Migi & Dali – 5

Welcome all, to what is easily the weirdest episode of Migi & Dali yet. Is that a good thing? Who knows! A lot happened this week, from finding the room they grew up in to being taken hostage. We have plenty to talk about so lets dive right into it.

Starting off, what in gods name did I just watch? Migi & Dali has always been a weird show, that’s part of why I love it. But this one was extra weird. Almost to weird in a few ways. I could take feeding Migi dog food, trapping him in a secret room, and general homicidal tendencies. But the whole baby thing? Being dressed up in a diaper and put in a crib, fed milk from a bottle, all the while trapped in a room with no way out? Or pulling down Migi’s pants to fondle and examine his ass while the family watches? Those were uncomfortably weird, and almost to much for me. And yet… When considered as parts of a whole, when I think back on the growing feeling of dread throughout the episode as we learned more about the Ichijo household, it sort of works.

Why do I say that? Well lets step back and look at just how much Migi & Dali accomplished this week. In one episode they managed to 1) Get invited to the Ichijo household, 2) Find/Confirm the existence of the room they grew up in with their mother, 3) Get captured by/discover just how abnormal the Ichijo family is, 4) Discover their secret surveillance room in the attic, and 5) Get caught/lose an ally to the Ichijo’s. That’s a lot right? Despite the weirdness, Migi & Dali managed to take what should have been a moment of triumph, of success, and turn it into an indicator of just how out of their depth these brothers are. They came here to find and kill a murderer. But now they might have to save an entire town, and content with an organized family of sociopaths to do it.

Diving into some of these a little deeper, I was not expecting the Ichijo’s to be this weird. I thought they would be more like Murata, a standard sort of quirky weird. Instead though, they seem almost omnipresent. Watching over the whole town, surveilling them, checking their bags in school for abnormalities. It’s like they are wardens, or aliens, managing an experiment or some kind of zoo. What exactly are they doing? Where is Migi & Dali going to go with this? It’s not like there’s a limit to Migi & Dali’s options, the show is so weird basically anything could be justified. Hell, it’s possible that the rest of the family isn’t even aware something is wrong, that it’s just Eiji and the mother being insane! The only thing we do know is that we now, officially, have our villains.

As for Micchan the maid, this was simultaneously cute and horrifying. She is, perhaps, the nicest lady in this town. She’s down to hangout and play with Dali, scheme with him to investigate around the house, teases him, all that jazz. She, like the Sonoyama’s, seems like a legitimately good person. And when she and Dali are about to be caught in the secret room? She hides him, giving herself up to ensure he doesn’t get found out. Only what do we find afterwards? A doll bearing her face, head separated from its body. If that’s not a sign that she’s been murdered I don’t know what is! Will her body be how they out the Ichijo’s to the police/community? Will anyone even notice she’s gone missing? Again, I don’t know, but Migi & Dali has really upped the stakes by taking her out like that.

Speaking of Migi and Dali, this was an unexpectedly emotional episode for them. I mean, being in the room they grew up in, it makes sense they would be emotional about that. Migi breaking down crying was a bit stronger than I expected but it really drives home just how much this means to them. I just wasn’t expecting to get that kind of payoff this early after that kind of start to an episode. Migi & Dali has always had this emotional core surrounding the twins and their relationship to their mother, but this is the first time it’s really being used I feel. Maybe my time with seasonal anime has just soured me, I don’t know. But this is just another example of how thankful I am that Migi & Dali is a complete manga, with an ending, that we should see in this season. I love endings.

Lastly I want to talk about a fault of my own that confused me a lot when starting this episode. Simply put, I couldn’t figure out how the hell we got to the Ichijo’s house from Migi’s date with Sali. It felt weird, did I miss something, was there an episode in between, I couldn’t figure it out. Well wouldn’t you know it? I did miss something! An entire after-credits scene giving us our first hint of just how weird the Ichijo’s are, as Eiji searches through their shirt, finding the button he lost over 8 years ago. So let that be a lesson everyone! Apparently every episode of Migi & Dali has had after credits scenes! And I’ve had to go back and check them all… Fun day.

So yeah, all in all this was a really weird, really creepy episode of Migi & Dali. And you know what? I think I liked it. The more I think about it, the more I consider what happened, the more I try to just get over seeing Migi in a diaper, the happier I am with these developments. We aren’t being slow rolled, it’s not going to wait until the end to reveal things. No, Migi & Dali is content to keep things moving at a steady pace, and I love that. So long as it can make good on previous promises, stuff like Sali and Migi’s “relationship” or how Eiji fits into this whole murder mystery, I expect to be really happy with how the series ends.