Subete ga F ni Naru – 04

The plot thickens as we are given a little more insight into Dr Magatas room. In this episode we learn quite a few things. That in Magata’s room she has a robot called Michiru which seems to be built with the sole purpose of imitating Magatas voice and to lock the door, and that Dr Magata suffered from DID.(Dissociative Identity Disorder) However I find myself wondering if her case of multiple personalities is genuine as she seems to be far too much in control of it. If anything it looks more like she invented her other personalities as a means of dealing with loneliness. This episode makes clear that none of Magatas other personalities were involved with her parents murder and states that the only one who could kill them was her core personality. However she claims that a doll killed her parents which according to the main characters could suggest that Magata did kill her parents but was forced to by someone else. Other interesting facts was Magatas messages on her computer which suggest that she knew that she was going to die. In murder mystery, usually everything introduced is in someway related to the murder and this one certainly makes it hard to connect the dots. But allow me to speculate a little. There is heavy focus on the director’s relationship with Dr Magata so it’s clear that is related to all this.

The easy explanation would be that the director killed Magata and that would clear up some issues. After all the director has the most access to the facility and from Magata knowing she was going to be killed, she would be more willing to accept it if it was someone she loved that was ending her life. Her interview with Moe would also factor into this as maybe she felt a connection to someone who was also in love with an older man. But if the Director killed Magata, then who killed the Director? Again, a easy assumption but it could have been his wife. Having learned about there relationship she might not have taken to kindly to it and killed the Director. There is a certain disconnect between the two murders. The first was clearly very calculated, and yet the second looked more like a impulse murder with a simple stabbing. But the directors wife lacks the screen time to consider her major factor. But another question is on my mind, is Magata truly dead? The show itself seems reluctant to have the characters examine her body as Moe was interrupted by Souhei before she could get a close look. The first to pronounce her dead, the doctor, did it rather suddenly. He was strangely not put off by the situation and straight away when to check her Pulse. It’s potentially possible that he was told to lie. Who knows, maybe Dr Magata is actually hiding inside the Robot, pretending to be an AI? Well alright, that’s rather ridiculous.

I rather liked Moe’s reaction to the dead bodies. Often in murder mystery the actual effect of death on people is played down so as to not let the drama effect the puzzle of the murder. Still here we have Moe attempting to brush off her shaken up nature and attempt to play detective. Yet her feelings are clear to everyone present. I still find the lack of character development on the others to be detrimental as I want to start pointing fingers but can’t really do that if the side characters have no characterization as of yet. There is also a issue with the shows rather bland presentation as while trying to find screenshots for this episode I found it difficult. While the shows substance is excellent and intriguing, I find that there doesn’t seem to be an effort to make it visually interesting. Counters to that claim would be that dream sequence at the end of this episode or some of the other more surreal moments. But other than these moments it just feels very…static. Though to the animators credit, there is only so much one can do with a story that has characters primarily talking in a room and not much else. But perhaps use of more visual metaphor could make things more dramatic though that runs the risk of ruining the mood of the scene. I may complain about that but I must admit to loving this series, nothing quite gets my brain working on all cylinders like a good murder mystery. Come up with a theory, watch it get shot down, come up with another one. That’s what makes these kinds of stories special.