Dimension W / First Impressions

「ナンバーズを追え」 (Nanbāzu wo Oe)
“Chase the Numbers”

After my worries about pacing last week, it’s good to see a more relaxed episode as a followup. In return, there’s less of that tangy action juice (but still some small sips) and more the mild character/relationship building between Mira and Kyouma. This is probably the closest that Dimension W is going to come to being slice of life—albeit the strange kind of life of a superpowered robot girl wasting her millions of suspicious cash earnings on refurbishing a trailer she buys from a middle-aged hoarder. Y’know, as one does.

The central question of the episode should be a familiar in this neck of the sci-fi woods, and a fairly obligatory one when we have sentient robots involved. ‘What makes human?’ Dimension W asks, of a robot that has some oddly human-like features and functions but, hey, detachable head. Or actually, I suppose Dimension W doesn’t really ask at all because it, along with Mira herself, has always insisted that she’s a real girl in all but her coil-powered body. So, instead, we can instead say that this episode is intended to humanise Mira further, and nothing is quite so humanising as bonding with children. Their shameless innocence either makes them endearing, or makes then those brats that get on your lawn and break your stuff. As far as robots go, it shouldn’t be a huge feat to win children over to their side. As a kid, robots are awesome. Sure, now that I’m older and wiser I’m rightly wary of Arnold Schwarzenegger coming from the future to steal my trousers, but young Passerby loved his robots. Especially those with gravity defying superpowers. Of course Mira would be popular with kids. Even more if she shot lasers. Functioning while decapitated is such a mild trick.

Even through this development episode, though, the plot keeps chugging ever forward. We get more war flashbacks out of Kyouma (making Loser’s exposition about his backstory in the previous episode somewhat redundant), including whatever this is. We learn more about the Numbers (prototypes with which New Tesla dug too greedily, too deep, it seems). And some we’re introduced to even more faces; there’s some old guy to join Kyouma’s goatee club, but more importantly is the New Tesla COO. Now, I make a point of never trusting corporate bigwigs in anime (or in general, really), but this one doesn’t seem too bad for now; again, note the humanising affect of having a small child hang off of her. While I’m sure that New Tesla has nothing but shifty agenda, she does not seem to be in an antagonistic position for now. More likely, they’ve let a genie out of a bottle and now need to scramble fast to stuff it back in. That’s how these ‘dangers of technology’ stories go, right? Assuming that’s what we’re getting? Ever since the nuclear age, science fiction has been dreaming up all sorts of ways humanity is going to destroy itself, with our insatiable hunger for energy being an increasingly popular one. And really, do you trust a multinational megacorporation like New Tesla to not drill all the way down into hell if they could? If only to see if they can monetise it? Oh, what has mad science wrought? I’m guessing, at some point, ‘whoops’.

Well, for now, there are more pressing immediate concerns, namely killer robots to contrast with the friendly neighbourhood Mira. As we’ve all been indoctrinated by traffic lights to know, red means danger, but this glowing-doom-eyes robot still seems to have a blue coil, so I don’t know what’s up with it. Well, I know that I was wondering last episode why nobody died in that one, and I guess Dimension W is throwing some grotesque corpses my way as reassurance. It just didn’t feel quite right without a higher body count. Consider me satisfied.

39 Comments

  1. https://randomc.net/image/Dimension%20W/Dimension%20W%20-%2003%20-%20Large%2024.jpg
    I forgot Mira was a robot throughout this scene and wondered why she didn’t already have a tear or two streaming down her face. I was convinced at how human she was even with the detached head.
    https://randomc.net/image/Dimension%20W/Dimension%20W%20-%2003%20-%20Large%2019.jpg
    I didn’t expect Shiora to be the Show Spoiler ▼

    . I wonder if she will play a prominent role. Nonetheless, this was a great post, Passerby!

    On another note…

    …I’m rightly wary of Arnold Schwarzenegger coming from the future to steal my trousers…

    I happened to watch Terminator: Genisys recently so this made me laugh.

    ichigo
    Reply

      2. I, like sonicsenryaku below, think that it’s a deliberate directorial choice rather than censorship. Often, it’s better to leave things ambiguous and up to the imagination of the viewer. I personally found the disjuncture between her human features and the fact that she’s cradling her own head effective.

        Passerby
        Reply

      3. Agreed, it’s the weirdly calm and serene nature of the scene that makes it so eerie. Showing her broken neck would’ve taken away from that a bit, or at least been distracting. The fact that she’s EMBARRASSED/ashamed of losing her head is so weird, it makes her more human by highlighting how incredibly inhuman she is. Very clever scene.

        KaleRylan
        Reply

  3. 3 episode in and I think I can safely breath a sigh of relief of how this is going to get adapted. They did skip a good portion of the children’s arc from the manga, but they pretty much touched upon the most important plot related elements from the arc nicely, so I’m relieved. Really looking forward to Dimension W’s adaptation from now on! 🙂

    PS: Love the scene where Kyouma walks in on Mira in the bathroom and absolutely giving no fucks. 🙂

    Trap Master
    Reply

    1. They skipped how coils give the state the power to decide a person’s future by high school and the lengths people will go to to avoid that, along with some characterization with Kyoma and why he really didn’t want the kids around. Plus more Mira-Kyoma bonding and a cool car chase.

      This cut was all about time, and the ending that the studio wants for the show. Have to wait and see if they screwed up.

      Aex
      Reply

      1. Yeah we did miss some world building and some action(which is a bummer), but I feel this arc didn’t really serve too much to the overall plot of the story except the ones highlighted in this episode, so I think it’s a fair decision to make, especially if they can take their time in the later parts of the story.

        Though 2 episode would’ve definitely been better for sure.

        Trap Master
        Reply

  4. The question I have is whether her head is connected to her body by bluetooth or wi-fi? ;P

    And what is the granddaughter of one of the most powerful women in Japan/World doing playing around with street kids?

    Bear
    Reply

    2. Those kids are actually from a really distinguished school. In the manga, Show Spoiler ▼

      Trap Master
      Reply

  5. I guess I should be relieved about the pacing. This was a much needed bonding/development episode. It all evens out with the those 3 episodes and I can say with confidence I’m hooked.

    About Mira, she begs a question that I don’t if it’s been asked before, but it did occupy my mind whenever I see her being all cute and funny: Does purpose define identity?
    Mira’s purpose, as far as we know, is to help Kyouma collect illegal coils to support the hidden agenda her “father” passed down onto her. However, it doesn’t feel like her purpose defines her, in that she can exist and act and live normally would without her mission being on her mind all the time, albeit having to learn more about human interaction as displayed in this episode. The closest character I can compare her with is Sonny from I, Robot. That robot was created for only one purpose, to kill his own creator and destroy a tyrannical AI. After that, he had nothing left, and he wondered what he would do with his life, to which Spooner said he would have to figure it out for himself because that’s what Dr . Lanning would’ve wanted. His pondering must have been a product of being capable of expressing emotions.

    But with Mira, it’s like she knows that there’s more to life than just fighting this corporate conspiracy or whatever her agenda is. Almost as if she’s not desperate for her mission, because she has herself and she likes just living like any other human being would. She will honor her father with her mission, so she won’t stop it, but unlike Sonny, her mission does not define her, at least not wholly. I’m thinking that maybe a product of her being befriended by her creator and her family, of experiencing human emotions, of being cared for, a lot more than Sonny was ever gifted with by his creator, because maybe that was their original purpose for her. But I could be wrong. It’s food for thought either way, so job well done Dimension W.

    yoloalchemist
    Reply

  6. what i appreciated about this ep the most is the visual direction used to exemplify how mira sees herself as a human being. Mira is beheaded in this ep and yet instead of showing use her body without her head, the top part of her is darkened as if it would be a gory sight if we saw the wires popping out from Mira’s neck area. It’s as if the series respects the fact that mira truly considers herself to be human. It’s attention to detail like that that i really appreciate. It shows that the director is aware of the narratives thematic elements and chooses to use witty visual direction to enhance those details.

    sonicsenryaku
    Reply

  8. Unfortunately, while this episode is great, it is the first victim of the “this show only got 1 cour”.

    Due to the lack of episodes, one of the arc in the manga has been cut out. While it is not essential toward the story as a whole, this arc was suppose to have quite a bit of worldbuilding as well as humanising Kyoma.

    Also this episode skip the Mira’s repair scene which is pretty hilarious.

    So as a manga reader I encourage people to find the manga version and read through chapter 11 to 15.

    Vermillion
    Reply

  9. The manga had Kyouma stating that the junk cars didn’t belong to him while the anime has him admitting it did, how inconsistent. And yeah, kinda disappointed that they skipped this arc but it can’t be helped considering the next arc is huge.

    Azsurance
    Reply

  10. Guys, its nice to see you love this Adaption. But please, even if you have not ill intentions, take care of Spoilers

    You do not know, if they want to bring your infos back as flashbacks when the time is right.

    Worldwidedepp
    Reply

  13. Not. Enough. Kyouma.

    Kidding.

    I still think it is a solid episode and the development for Mira was given succinctly but…

    … her naivety feels out of place in Dimension W.

    *Cue another headless joke here.

    A bit of a shameless plug, I am starting my blog out of the spur of the moment: http://samui26.wordpress.com. If you have the time, you can pay a visit or two. Thanks!

    samui
    Reply

  14. Holy puck, I didn’t know this show until yesterday. Glad I saw it blogged here.
    I already fell in love with that robot cutie pie.
    Pity the children arc was completely horribly cut of the investigation part. I hope they will include again in some OAV later.

    Solaris
    Reply

      1. Well, I agree, but only regarding Mira’s characterization which is so little part of the arc. It left out a big part of world building, an investigation about the ‘incident’ and Mabuchi’s reasons more than other, which is a pity.

        Solaris
        Reply

  15. My Speculation Sense is itching again
    Show Spoiler ▼

    Worldwidedepp
    Reply

    1. There’s an explanation about how dimension w really works in a flashback the next arc.
      The explanation is quite pseudo-scientific and interesting too.
      I’ll put it in a spoiler, so you choose whether to read it or not.
      Show Spoiler ▼

      Solaris
      Reply

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