Subete ga F ni Naru: Perfect Insider – 04

“Everything becomes F”…so basically, the day you get your exam marks back.

I’m a sucker for when a piece of media references its own title in the actual body of work. This episode marks the first time “everything becomes F” is mentioned in the show. It unfortunately just sounds like “everything becomes fucked up” to my brain so some of the dramatic allure is lost.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Last week, just trying to figure out who killed Dr. Magata was enough of a struggle. Evidence was scarce, and most of the deductions Nishinosono and Saikawa made were based on just these scraps of evidence. The guards and programmers weren’t particularly helpful, in that respect. Now we have a whole slew of new components to consider. First and foremost, we have the death of the director spurring everyone to action. Unlike the clean and incredibly intricate way Dr. Magata was killed, the director was roughly stabbed in the back of the neck in a gruesome fashion. I’m starting to wonder if there are two killers at this point, the second one being a helicoptor stowaway.

Secondarily to this murder, we get a lot of new clues as everyone presses a little harder at investigating. Not to make the director’s death sound insignificant, but the key to solving everything lies within understanding the life of Dr. Magata. This is her story. As the researchers and crew cannot wait idly to see who gets knifed next, they start snooping around in Dr. Magata’s room and learning more about Red Magic. And boy is there a lot to take in.

Let’s start with the room. Almost everything about it is highly unnerving. She has a waiting room that seems to belong to another person entirely and the interior is equally creepy, as it’s full of children’s toys that would only barely be appropriate for 13 year old Shiki let alone this now fully grown genius. For a room someone lived in for 13 years, it doesn’t seem to fit her personality at all. Did she not actually live here? Was someone else in there with her all this time? Or is this just how bad her multiple personality disorder is? Anyways, her room gets even weirder when we meet her robot, Michiru. It only has one task that we know of, which is to lock and unlock doors (note: not to open or close them…). However, nothing makes for a good, creepy mystery than a robot talking in the voice of a dead person so I’ve got my eye on her…it…whatever. Considering it’s the one door that Deborah does not seem to control, it is a possible clue for how a killer could get in and out. I also wonder if Michiru might just be the name of another one of Dr. Magata’s personalities, based on her notes in the Red Magic version 6 update.

The whole room exploration was pretty creepy, especially after tensions were running high from seeing the director’s dead body. I like that Nishinosono started to lose her cool at that moment. She’s freaked out, but tries desperately to overcome her fears to learn the truth. I really like that about her. Thankfully Saikawa knows how to calm her down without stifling her detective prowess. He doesn’t press her too far either when he brings up a touchy topic, such as her parent’s death or something she isn’t ready to talk about yet. Saikawa may seem less astute than Nishinosono at first, but he really does understand the nuances of dealing with people and follows them. Nishinosono understands them, but doesn’t always follow them.

It’s also nice (in a way) that he lets her stay in a lab with a murderer running around just to let her confirm the truth. I would have booked it immediately and left her crazy ass there…Actually, I wouldn’t even go in the first place. But these guys are determined to solve the mystery, even if it means nerves are starting to get raw and people are more quick to anger. It’s kind of nice, albeit a little unrealistic. Maybe it would make more sense that they didn’t leave if Deborah locked them in, but I guess some people are completely willing to stay in an isolated facility with a corpse sitting out in the hallway and a murderer on the loose.

Then we have the release of Red Magic version 6 (released on the 4th of the month, when Shiki dies…geez all these 4 references are adding up), and what looks like a “bye I’m dying soon” note signed from Dr. Magata and all her personalities. Now, I’m not sure how I feel about adding this spin to it, because multiple personality disorder is this kind of thing most of my psych profs told me to be vary of since a lot of patients fake it and it’s already extremely rare, to the point where some dispute its existence at all. When it does occur, the personalities generally aren’t able to communicate with each other and usually only one personality is aware that the other personalities exist. Anyways, this is a cartoon, so what can I do? But as a personal pet peeve, I think it’s kind of a cop-out move to try and make a character complex just because having multiple personalities sounds cool and edgy. To me, it just sounds like she’s making shit up because she’s smart and super bored. Which is almost certainly not the intention of Perfect Insider‘s director, but based on what I’ve been told, I can’t take her seriously. Dr. Magata was already a deep character. There was no need to add this in to the mix when she’s already a weirdo genius murderer shut-in. I think we need less batshit crazy geniuses…like in Phi Brain!

Out of character, or completely in character?

Anyways, there’s a lot of stuff to mull over, and I’m grateful Nishinosono and Saikawa always have long talks towards the end of the episode to kind of digest everything that’s happened. It makes it all a lot more manageable. Furthermore, Nishinosono throws in some more personal information she knows about Dr. Magata and how she’s the 7th personality (the 7th colour of the rainbow being purple), which also means she’s the loneliest one. She says a doll killed her parents, which sounds like she did it. Furthermore, when she asks Nishinosono about the death of her parents, she phrases it in a way that sounds like Nishinosono also killed them. The fact that she can’t remember, or tries not to, makes the whole thing seem incredibly sketchy. Nishinosono and Dr. Magata are inextricably linked together, and I think in order to figure out if Dr. Magata really did kill her parents, we have to see how Nishinosono’s parents died.

It’s been a wild ride, and I felt like this episode was the creepiest one yet. Nishinosono looking under the cloth to see Dr. Magata was a tense moment and I was just waiting for her corpse to twitch or smile…The crew really are getting more and more stressed over this and it’s showing. The atmosphere is heavy. I’m really enjoying how they present us with clues and then break it down in conversation to kind of “recap” in a way…but not exactly, because they constantly throw in new tidbits (such as the conversation Nishinosono had with Dr.Magata) and propose new hypotheses. The mix of past and present stuff is extremely well-done, as these brief glimpses tell us quite a lot. Even the brief flashbacks with the uncle are important, as they reveal a side of Dr. Magata we don’t get to normally see.

So, for next week, who do you think is going to be found dead in the morning? Or am I getting too classic?

All I can think of when I see that dumb shirt now is this.

About Overcooled

A neuroscience graduate, black belt, and all-around nerd. You'll either find me in my lab or curled up in my rilakkuma kigurumi watching anime.