Migi to Dali – 05

「ミジンコの歌」 (Mijinko no Uta)
“Water Flea`s Song”

Episode 05 of Migi to Dali shows us how freaky Eiji and his family are when they trap Hitori in their house out of suspicion of stealing. But because that means Eiji knows that Hitori has the pin he personally lost, Migi and Dali’s trip to their house quickly transforms the show from a comedy to a thriller.

WHICH WAY TO THE BABY WAR?

The anime does an incredible job at surrounding Eiji’s family and home with a haunting, ominous atmosphere. It shares Diamond is Unbreakable’s fascination with the posh, surreal, and twisted aura that embodies the threatening impulses the family has towards being involved in the community of Origon Valley. Eiji’s home gives off the impression of a bird cage not just through the small world that’s built within the secret passages of their house, but also in its ironclad security.

When Migi winds up being the unfortunate brother who is Hitori during Eiji’s interrogation and frisking, he is kept captive in a storage closet guarded by a trained dog and some of the scariest people in town. I’m interested in seeing just how they manage to get out of this knowing how there’s bound to be some blowback if they escape without the approval of anyone in Eiji’s family. Through Dali’s discoveries, it isn’t too far off to say that Eiji’s family poses a major threat to Migi and Dali and their new family now that Hitori has made such a strongly negative impression on them.

I feel bad for Micchan because of how she wound up getting caught up in Dali’s investigation and protected him at her expense. She was so excited to learn about her old client’s secrets that she put herself in harm’s way for Hitori’s sake. Likewise, it was so bleak when Migi discovered the childhood maze that he, his brother, and his mother drew into the wallpaper. His tearful sorrow over seeing the message his mom left behind would’ve been soul-crushing if he wasn’t stuck wearing a baby costume. Seeing his cries of grief being recontextualized as a baby tantrum by Eiji’s mom is brutally dark comedy as she rushes to bottlefeed him.

Leave it to this show to take a break from its surreal comedy to dive right into horror-thriller territory. It’s a welcome change of pace since I appreciate how versatile and multi-faceted Migi to Dali is in how it captures both the oddball antics that occur throughout Migi and Dali’s double-life and the Edward Scissorhands-like terror of suburbia’s seedy underbelly.