10 Second Anime - Dimension W - Episode 5

Mabuchi and Mira resolve the mystery of the Lake Yasogami ghosts. Character revelations show connections to the Numbers.

File.05 - "The Possibilities of the Dead"

Heh.

The resolution to the mystery of these Dimension W ghosts is that when an uncalibrated coil cracks the W dimension, the consciousness of people can occupy an alternate reality.

There were two alternate realities from that flooding incident. The first one was occupied by the majority of ghosts who died together and the young author's awareness which decided to try to save those people. The other was occupied by the memories of the university student who assumed the identity of the author's sister when he took care of her mental illness.

That's all fine. We had a nice happy ending as the "ghosts" disappeared when the dimensions reconverged, but there were three really interesting things concerning the main story.

But first, robot nudity is bad, mmkay?

Also, Mabuchi has settled on a term of endearment for Mira: "piece of junk."

In terms of violence, she still has the upper hand. She smacked him really hard twice in the first episode and then her hardheadedness frustrated Mabuchi. Literally.

As for those three interesting things, the first was Mira's ability to control a defective coil's convergence of cracked realities.. She's a little embarrassed about showing off her tail in the process, but obviously Dr. Yurizaki was doing more than just teaching Mira how to think and act like a normal girl.

Second, Elizabeth the Collector is the daughter of the Loser! The flying bats and her red eyes should have hinted to that when we first saw her last week, but it was confirmed this week. Better yet, Loser was actually in the hotel the entire time disguised as the manager! This proves he really is only concerned about the Numbers and not every job is going to have a flashy show attached to it. I wonder how busy he and his daughter are between "shows." Also, Albert's presence there was to go after the Loser, not to have some fun with his old buddy.

And it meant Elizabeth knew from the beginning who Mira was.

Third, a major part of the mystery on how the author died was related to the lake water. We saw the bottled water all over the hotel even though they were in the middle of a large fresh water lake. Any other source of water formed a kind of barrier that affected the Yosagami ghosts. What started the whole mystery, was the author's murder and how the ghosts thwarted that barrier. In the epilogue, the maid confessed that "a voice" claiming to be her dead father, the dam operator who was bludgeoned to death, told her to substitute the lake water. Where did that voice really coming from? Were the other Collectors involved somehow? How did they get the author's old notes which had this information? I see hints at a larger conspiracy to gather these Numbers.

Anyway, it was a fun mystery written around the premise of these coils, but that's not the only reason we were watching. I'm talking about that Mira fanservice! We had some lingering bondage shots of Mira's magic towel, but I suppose that towel stayed on because she "rewrote" the logic of that alternate world.

But let's not forget the naked robot in the bathroom.

I appreciated the continuity here, besides the funny censorship. Her consciousness was sucked into that other world, leaving her body unoccupied. It was still working, in a sense, as we saw from the Mira robot perspective, but it did not appear to have its primary software loaded. It was just stuck there, receiving data through its various sensors, but it wasn't deciding what to do with them. And then Mira came back, all bashful and whatnot.

I really did like this kind of storytelling. Using the mystery genre to reveal things about the characters and the world they inhabit instead of just concentrating on the spooky tale.