Posted inDimension W First Impressions

Dimension W – 07

52 Comments

「過去からの呼び声」 (Kakokara no Yobigoe)
“The Voice from the Past”

We interrupt this arc of your Dimension W broadcast with an extended flashback, finally lifting the curtain on Kyouma’s tragic past. And of course it’d be a tragic past, because Kyouma wouldn’t be a gritty anti-hero without one. Sure, it was possible that his backstory was that one time he stubbed his toe on a coil and now he hates them with passion, and while that would have amused me (for, deep down, I am both silly and horrible), it won’t really make for much of a story. Dimension W, evidently, has—inconceivably—a higher cause than making me giggle. So while Kyouma’s heartbreaking boy meets girl story is almost obligatory, it’s one that has to be told. It’s one thing to imply a dead lover, and depending on familiarity of genre conventions that may be enough, but it’s much better to see Kyouma’s past, as part of the general ‘show don’t tell’ preference. This is where we’re supposed to build more empathy for our protagonist, and elevate him from just a grumpy recalcitrant, so some episode—even half an episode’s time—should be well spent.

And thus Azumaya Miyabi (Ohara Sayaka), the dead lover archetype that haunts so many grim heroes (which would make Tsubaki an in-law; my bad on that one). Even if we didn’t already know that she was going to die, on account of already having seen her grave, her fate should have come as no surprise. She’s a childhood sweetheart, in a diabetically sugary relationship with a broody badass, and generally just too good for this sinful earth. While her end was somewhat more horrific than usual, she was fundamentally not the kind of character with long life expectancy; they magnetically attract terminal illnesses as a physical property. Unfortunately, happiness and fulfillment just aren’t great sources of conflict, but the blood of the happy and content makes for great story-fertiliser. Sadistic writers have hunted these rare creatures to the brink of extinction. We really need to start a breeding programme for them. If only mating was not almost always fatal.

While the turns of Kyouma’s backstory was predictable, that doesn’t mean it wasn’t good. Even though we know what will happen, that’s not the same as watching things play out, in the same way that we’re told from the outset that Romeo and Juliet are doomed but people still sit through five acts of it. There’s something to be said for effective execution, and I think Dimension W does Kyouma and Miyabi’s relationship quite well. It was cut succinctly, there was some interesting use of lighting, and the incredibly detailed camera made for easy symbolism. And perhaps it’s because we’re halfway through the series and have grown used to Kyouma, but watching his younger, clean-shaven self display emotional range has its own charm to it—even if the dominant emotions were desperation and despair. The comparison to the prickly and jaded Kyouma we’ve come to know makes his breakdown all the more chilling. I don’t think this episode would have been nearly as effective earlier in the series, or if you aren’t as invested in Kyouma as a character. Now we have an empathetic understanding of how Kyouma got the way he is, after a particularly bad day where both his fiance and all this mates are killed (save, of course, for the surfing sniper who’s probably too fabulous to die).

Of course, Kyouma’s past is not resolved so easily, what with the huge gap in his memory and the strange phenomenon on Easter Island. Considering that the coils’ creator had intended much more crazy things for Dimension W than just tapping it for electricity, and that Dimension W follows a more literal many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, there’s bound to be more to it when Kyouma steps into the Gate ‘nothingness’. I would be surprised if we don’t see Miyabi in some form again.

On the less personal (and therefore arguably less interesting) side, thing are heating up as well, signaled not just by Kyouma breaking out a bigger batmobile, but also by a sudden increase in stakes and characters. So many new characters. There’s no way I’m going to remember their names, and maybe you will have problems too, so feel free to assign these labels to them as you wish: the comic relief one, the funny looking one, the possibly racist one, the token minority one, and the one who will die first. Mix and match. I don’t really care about any of them right now, so even if they’re eaten by a black hole I’ll just chalk them up as redshirts. I doubt they’ll be killed off so quickly though, right after an extended introductory sequence, and at least Loser Greenhough-Smith were on the blimp, and they look important, so some additional survivability should be bestowed on the rest of the crew simply by proximity. What purpose will they serve? No idea. But there’s a lot to uncover on that island. The nature of the coils. The truth of the New Tesla civil war. Whatever shady thing they’re plotting now. There’s so much story left to plumb, potentially. I wonder how long this arc is going to be yet.

Show 52 Comments

52 Comments

  1. J_the_Man
    February 22, 2016,

    This was perhaps the most cleverly written review I have read in quite a while on this site. Pat yourself on the back Passerby. I enjoyed every word of it.

    • Voyager
      February 22, 2016,

      Seconded!
      Once in a while, we should let you know our appreciation, Passerby your posts are simply great, the perfect balance between interesting and amusing. Stay with us as long as you can 🙂

      (p.s.: after I managed to stop laughing, I seriously considered how this show would be so unclassifiable if his backstory was he stubbed his toe …)

    • Passerby
      February 22, 2016,

      I’m not sure what I did, but thanks all the same, folks.

      • sivilyslare
        February 22, 2016,

        I’ll throw my name in the hat of Passerby congratulations!

        This was really a delight to read. Your posts always have a bit of a spark that’s lacking in typical critical or analytical work, and the tinges of humor are always quite succulent.

        Thanks so much for all you do!

      • Passerby
        February 23, 2016,

        Aw shucks, you all give me too much credit. Way too much credit. I’m allergic to high expectations.

  2. Worldwidedepp
    February 22, 2016,

    It’s sad really, what we got so far? 1-3 Introduction, 4-5 the Water damm, and seems like 6-x this arc. how many episodes are there? 12?

    also, i heard that the Manga is finished. Seems like Funanimation money runs fast dry, or they save it more for the US Market with Dubbing and such…

  3. Worldwidedepp
    February 22, 2016,

    So many open Questions still left unanswered

    Why do Looser seek the Numbers? there is still one left? Do he want to open an stable Dimension Portal? something alike our Professor done at the beginning with this mini-black hole?

    no real progressing that our MC and the Android are become better, they just trow both into the Wild waters

  4. animated stig
    February 22, 2016,

    The bigger batmobile is the Lexus LFA, hence left hand drive, so it would seem Toyota is the sponsor or the animators just really like Toyotas 😛

    • Swarz
      February 22, 2016,

      It seems that way. The other car is a Toyota as well. I forgot the name. Both of these car’s are very rare.

      • XRaider927
        February 22, 2016,

        Toyota 2000GT and it also appeared in a James Bond movie

    • Passerby
      February 22, 2016,

      I hope that it’s product placement. Not getting paid for advertisement is just money down the drain.

    • animated stig
      February 22, 2016,

      I’m gonna call it right now. Next week we are going to see a cameo of Fujiwara’s Toyota AE86…

      • Saburau
        February 23, 2016,

        LFA is worth like 600K dollars these days while a mint-condition 2000GT could be 1 million or more.
        There is no place for an ordinary car like AE86 here.

      • Mihashi Nishizawa
        February 24, 2016,

        Are you frickin’ serious!? They’re THAT expensive!? Aww, c’mon D:

  5. yoloalchemist
    February 22, 2016,

    I agree about Kyouma’s past. Just because it was predictable doesn’t mean it wasn’t good. Now his hatred for coils and his preference for an old-fashioned way of living all come full circle thanks to Miyabi, who also made a lasting impression on me for the limited screen time she had. She defined Kyouma for who and what he currently is while also being lovable in her own right, so it’s only natural that we feel for him after what happened to her. What comes after is how he will deal with his past going forward what he has now, including his job and Mira. Kyouma’s backstory showed us just what makes Kyouma Kyouma, while also introducing some new mysteries to keep us hooked.

    Now this is the kind of episode that I need to watch again in order to make a better understanding of what it’s trying to show. The horror arc showed the potential of Dimension W, so this Nothingness doesn’t surprise me that much. What I did understand is that this Nothingness is the product of the infinite possibilities that didn’t get folded into energy and instead became manifest. So now the question becomes: What makes a coil stable or berserk? What determines whether some possibilities don’t get folded and instead become manifest? Is there something that governs all this? And if so, how do you get to it? I don’t know what caused Kyouma’s memory to be wiped that disastrous day, but perhaps somewhere in that memory lies at least some hint to all this.

    I have a feeling this arc is gonna be the best yet.

    On another note, some people said the manga is already finished. I just don’t think that’s true as I found online that the manga merely switched magazines and it’s still being serialized monthly, currently at around chapter 70.

    • Passerby
      February 22, 2016,

      I would definitely go for more Dimension W rather than less.

  6. Zen
    February 22, 2016,

    Sadistic writers have hunted these rare creatures to the brink of extinction. We really need to start a breeding programme for them. If only mating was not almost always fatal.

    I wouldn’t blame writers, instead I hypothesize semelparity. As the typically sexual komodo dragon is on rare occasions known to reproduce asexually through parthenogenesis, some humans, with certain genetic predispositions tending to beget excessively altruistic personalities, paradoxically employ selfish, emotionally exploitative, semelparous reproductive strategies.

    As the rotting carcass of the salmon nourishes its young, both directly and indirectly through the enrichment of their ecosystemic cradle, so do these variant homo sapiens, in death, ensure that their young thrive. A combination of an impossibly saintly personality and genetically programmed premature death soon after childbirth induces within their mates perpetual feelings of nostalgic longing, guilt and grief- covertly emotionally coercing these mates into raising their offspring with the utmost care and effort. In Dimension W, crucially, Miyabi’s miscarriage was omitted from the narrative. The abortive pregnancy tragically activated her “death genes”- and so she became terminally ill with what seems to be early onset PMA or ALS before she could successfully reproduce. Saint or emotional black widow? You decide.

    Yes, I’m joking, I’m not crazy, read in a National Geographic narrator’s voice for extra hilarity…XP And can you even cure ALS or PMA by putting a human brain into a robot body? ALS spectrum disorders almost invariably cause at least some measure of upper neuron damage as far as I know, so just placing a human brain into a robot body wouldn’t cut it. You’d have to give her a whole new robot brain in addition to a body, i.e. make her 100% synthetic, in order to really cure her. And as far as we know Dimension W’s world doesn’t have that kind of tech.

    • Passerby
      February 22, 2016,

      If your hypothesis is true, Sir Professor Zen Attenborough Esquire, then happy people—or homo laetus—will never be able to populate. All the more reason that they require our protection. Too many happy people are lost to poaching by writers every year—the horn of a happy person is used in traditional medicine in Asia, and can fetch high prices or even a Nobel prize for literature on the black market.

      • Zen
        February 22, 2016,

        Astute observations, Professor Passerby- it is akin to the persecution of albinos- Homo Albus– in Africa, hunted for their flesh and bone, supposedly infused with potent magical energies and capable of curing a myriad of ailments when ingested, ranging from infertility to cancer- a fantastical, erroneous belief perpetuated by unscrupulous witch-doctors and mystics of the region out of despicable greed. The imminent extinction of Homo Laetus is certainly a tragedy- but mere protection and breeding is no solution; it would only serve to postpone their eventual inevitable demise.

        A truly effective conservation effort must consist of protective measures and a breeding program involving germ line gene therapy. We need only identify the segments of Homo Laetus DNA responsible for their deleterious semelparous traits, removing these from donor gametes and/or zygotes, utilizing ultra-precise ζ-CRISPR techniques (Developed 3 years ago in 2201) to ensure minimal impact on neighboring genes likely responsible for Homo Laetus’ boundless capacity for altruism. And through this a new breed of Homo Laetus shall be born, an infinitely magnanimous Homo Novus, finally able to freely propagate without the restrictions of semelparity. They will inherit the Earth; and at long last, there shall be world peace!

      • Passerby
        February 23, 2016,

        Oh, I was just going to keep happy people in a zoo and charge for admission, but your way’s good too.

      • Zen
        February 23, 2016,

        Lol, I was going to add a line about them getting out-competed by pragmatic Hi-Machs types but left it out to make things sound more optimistic. You basically did it for me, you magnificent cynic after my own heart, you…

  7. Bamboo Blade Cat
    February 22, 2016,

    So Mira is in some way an amalgamation of Miyabi (or just her head on a robot body)? Maybe also a subconscious reason for Kyouma to “dislike” her and not cause “coils”?

    • Passerby
      February 22, 2016,

      Miyabi’s head was supposedly ‘lost’ in the operation, but considering Dimension W shenanigans who knows what that means.

      • Jips
        February 22, 2016,

        After the ghosts of the dead living in a limbo arc, Miyabi’s head floating in dimension W going “when will Kyouma-san come for me already, I’m so tired of waiting, I’m gonna give him a good scolding when he finally does” is not so hard to imagine, no matter how creepy that might sound.

      • Mincemaker
        February 23, 2016,

        Another Dullahan joke?

    • Mincemaker
      February 22, 2016,

      Mira’s behaviour probably reminded Kyouma painfully of Miyabi, hence his dislike towards her.

  8. samui
    February 22, 2016,

    You just made the episode 100x more interesting than it really is. I am so loving your style Passerby. Keep it up. 🙂

  9. Clayton Barnett
    February 22, 2016,

    Every sentence Miyabi spoke raised a Death Flag. In an back-handed way, that’s good writing.

    At least we now know where the movie reels in “Man in the High Castle” are coming from.

  10. flap
    February 22, 2016,

    I loved seeing that; the Toyota 2000GT always gave me the warm fuzzies because it evolved into the Toyota Supra Twin Turbo. The Lexus LFA is godly, which was basically Toyota saying “we could still mass produce ultimate sports cars if we wanted to, but we don’t. Have a few of these instead.”

    They made 351 2000GTs and 500 LFAs. Kyouma has one of each. They’re showing another way that Kyouma’s a badass.

    • XRaider927
      February 23, 2016,

      What’s next for him….a FT-1 Concept? XD

  11. Azsurance
    February 23, 2016,

    How did no one point out the Steve Jobs in this episode?

    I think that this episode is a favourite for me, for some reason, a lot of the plot weaves together rather nicely. Miyabi is a typical archetype but I’d like to think if not for the coil malfunction, she could have been cured from her muscle degeneration disease (it wasn’t that long ago that this disease was used, see Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso).

    That Kyouma despair yell burned so deep in my mind.

    With only 5 episodes left and no possible resolution save for connection to the main plotline (being Mira’s purpose and her mission), I think it might serve as the final arc.

  13. Saburau
    February 23, 2016,

    Ohara Sayaka is voicing Tsubaki, not Miyabi. So who is voicing Miyabi? Well let’s just not talk about that for now.

    • sonicsenryaku
      February 23, 2016,

      kaede okutani is voicing miyabi; not sure if it’s an alias but that’s the seiyuu’s name

    • Passerby
      February 23, 2016,

      I simply went by what MAL listed. I admit that I have not verified it.

  14. Worldwidedepp
    February 23, 2016,

    My Diesel-san Personality took over again, and had this Idea

    1.St
    The Base here is my speculation about her Brain being Human as their own Daughter. This Body was build for saving the Wife of our MC and was laying around
    http://images.randomc.net/Dimension%20W/Dimension%20W%20-%2006%20-%20Large%2006.jpg
    and this:
    http://images.randomc.net/Dimension%20W/Dimension%20W%20-%20OP%20-%20Large%2005.jpg
    No not the Ass, the Tail thing

    So, Speculation 01 ON:

    in the current Timeline of the Anime they are at the Island, but perhaps this can be used for the Future Story line in the Manga (or 2nd Season)

    Next Episode they drive the car on this Island, right? So what happen if he (our MC) feel unconsciousness while driving, let it be this strange Sphere (that surly is controlled from the other Dimension) or an accident that hit the Car roof, whatever

    In a Split second decision our Female MC “Robot” take over the Wheel. No not the ordinary way, it would be boring. No, perhaps she is also stuck and can not move that fast to grab the steering wheel.

    and now here comes her Tail into play. She can not also control running amok Numbers to shut down in the save way (Episode 5), no she also can “control” other things with that.

    How should i put it into picture? Well, you all know Matrix? How do they Dive into the Virtual World? Well, here in this Anime it should not be so curel, but she use her Tail to grab control of his nerve tracks in the Spine. Perhaps through electric Injection that the Body also do it. in short she take over of his Arms and Legs muscles, while he is passed out, and she is unable to move. Lucky for them they are in the Seats. i do not think she could handle his sense of balance (that would be to far into his Head)

    Since Bladerunner we all wondering if Androids have dreams?

    Well, as an side effect while he passed out. he begins to have an strange dream. Yeah, his Conscious merge with her “brain” one. the Scene picture is like he is flying through an “Firewall” (Ghost in the Shell inspiration), and then enter a Dreamworld. It is her Subconscious or memories. She is busy to hold the control of the Car, and not notice it that someone is entering her memories

    As an side effect of this “strange trip”. he begin to see her slowly as an living being perhaps as an Human. Not “Piece of Junk” anymore

    So in the attempt to save both, he has an Trip into her memories and found perhaps her Secret out, and begin to have better relationship with her… do not worry, this should not turn into Love

    What inspired me, and the credits goes to:
    Battleangel Alita (She save someones “head”, through fixing her own Life support system to it)
    Some Enterprise TNG (episode with Captain Jean-Luc Picard and Dr. Beverly Crusher shareing their dreams, thoughts and memories)
    Plastic Memories (Do Androids or Robots have Dreams and Emotions perhaps even an Soul?)

    Speculation 02:
    In terms if you like my 1.st Speculation then read my 2nd, that build up from this
    http://images.randomc.net/Dimension%20W/Dimension%20W%20-%2004%20-%20Large%2024.jpg
    (No not her naked Body)

    Episode 04 gave me the 2nd Hint, that she can be used as an Dimension “Key”. She can use her Tail to connect his Consciousness again, and with her creation of “data”. She is able to jump into the Dimensions. Both are cold out in the present real world (like she was in the Bathroom). And again Matrix is here the big Inspiration. So both can interact in the Dimension where she is the only one to jump back. I do not know, if both need skin contact to jump back. But you should use it for “drama” or “tension”. So that both should not be separated in the another Dimension

    Could also be used in this Arc Finale

    Credits goes to:
    Matrix

    Also to add some hints of my Speculation about her “brain”

    look at this Picture
    http://images.randomc.net/Dimension%20W/Dimension%20W%20-%2004%20-%20Large%2018.jpg
    The Background.. Perhaps our Professor played a bit “Bioshock: Infinity” to much. But this is more an funny idea of my Speculation

    So, Brainstorm of my Diesel-san has ended

    Hope you like my ideas, feel free to reply or like it

    • iron2000
      February 24, 2016,

      Chapter 75’s translation ended with “全篇完” so I thought it ended.
      Looks like theres more then.

    • info600
      February 24, 2016,

      Thx for the link, I was dead tired this morning after reading all the way to chpt 77 (from chpt 30 of course) in one go. (derp)

      Also, we’ll be seeing the Easter Island for the remaining of this cour (probably)…

  16. Solaris
    February 24, 2016,

    Dimension W follows a more literal many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics
    Nope, a different explanation was given, and we explored that too before.

  17. Trap Master
    February 24, 2016,

    I died at the part describing Miyabi. This is too true. :’)

Comments are closed