Dimension W / First Impressions

「虚無に落ちた島」 (Kyomu ni Ochi ta Shima)
“The Island That Fell into Nothingness”

Flashbacks for everybody this week? After Kyouma got an extensive sequence about his past last episode, it seems like others want in on the, er, fun. Prince Salva-something-or-other (the tall one) gets one and Loser gets one, though I won’t pretend to understand what the latter means right now. It’s exciting, because we we finally get to find out where in Africa these folks actually come from. Turns out, it’s fictional Africa, a country named Isla (confusingly, not an island) that’s rich in plot-tonium. Turns out, the tall prince wasn’t always a douche; apparently he used to be younger and cuter, but then his eyes shrunk and he started taking Machiavelli a bit too close to heart. He does have a point though—the resource curse is a real thing, and perhaps he opposed the inevitable New Tesla takeover of the world. As far as power-hungry autocrats go, I suppose he can be worse; we’ll have to see how his little brother excuse pans out in the future.

There’s another reason to give the taller prince his backstory at this point: it makes him less immediately expendable. After getting nibbled on by a black hole, it seems he’s out of the action for now, but the extra flesh on his characterisation means he’s not about to keel over just yet. If he does, it’ll have to be in a more dramatic fashion. This is in contrast to the gaggle of redshirts that were introduced last episode. Those chumps are definitely expendable, which is probably what prompts them to make extremely genre-unsavvy choices like splitting the party. Their airship is downed in a freak storm, they’re stranded on a deserted island haunted by science zombies, giant warbots, and freaky man-eating phenomena, but hey, don’t like to share. Off they go on their own separate ways to die in painful ways for our amusement. That said, I was not banking on the Russian to be the first one killed, though I suppose in a horror movie the guy with the most gun never actually lasts long. And he may not actually be dead, though there are fates worse than death.

Generally, I’ve been quite satisfied with how this story arc has been progressing. This episode’s been heavier on the action, which gives me less things for me to talk about (and less stupid jokes for me to make, fortunately for you lot), but don’t mistake that with a lessening in interest. In fact, I’d love to see Kyouma and Mira fight together more. I think it’s the closest they’re going to get right now to developing a functional relationship, instead of their current one based on abuse. I think it’s one of the underlying points of this arc, actually; until Miyabi‘s properly laid to rest by Kyouma properly patching up his past, he’s never going shed his current misanthropy. But of course, that’s only one of the angles I want to see more of, starting with the nature of the nothingness. Dimension W, and science fiction in general, has always been good at setting up interesting threads, but it’s a harder task to tie them all up. I hope Dimension W manages. If the rush in some of the earlier episodes was to save time for this arc, then all is forgiven if it pays off.

27 Comments

  1. The Flashback of Looser show and tell us, that he was on the other Side of GRENDEL. He must be working or living on this Island to have this sight of Ellain out of the Window

    So, our MC hopes to get her Lover back.. But did they not burned their body and buried in the Grave?.. i wonder how he want to get her back… Perhaps he is losing his coolness, because of the possibility to see her in the other side. But, where she not far far away undergoing an operation?.. come one, is he mind blind of want to see her that his reason is blank out?..

    Worldwidedepp
    Reply

      1. Wrong.

        Show Spoiler ▼

        Mincemaker
        Reply

  2. Just wanted to say that I LOVE your reviews, Passerby. Keep up the good work. ^_^

    Also, the woman in Loser’s flashback apparently showers in front of two windows. Who does that? 😮

    Timaeus
    Reply

  4. it looks like the dimension w anime rushed through the beginning arcs so it could adapt this Easter island arc but im not quite sure it was worth it. I recently went to go check the manga out and there was a plethora of good content that really would have made dimension w such a quality series. Was it that the producers were afraid that the sci-fi world building wouldnt pull in viewers? because yes, dimension w is more about the unraveling of the world of dimension w rather than the action itself and if they had adapted the manga more consistently, there would have been eps mainly focused on the sci-fi elements. The anime kicks ass but dammit i wanted more of it, and that’s why i guess im a bit let down. This arc seems to be getting in gear; it’s getting good and because of that it’s making me wish this series had a higher count…sigh..ill stop complaining now

    sonicsenryaku
    Reply

    2. Which is why I usually think it’s best not to check out the manga at all. Every adaptation should be aiming to stand on its own; if it’s not in the anime, it’s not part of the story, for better or worse. We should be judging, when it finishes, whether Dimension W was a coherent product as presented.

      Passerby
      Reply

      1. oh i absolutely agree; Im a huge supporter of the idea that adaptations should stand on their own and if changes make the material better then they should be made. However in this case it’s more about the series trying so hard to cram all it’s materials through a narrow space that good content is spilling out. Hell, I dont even care about some of the changes made but dammit man would it have been great to see a lot (and i mean a lot) of the content that fell through. I think the anime is wicked fun…..buuuuttttt yea u know rest of this song and dance. When you’re done reviewing the anime you should check out the manga some time and make a verdict as to how you feel about the choices that were made; again im only bummed about the ep count; oh anime industry; i wish you were in a better place

        sonicsenryaku
        Reply

      2. Sorry, as long as I agree on the coherence part, Japanese stories are usually developed on several media. There are titles born to be multi-format. One notable example is Hack Sign, which was developed sharing plot points between games, anime and manga. Nowadays anime tend just to be used as promotional material for other media, so what you usually get in the anime is a kind of basic summary of the story so that you can get attached to its chars, get a taste of the story and go buy the manga/novel/whatever to know more. And, it looks Dimension W is just this kind of promotional anime. Only notable mention is how the production cut the plot surgically to meet the seasonal format constraint and still achieve an optimal degree in coherence.

        Solaris
        Reply

      3. @Solaris
        That’s selling anime, and ‘Japanese stories’ as a whole a bit short, don’t you think? Sure, there’s plenty of cross-media projects out there, but even that doesn’t mean an anime can’t stand on its own. Anime is a very different medium to a manga (and a different medium to a videogame, etc), and the anime experience is different to the manga experience, no matter what story they share. Even if an anime chooses to only adapt a portion of a manga (and let’s not discount originals, by the way) for promotional purposes or otherwise, I still expect it to be a standalone experience, because the existence of a manga cannot make up for deficiencies in an anime. If an anime truncates its source—and many adaptations of whatever do that, regardless of medium and culture—judge the truncated material on its own merits. Truncating seamlessly is a skill as well.

        Passerby
        Reply

  8. Who are these characters? What should I care about them? Why did it have to be a race to get something?
    Why devolve into something like this Dimension W?!

    Being a man aside, Mira is the only character I am interested in this series after 8 episodes.

    samui
    Reply

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