The Fall 2023 Anime Preview Guide

Migi & Dali

---

The boy's name was Hitori. A stork brought the angel into the lives of a middle-aged couple who were not blessed with children. His parents were kind, his house spacious, and his meals hot. But to protect the happiness he had received, Hitori continued to hide an important secret from his parents.

Migi & Dali is based on a manga of the same name by Nami Sano. The anime series is streaming on Crunchyroll on Mondays.

---

Richard Eisenbeis
Rating:
Here's the thing about Migi & Dali. Even after 22 minutes, I'm not sure whether I am watching a horror anime, a comedy, or something entirely different.

On the horror side of things we have the entire premiere of the show—that these twins are conning an old couple into adopting them by pretending to be a single person. How they work together and how they disingenuously pretend to be the perfect child feels unnatural. I spent the whole episode waiting for the other shoe to drop—but it never does.

While the pair are deceiving the old couple, it doesn't seem to be for any reason other than simply getting into a happy, wealthy home away from the orphanage. They may have no affection for their new parents but that's not to say that they aren't grateful for the new experiences they gain—such as making a cherry pie.

So if there's no darker thing going on here, then does that make this a comedy? Are the various things Migi and Dali do to make the couple happy—and the lengths they go to hide their twin act—supposed to be silly gags? I think the issue here is that both the direction and the music (or lack thereof) make things appear sinister. In every frame, you can see one of the twins hiding just out of sight while the other pretends to be the shy, kind child.

In the end, I can't help but feel that this odd collision of tones and genres might be by design. After all, it certainly leaves a visceral impression, and what better possible hook is there to make you come back next week than the hope of figuring out just what the heck is going on?

---

Rebecca Silverman
Rating:

I believe the best way to sum up Migi & Dali's first episode is to say it is unsettling. There's no apparent reason why, apart from the fact that the titular twins (whose names may be meant to call to mind the words for "right" and "left") are pretending to be a single person named Hitori. Maybe they want a wealthy home together but are unsure they'll be adopted. But it truly feels like something more sinister is lurking in the background, and I could swear that the first time we see them in their tent drawing pictures, one of them is working on a floor plan of the house with a dead body scribbled in. Are they really trying to make their new parents' dreams come true? Or are they lulling them into a false sense of security before doing something terrible?

The post-credits scene certainly seems to lean into the latter interpretation. While it shows that all of the kids at the group home are calculating to a degree – and why wouldn't they be, given their situation? – the twins very much go the extra mile. Not only do they merge right and left to form a single being, but they go out of their way to ensure they'll be adopted. The first time we see the scene from the adults' perspective, it seems a little weird that the rain starts when the car key is turned and a rogue wind blows a hat perfectly into a window. When we revisit those scenes, coincidence turns into something much darker as the twins deftly manipulate events to their own benefit.

Of course, much of this could be down to the atmosphere, which this episode has in spades. From the eerie music to the sepia color scheme, almost everything about this screams "horror." Even Mom's outburst of "Shit!" when she's trying to make a lattice crust feels dangerous, and there's something peculiar about Dad's shoulder rub scene. I don't doubt that they wanted to be parents, but they seem to want to be a particular kind of parent, regardless of the child(ren) they adopted. Migi and Dali are only too happy to play into their hands, but at what cost?

If anything, this episode may be trying too hard to create its creepy feeling. Given that this is from the same original creator as Haven't You Heard? I'm Sakamoto; the darkness may only hide absurdity, with the joke on us for assuming more. But if you're looking for something eerie this Halloween season, there's a good chance this will fit the bill. It's unsettling without (yet) being upsetting, and that's not an easy balance.

---

Nicholas Dupree
Rating:

The late Nami Sano honestly had a unique knack for absurdist humor. Haven't You Heard? I'm Sakamoto was a wonderfully over-the-top take on the stereotypical "perfect" high school student archetype, and this adaptation of Sano's last manga is here with an even stronger hook. What if you took a twist straight out of a horror movie, like a secret twin hiding in the house the entire film, and followed all the absurd crap they would have to do to make that work? What if every time the creepy second child was hiding just around the corner, we kept panning the camera over to keep them in frame? The result is a bizarre comedy delivered with such a stone-faced deadpan that it becomes oddly unsettling all over again.

That's a compliment, by the way. Horror and comedy have a long history of being mixed, and the genuinely great genre-blenders can be hilarious and disturbing in equal measure. Here, that means at once capturing the comedy in all the elaborate, ridiculous stunts these twins pull off to keep their cover as a single person while constantly reminding the audience of just how scary it would be to have a person living in your home without you knowing. It's funny as hell to see Migi (or Dali) always crouching behind furniture or standing behind a door, obvious to the audience but juuuuuuust outside of their loving new parents' perception. Dali and Migi concocting an absurd counterweight system to fulfill their dad's dream of carrying them on his shoulders is goofy as hell. Still, it shows they're willing to do anything to ingratiate themselves with this family for unknown ends. When it's revealed that they've been manipulating their adoptive parents from the start, it's both ludicrous that their plan worked and creepy that they would go this far to achieve their mysterious ends.

There's also a lot of smaller details that make it all work. The music, for one, is spot on. It's always playing things straight, ramping up the audio tension no matter how ridiculous a gag gets, and that dissonance plays perfectly with what the show is going for. I loved the touch that their dialogue is balanced to one side of the stereo mix whenever the off-screen twin is talking (while the on-screen one lip-syncs). It's unnerving when everything else in the soundtrack is balanced while being a brilliant joke to lampshade the move. Director and writer Mankyū is known chiefly for short comedies like Donyatsu and Mobile Suit Gundam-san. That background seems to have set them up to get inventive and playful with this adaptation in a way that emphasizes its unique charm.

I admit this probably won't be a hit for everyone. Its tone is just off-kilter enough to be alienating, and I don't imagine everybody will get as much of a kick out of the simpler visual gags as I did. But if you're in the mood for something offbeat that can make you laugh and blanch in terror simultaneously, this is the pick for you.

---

Disclosure: Kadokawa World Entertainment (KWE), a wholly owned subsidiary of Kadokawa Corporation, is the majority owner of Anime News Network, LLC. One or more of the companies mentioned in this article are part of the Kadokawa Group of Companies.