“Seek the answers within yourself. You must not forget that. And that will become your kindness.”

And this brings the end to this mystery. For this final episode, the show continued to pass on its deep dialogue, with Dr. Magata paying Saikawa-sensei one last visit before turning herself in to the police, bodyguards protecting sensei…which turned out to be fakes because she was led away and escaped again. Which…made me pretty angry that she got away with all this murder. Of her parents, her uncle, and I think her daughter? We got a final look with Moe and sensei’s relationship, and we got a little snippet of Magata and Michiru, her daughter. It’s all a little twisted because it looked like Magata and Michiru had a loving relationship. And that lesson in the end, was a sweet moment with Michiru hugging her mother. So maybe I’m dumb and missed something, but I’m still not sure whether Michiru killed herself for her freedom or Magata killed her daughter in her form of giving someone freedom.

Magata said she wanted to be free too. Sensei brought up why she hasn’t committed suicide, but Magata said she wanted someone else to kill her, to interfere with her life. Turning herself into the police, she wouldn’t think they would execute her. So now what? What was the point of her going on the run? What will she do now? And it looks like she gained two more personalities, which we saw in the end. Her personalities are based on dead people, so she took on the personalities of Michiru and her uncle.

[HorribleSubs] Subete ga F ni Naru - 11 [1080p].mkv0096This anime brought a mystery that I’ve been wanting to see in anime. It didn’t go for the episodic mysteries that many shows tend to do, and it can either be good, or bad, or just mediocre. They tend not to be very memorable and they’re just good to pass the time. The problem with episodic mystery shows is that you don’t have an emotional bond with the victim or the person affiliated with the victim, because it’ll all be over in the end of the episode or by the next one if it’s a two-parter. But when you take one big mystery and spend the whole show trying to figure it out, it becomes a lot stronger. It leaves you guessing many possibilities that could maybe be the answer. You get clues thrown at you and, personally for me, it can be fun trying to solve the mystery. And this was the strongest aspect of The Perfect Insider. It had a strange mystery that kept me interested in learning more. Locked-room mysteries always tend to be the most fun because of how impossible they seem. And when it came to all this, this anime really delivered.

It also dealt with extremely serious and taboo topics like incest, pedophilia, and a child killing her own parents. And they didn’t sugar coat anything. It was awkward, it was creepy, and it certainly made me uncomfortable, which is what it’s supposed to do. So good job on taking these topics seriously, which I think anime should really do more often.

Along with these topics, there were a lot of other things that Magata especially brought up that seems to make a divide with the people that watched this. Some people I’ve seen didn’t like this show because of Magata, and others did like it because of Magata. I do agree that at some times the anime could be a little preachy and fake deep, but there really were interesting topics. Like what it means being free, why do we exist, stuff like that. There were stuff that was really food for thought, and some of the characters had really great dialogue, so I also applaud the anime on that.

[HorribleSubs] Subete ga F ni Naru - 11 [1080p].mkv0082Now when it comes to cons, there are some that I didn’t really like. First off, even though the characters were interesting, I have to admit that I didn’t really care about any of them. They weren’t particularly likeable. Saikawa-sensei had this weird fascination towards Dr. Magata and he always had something to say to bring Moe down, and honestly sometimes I thought he could be really pretentious. Also, even though he turned down the kiss, I felt like he maybe loved the doctor. Or maybe not, maybe it really just was a strange admiration for her. The fact that he even kept one of the legos from Magata’s virtual reality world(?) speaks volumes of how much he likes her. As for Moe, she was an annoyance most of the time. She did begin to grow on me during the middle of the series, but her character was always wanting to win the affection of sensei and getting jealous of other women even being near him. And, haha, it turns out that the woman from episode 1 is actually sensei’s little sister. Now don’t you feel dumb, huh, Moe? I understand why she’s so clingy to sensei, as he was the only person to be with her after her parents died, but it became really annoying after awhile. And in the end, I felt like she didn’t change too much. So I didn’t care for either of them.

[HorribleSubs] Subete ga F ni Naru - 11 [1080p].mkv0032As for Dr. Magata…well, she’s a tough one to talk about. To not like her….I think that’s the point. She did awful things and she obviously has viewpoints different from our own that we just don’t agree with. I was fascinated by her character from the beginning, and I was still was until the end even though sometimes she could be a little difficult to understand. It’s hard to tell what she’s thinking and it makes me wonder what made her think the way she did. Also, I really wish the show went more into the personality disorder. I’m not knowledgable with this disorder and I don’t know how people get this disorder. It seems to me like she’s always had it and it came about when facing traumatic experiences like death, which is why all her personalities are based off of dead people. Also, it didn’t really tie into the mystery. I felt like it was there…just because. Maybe to give Magata more depth to her character. Like I said, it’s hard to tell what she was thinking. It seemed to me that she really did love her daughter, but I’m still not sure whether she killed her daughter or not. She doesn’t show any signs of remorse. It’s very twisted. So I’m not sure if I completely hate her, even though I am upset that she got away with murder.

Even though I said the mystery was done well, there were still details pertaining to the mystery that weren’t given any answers. Like where did Michiru’s limbs go? Why the wedding dress? The faking Miki thing, how was that even possible? Also, what was the point of those pods?

And, I think one big thing people complained with was the pacing. Now I’m a little shaky with this because I’d agree that at times it was too slow, but I also enjoyed how slow it was. I didn’t like how slow it was because sometimes they would repeat dialogue over and over (yes, I know Magata was in there for 15 years). Also there would be scenes that would have to do with nothing and were useless and boring, so it was irritating because that time could have been used to further this murder mystery we had. But again, the slow pace was a good thing because it took its time giving us the clues and fleshing them out. And sometimes we really did get some great dialogue. So, sometimes it was great and sometimes grating. Really, this will depend on the person watching whether they think it’s too slow.

[HorribleSubs] Subete ga F ni Naru - 11 [1080p].mkv0098This was a very unique show. It did something with mystery that you don’t see that often anymore, and to me I thought it worked out really well. It showed just how unique it was with it’s grogeous OP and ED, something I’m going to miss as this show is done. It had a lot of great things going for it, with a few bad. And when I try to rate this show, I’m having a hard time because of all the things I talked about. A fantastic mystery, but I didn’t really like the characters except for maybe Magata, and I was iffy with the pacing. There’s a lot of factors to take in. And personally I feel that with a mystery show, the mystery of the show making an impact is the most important part, which I think this show did. But there were also parts that bogged it down a little, such as I would like to have good characters too. So I’m having trouble trying to pick a score, because right now it’s between 7-9/10. So for now, I won’t give it a score, I’m going to really give it some thought.

I still think this show was fantastic, and I would really recommend it to people that want a good mystery. Whether you like the topics it presents and its pacing and its characters, that’s all up to you as many people feel differently about all this. But I don’t think anyone should skip out on Subete ga F ni Naru, it really was a great and fun watch and something I think anime should do more often.

Berry

Unfortunately still a weeb

This Post Has 3 Comments

  1. zztop

    There’re still more adventures in store for Sohei (Saikawa) and Moe. Author Mori Hiroshi wrote 9 more mystery novels featuring them. Together with Subete ga F, they form the S & M (Sohei & Moe) series.

    In fact, Mori’s written over 30 novels now, covering a wide variety of genres such as romance, poetry, and adventure. He’s well known among his publishers for his punctuality, never missing a deadline.

    F’s author also claims his financial success is largely due to royalties management, as revealed in a new book.
    http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/interest/2015-12-12/the-perfect-insider-author-reveals-details-of-royalties-in-new-book/.96407

    He talks about potential royalty figure he earns, and that it’s very important a writer be savvy in promoting their books, and actively negotiate royalty fees. Tricks he uses to increase sales include putting in a gradually unfolding love story to lure readers into buying sequels, updates his writing progress via blog and guarantees personal responses to fan emails.

    He now says he’s so financially secure, he wants to try writing a book he really wants to write.

    1. Berry

      Oh wow, that’s a lot of money. And I had no idea this was written in the 90’s. 😮

      But hmm…I guess it’s smart that he did so much to promote his books. But in the end, saying he’ll try writing a book he’s really wanted, what does that even mean? So his past books were something he didn’t enjoy writing? Because now it just makes it seem like he wrote those books to make himself financially stable. :/

      And now it makes me wonder whether the other novels will get animated.

  2. combatworthywombat

    oh god – that face at 18:30
    best moment of the series
    this is probably the one that has disturbed me the most; statments that defy common conceptions with just enough rational backing to make you think that you might just be the one in the wrong
    i’d really love to see a discussion post on this series – so much interesting stuff in it
    + looking forward to your review of Aijin – looks awesome (lovin all the predictions/theories you do xD)

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