Migi to Dali – 07

「おばけじゃなかった」 (Obake ja Nakatta)
“It Wasn`t a Ghost “

Migi to Dali’s newest episode marks the grand return of Sali, Dali’s alter ego, to squeeze more vital info from Eiji about the circumstances of their mother’s death. But little does he realize that Migi’s crush on Sali will hold far greater consequences for the future.

FAMILY TIES

The biggest revelation from Sali’s prodding of Eiji is how he pushed their mother out of the window of his room. While Eiji’s traumatic response in the last episode and his reaction to the push can be seen as a smoking gun towards him being their mother’s killer, the details are still very fishy.

In between Eiji pushing their mother and Reiko appearing to comfort him on the “ghost” sighting, Metry had moved towards where her children found her. She could’ve been able to move to that location herself, but it can’t be ruled out that she could’ve been moved over by a different killer.

I don’t quite believe it was Eiji since there are still other details about the Ichijou family that are kept under wraps like their model village and the parents’ personal connections to Metry. Without those details taken into consideration, it’d feel all too easy if the conclusion turned out to be Eiji being the sole killer.

CRUEL LIAISONS

The problem was that this information came out as the result of Dali bringing back Sali to seduce Eiji into revealing his darkest secrets. His efforts to take a kiss for the team are not going to be appreciated by Migi, who had still been carrying the torch for this imaginary girl.

There might not have been a good way to bring back Sali period. Maybe Dali could’ve done another wig and pretended to be Sali’s sister if Migi tried to say something. Coming clean would’ve been out of the picture since Dali had already emotionally manipulated and hurt Migi to get him to study.

As amusing as it is to see the lengths Dali goes to humor Eiji, Migi is entirely justified in feeling upset that Dali made up a girl to manipulate Migi into doing his bidding without him knowing. The two often work together as a unit, so the fact that Sali’s existence relied on Migi being kept in the dark twice about Dali’s motives is supremely messed up.

On a lighter note, at the very least Migi had some good support in this episode. Akiyama always gets a laugh out of me with how dramatic and extreme his responses are to Hitori’s kindness. At the same time, he was also reliable in his humorous method of deciphering Migi’s awful drawings to a T. Akiyama has to be one of my favorite characters in anime this year for striking a balance between unsettling and heartwarming to such dramatic extremes.

Likewise, I loved how Osamu and Youko were so supportive of Migi, offering a shoulder to cry upon as well as sharing some wine out of mutual grief over their son getting heartbroken. Shun Horie Shun deserves some major props for the raspy, gutteral sounds that came from him in this scene. The very first “SALI-CHAAGHN” took me out for a couple minutes.

It was also very sweet to see Osamu reflect on his budding relationship with Youko back when he was trying to court her. They have such an adorable, sentimental, and realistic relationship that it’s like visiting distant relatives whenever they’re on screen.