Gudetama: An Eggcellent Adventure (Gudetama: ~Haha wo Tazunete Donkurai~, lit. "Gudetama ~How Much Time To Look For My Mother?~") is a 2022 Japanese live-action/CGI hybrid Netflix series featuring the Sanrio character Gudetama. It is directed by Motonori Sakakibara, with screenwriting by Yoichi Kato, music by Koji Endo, and a theme song ("Gudetama March") performed by Yūko Hara.
Gudetama (voiced by Shunsuke Takeuchi) is a lazy egg yolk living in a refrigerator who has resigned itself to its fate of being eaten. Its quiet life is turned upside down when it meets a chick named Shakipiyo (voiced by Seiran Fukushima), who believes that they are siblings and wants to find their mother. Together the two go on a journey across Japan to find her, but the clock is ticking, because Gudetama's expiration date may be coming sooner rather than later.
Previews: Trailer 1
, Cast Announcement Trailer
Gudetama: An Eggcellent Adventure contains examples of:
- Bittersweet Ending: In the end, Gudetama chooses to be eaten after finally meeting its mother, Shakipiyo leaves to go find its own mother and the mother hatches a new Gudetama.
- Book Ends: The series begins and ends with a blue egg being cracked open, spilling out an egg that forms Gudetama. It then utters "What a drag".
- Casting Gag: The English dub places Roger Craig Smith as Gudetama and Colleen O'Shaughnessey as Shakipiyo as animals on an adventure together, except that Gudetama is the exact opposite of Sonic's personality.
- Clap Your Hands If You Believe: Gudetama obtains a packet of desiccant to wipe against itself to stop spoilage. Someone points out that it only keeps an environment dry and shouldn't prevent a raw egg from rotting, but it works anyway. Shakipiyo wonders if the desiccant worked because Gudetama believed it would.
- Didn't Want an Adventure: Gudetama doesn't feel like going with Shakipiyo to find their mother, and says, "Just go by yourself."Shakipiyo: Sheesh! Are you really okay with how things are?!Gudetama: It'll be fine.Shakipiyo: Break out of your shell!Gudetama: I already have.Shakipiyo: You chicken!Gudetama: But I'm an egg.
- Easily Elected: Gudetama is able to run for prime minister and win the election despite being well... an egg yolk that a portion of the people can only see as a normal egg yolk, as well as landslide the election within less than a day.
- Eggshell Clothing:
- Shakipiyo is a chick who wears half of its eggshell as pants, and also pushes Gudetama around in an improvised carriage made from half of another eggshell and some buttons for wheels.
- A different Gudetama wears an eggshell as a mask, with holes cut out for its eyes and mouth.
- Gratuitous English: Guretama's fly minions: John! Max! Jennifer!
- Hive Mind: One of the dishes in the restaurant is a piece of ikura sushi with a pile of salmon-roe Gudetamas that speak in unison.
- Identically Named Group: Shakipiyo believes that his mother's name is "Julia". But when he returns to the farm on which he was born, he discovers that all the chickens there are named Julia; it's the name of their breed.
- Lazy Bum: Gudetama, as usual. It is so lazy that it has to be pushed around in an eggshell carriage by Shakipiyo.
- Literal-Minded: When Gudetama doesn't want to go on an adventure, Shakipiyo calls it a chicken (as in, cowardly). Gudetama says, "But I'm an egg."
- Live-Action Adaptation: The series marks Sanrio's first venture into translating their characters into live-action/CGI format note note .
- Meaningful Name: Shakipiyo is a baby chicken. Piyo-piyo (ピヨピヨ) is Japanese onomatopoeia for bird chirping.
- Punny Name: The hard boiled egg, Hard-Boiled, talks like a Hardboiled Detective.
- Roger Rabbit Effect: The cartoony Gudetama and Shakipiyo interact with live-action humans.
- Searching for the Lost Relative: Gudetama, an egg yolk, and Shakipiyo, a chick, go on a journey across Japan to find their mother hen.
- Technologically Blind Elders: The elderly woman who runs Wilson Farms attempts to decipher Shakipiyo's QR code by simply looking at it. Eventually her husband reminds her that she has to scan it with a smartphone.Old Woman: I thought I could read it if I looked at it hard enough.
- Theme Music Withholding: The theme song only plays at the very end of the series when the mother hatches another egg containing Gudetama.
- They Wasted a Perfectly Good Sandwich: This is how rotten egg Guretama came to be — it recalls a woman preparing a meal for her boyfriend, but before he takes a bite, he accidentally calls her the wrong name (implying he's cheating on her), they get in a fight, and they leave the food untouched long enough for Guretama to rot.
- Toothy Bird: Shakipiyo the chick has a single large tooth inside its beak, visible whenever he speaks or yells.
- Trademark Favorite Food: Gudetama loves soy sauce and is frequently motivated to do things in exchange for soy sauce. A perk of being prime minister is that it gets a tray of soy sauce packs.
- Visible Odor: The rotten egg Guretama has purple stink wisps whenever its rotten smell is especially strong and noticed by Gudetama and Shakipiyo.
- Wrong-Name Outburst: The couple in Guretama's backstory get into a fight after the boyfriend calls his girlfriend by the wrong name, heavily implying he's been cheating on her.
- You All Look Familiar: Besides the main-character Gudetama, the show features multiple Gudetamas, including ones in ikura and tamago sushi, flan, and egg soup, and one (named Guretama) that's gone bad and rotting.
"What a drag..."
