Subete ga F ni Naru: Perfect Insider – 09
I can’t tell who is better dressed: the bedsheets or her.
Sorry my Perfect Insider posts aren’t posted as quickly as my Sakurako ones. Times goes by so quickly this time of the year! Speaking of which, Happy Chanukah to those of you celebrating it! As a person who is a very confusing mix of many different ethnicites and traditions, I have my menorah right next to my Christmas tree. I clearly have a lot of celebrating to do this month.
With only 2 episodes left, the mystery is as good as done. The culprit’s been pointed out, and all that’s left is to explain the nitty gritty. Basically, Dr. Magata was pregnant at the time she went into the room 15 years ago. The reason Dr. Magata had so many toys lying around wasn’t so she could play with them…it was for her daughter as she was growing up. It’s incredibly creepy to think of Dr. Magata raising a baby alone in a completely isolated set of rooms. That kid would be every psychologist’s dream subject to run all kinds of studies on since they grew up in such a deprived state. They may have had food, water, shelter and entertainment, but not much more. I’m not even sure Dr. Magata showed any affection towards her. There’s no way that kid didn’t out at least a litttle bit fucked up.
Everything Becomes Michiru
Unfortunately, we may never get to see this kid and whether it turned out okay given such a non-traditional upraising. Dr. Saikawa tells Nishinosono she never met with the real Dr. Magata Shiki, which implies that she met with her daughter instead. This explains why she looks so incredibly young and why her physical frame is so much smaller than Miki’s. The only odd thing is how they have the same voice, which perhaps could be altered using a computer program. But other than that, it looks like Dr. Magata had a child and then faked her own death by killing them.
Which leads us to the money question…why?
Why kill your own kid and then escape when you were more than happy to be a hermit? I still can’t wrap my head around the reasoning. Considering all the focus on Deborah, Red Magic, and computer programs, I wonder if this was all something she had to do to perfect her system. Maybe her daughter is part of Red Magic now in some weird way so she can be immortalized. Since they’re just going to lay everything out next week, I’m going to wait and see what happens. Let’s talk more about the journey Nishinosono and Saikawa went on in order to get here and how they’ve grown (and haven’t grown) as people.
From sunrise to sunset, they’ve been through it all together
Nishinosono has gone through some slight changes. First of all, she’s starting to think more maturely about how to find answers. She’s trying to avoid blindly guessing and brute-forcing everything, as she used to do, and instead tries to think for herself under the gentle guidance of Saikawa. In the end, she was able to figure out the mystery without Saikawa giving it all away.
She also regained her memory of how her parents died and was able to come to peace with it. This also helped her understand more about why she fell in love with Saikawa. Her crush is still as fiery as ever, and this is seen at its height when Gidou baits her hook, line and sinker with some catty remarks. It doesn’t take much, but she makes her incredibly jealous about her ambiguous relationship with Saikawa. I will never get bored of watching Nishinosono get riled up at just about any comment about Saikawa coming from another woman.
Gidou and Saikaea don’t seem to be an item (in fact, Saikawa seems annoyed at the very way she speaks), but they’re close enough that she has some stories in her arsenal that would make Nishinosono cry out with jealousy. Nishinosono is still a rather petty person, especially when it comes to fighting for Saikawa’s feelings. I’m hoping the final episodes will resolve their undefined relationship, because Nishinosono is always going to be profoundly protective of Saikawa until he either denies or accepts her. When she’s caught in the middle like this, she doesn’t know who he’s going to choose. Furthermore, it’s sad to see Nishinosono be so opposed to making friends with anyone other than Saikawa. I feel like this one-sided affection is blindsiding her and severely limiting her happiness.
Saikawa honestly hasn’t changed much, but I feel like he’s getting backed into a corner where he’s going to be forced to make some life decisions. He’s already been forced to solve this entire mystery – something he never admitted to wanting. That’s definitely going to change his life if the police report that. This may be the start of him becoming less passive and more bold. Let’s hope that boldness does kick in, because there still has been quite the lack of development on his relationship with Nishinosono. Someone has to say something soon.
Next week should be alllll about the motives. I’m looking forward to talking about that then because Dr. Magata just gets more and more enigmatic with each episode. It will be nice to finally hear from her directly instead of just secondhand info from people who barely knew her.
The power of make-up is amazing
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.
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
ANN news: Food Wars Gets ‘Important Announcement’ on December 14
Cross your fingers and hope for another season of Shokugeki no Soma!
POWUH: Meta Team and The Mad Scientist with 5525 comments
Nice! I’ve been reading the manga and it gets inteeense!!
POWUH: Meta Resident with 1692 comments
I feel cheated. Yes, we now know why so much time was spent on Dr. Magata’s seduction of her uncle–it was one of the clues that she was pregnant when entering her rooms. But her pregnancy still feels like a trick, that the audience wasn’t played with fairly.
In all those years, didn’t anyone at the lab wonder about some of the things Dr. Magata had delivered? Did they never look at the things going into her room? If nothing else, didn’t anyone consider about the amount of food she was getting and wonder about that? Sure, at first she would have been nursing her daughter, but later solid food would have been necessary. And when her daughter hit her pre-teen growth spurt there would have been just too much food required for one woman unless she was way over 200 pounds.
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
I dunno, it’s not like she was hiding an army, or an elephant, or something. Kids don’t eat THAT much, and Shiki was in a position to get pretty much anything she wanted, no questions asked. I think it’s enough inside the bounds of possibility to be acceptable.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
I’m willing to handwave away how much food a kid doesn’t or doesn’t eat, but how does a 13-14 year old give birth to a baby by herself, and then recover? I’m willing to suspend disbelief only so much, right?
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
That’s the easy part to believe. It’s like you don’t believe that teen girls have babies and leave them in dumpsters, or in nativity scenes or things like that. Babies were born before hospitals. The miracle of life is not that fragile.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
I won’t say that I don’t believe those sorts of things, but I will have to add that those are sensationalized, and outside the bell-curve; yeah, this story is also outside the bell-curve….but no two or three crazy things need be alike in shape or tone, nor should they be. Yep, babies were born before hospitals, the greater amount of them born still or thready. Life in general is not that fragile, yes, but that’s an aggregate statement, we’re down to cases here….
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
But even if we’re in cases, the odds are a lot better than even that her child will be fine. I’d really disagree with the idea that “most” children before the 20th century were stillborn or frail, as even in the Middle Ages most estimates are only 30% for children dying in infancy. And that was in the filthy filthy Middle Ages, whereas we’re talking here about one of the most brilliant people to ever put their mind to anything in a modern society.
I certainly don’t find it implausible or unbelievable that Shiki bore and raised a child over 15 years. The interesting part is why she (or one of her other personalities) decided to kill it.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
…with her everything is looking like a means to an end….I wouldn’t be surprised if she had been planning to murder her own kid all along….
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
Still hard to believe only two episodes remain.
Well, that’s quite a theory. I figured there’d be another child involved but the idea of Shiki having a child sent me flying.
Since her room was meant to be a place indefinite isolation, I can more or less see how that can be plausible for such a kept secret. Being restricted to a limited space, the lab management at the time probably felt it unnecessary to install security cameras to monitor her due to a sense of security that Shiki isn’t able to go anywhere. Yet at the same time, it feels weird she was allowed a webcam to communicate with the outside world. Especially when seemed to prefer being a hermit.
Another point. If Shiki indeed gave birth, it leaves to question in what manner she raised the child as it clearly showed her demeanor hadn’t changed. Not to mention not having anyone around to receive advice. Children are naturally unruly at a young age, so you’d expect a change in attitude in order to adapt. Instead, her conversations with Nishinosono, to me, presented a woman who was aloof, antisocial, detached and distant, giving the impression it’s just her in her own space.
Still, the idea of a kid growing up in such a place without knowing the outside world and its ways… Don’t be surprised if it turns out to be the most amoral thing alive. Especially if raised by a mother who, herself, took the gravity of her transgressions lightly.
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
I’m pretty sure the corpse is the child, who was murdered by Shiki Magata, just like the person Moe talked to was the child.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
Yeah, I thought this as well.
POWUH: Meta Team and The Mad Scientist with 5525 comments
It’s such an incredibly bizarre situation that goes against the odds…I would really like to see more of what that kid was like too because there are just so many reasons it would turn out to be abnormal in some way. Then again, the next episode is out now so I guess I should go watch that…
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
OC, here’s your chance for one of Saikawa’s shirts.
POWUH: Meta Team and The Mad Scientist with 5525 comments
OH MY GOSH AS MUCH AS I SASS HIM FOR IT I WOULD ACTUALLY WEAR THIS ALL THE TIME