comedy that alternates between and is punctuated by dark urban fantasy thriller. This episode though deviates from that formula. We still get some slice of life comedy in this isekai, but a more dramatic and melancholic medieval fantasy war story overshadows that comedy. It’s this anime’s willingness to experiment with tone shifts like this that makes it great.

Actually, that brings me to something else about this episode. This time, the anime contains virtually no action whatsoever for this episode. None, period. Despite the fact that this whole episode takes place in the midst of a medieval fantasy war taking place in the isekai world. Some people might find that boring. To me, it’s a refreshing take on the whole isekai genre. Any other isekai anime would have the main character just jump in and save everything.

This is not that kind of anime, and Sasaki is not that kind of protagonist. He’s no shonen action hero. He’s just a 39-year old salesman. Sure, he puts his salesman skills to good use here to help out, but in the end, there’s no way he could directly contribute to the war. Yes, he knows plenty of combat spells and can use impressively high-level spells for the time he’s spent training with them, but he still has a squishy human body. Sasaki is a glass cannon, and he knows it. His current role is the perfect one for him, and I find that noncombat role to be a fascinating take on the whole genre.

Sasaki and Peeps Ep. 3 “The War and the Young Lady”: The Bad

Sasaki and Peeps Ep. 3 "The War and the Young Lady" screenshot showing Sasaki and Peeps saying goodbye to Viscount Mueller.
Why do sunsets always make things look bad?

As I pointed out before: this episode is most definitely not an action-packed episode. If you don’t like melancholic feely feels, then this is not the episode for you. If you want action all the time, there’s plenty of shonen anime that will give you that. Maybe Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba is a good one for you, if you don’t mind the feely feels being included in with the action?