Dimension W

Episode 4

We finally know what Numbered Coils do – they transport our heroes into different genres! Well, not really, but it sure feels like that by now. Their encounter with Loser brought them into a heist story last time, and this new one conjures up a haunted house mystery. A popular mystery author, Shijuro Sakaki, is found dead in a locked room. He was somehow drowned to death by having water forced down his esophagus. His robot assistant, which should've recorded the entire encounter, has had part of its memory erased. Since New Tesla is normally omniscient in matters involving technology, the only explanation is that one of the Numbered Coils – which are beyond their control – must be involved. Kyouma and Mira are sent to deal with it, alongside the tagalong Albert Schumann. Of course, this all takes place in a super spooky setting – Yasogami Village, which is a hotel overlooking a lake. On the drive there, Mira sees a ghost, but the encounter doesn't show up in her video memory recording. Something spooky is certainly afoot!

When they arrive at the hotel, we get a parlor scene introduction to a crew of potential suspects, victims, and allies. The hotel is owned by Marisa Sasaki, the author's sickly younger sister. There's the hotel manager, Makita, a journalist, Hageyama, and Elizabeth Greenhough-Smith, another Collector. Elizabeth is a tiny Gothic Lolita girl, and Mira finds her strangely familiar. She's in the opening, so I suspect she'll end up becoming a recurring character. Beyond them, there's a group of people ominously chilling in the corner, but they don't have names yet. A later scene implies that they're after the Numbered Coil, coercing Masaki, who has some sort of power over the surrounding area, into working with them.

Albert explains the area's tragic past to Kyouma. Yasogami Village's artificial lake was built 21 years ago, when coil technology was still primitive. Around that time, some students got their hands on a Numbered Coil and performed some sort of experiment on it in the lake. They all died, and New Tesla was unable to retrieve the coil. For a while afterwards, their ghosts started showing up, but sightings died down after a while. The ghosts have now begun reappearing with Shijuro Sakaki's death. New Tesla views this as an opportunity to retrieve the long-lost Numbered Coil. In order to gain more information, Kyouma sends the corrupted footage of Sakaki's murder to Mary, who fixes it up. The ghosts of the murdered students are visible in the reconstructed footage. Albert suggests that a memory of the incident 21 years ago was somehow imparted onto Dimension W. However, before they can continue their conversation, there's an emergency – the journalist Hageyama has been found drowned in his car! But before they can finish investigating that, Mira screams in the distance! Kyouma runs off to help her, but instead finds Masaki surrounded by the ominously-chilling-crew! They're attempting to coerce her into something, so Kyouma tries to fight them off, but they make off with Masaki on a hovercycle! Twelve different things are now going on at once, and I have no idea how they're related!

Going back to Mira's plot might help this make sense. Of course, she's afraid of ghosts. She starts reading a bunch of Sakaki's novels in order to gain information. This gives her enough information to digitally recreate (and explore) a version of Yasogami Village from 21 years ago, as well as totally psyche herself out. Unfortunately, she's not the only one there – ghostly victims of the disaster invade her dream, and she rapidly loses control of it. As the environment around her warps, it seems as though she's entered into one of Sasaki's novels. The ghosts eventually capture her and bring her face to face with their leader – Shijuro Sakaki himself, who is actually Shiro Kamiki, one of the students who was killed in the coil experiment! The rest of the ghosts are his fellow students, and they're up to something!

To be fair, the show is much easier to follow than my description. It decides to set up a bunch of moving parts all at once, which doesn't translate well to linear narration. As with all mysteries, I can't really judge the story's success until the end, but this first part is suspenseful and entertaining at least. Even if the mystery turns out to be junk, the scenario provides some nice character moments and genuine tension. It continues to be punctuated by good character interactions. Albert and Mira play off well against the comically stoic Kyouma. I particularly liked seeing Mira try and hide her naïve eagerness to seem like a normal, emotionless robot to the other visitors. Albert also looks fly with his Hawaiian shirt, lei, and constant winking.

Of course, it'd help if we had a better sense of what coils are supposed to do by now. When the last numbered coil went wild, it created some sort of fractal effect of time and space. This one looks like it's made a dream world, or some sort of alternate dimension where time stands still. Neither of these options are bad ideas per se. They're just unknowns until a later episode confirms what's going on. There's already some speculation to be had. After all, if Dimension W is the fourth dimension, it should be time. All of the incidents involving Dimension W that we've seen have done something weird with time (the art incident fractured it, the ghost thing seems to have frozen it), and it'd be neat to see a show take time shenanigans in a direction other than just backwards or forwards.

Otherwise, we get some more background information on our characters. Albert was a Knight of Grendel alongside Kyouma, and he can also perform sweet ninja moves as a result. Kyouma was in some sort of accident that turned him against coil technology, and it likely involved the Numbers. Contrary to the antagonistic relationship I gathered from the first episode, Kyouma and Albert appear to be old friends. Now what Dimension W really needs is for Kyouma and Mira to hang around each other for any significant period of time. Episodes always seem to be about them separated but in parallel. Presumably the show will develop their relationship at some point in the future.

The biggest potential turn off (or turn on) at this point is this episode's most extensive “look at Mira's robot titties” scene yet. By anime boob standards, the shots were well drawn, animated, and composed, but nonetheless gaze-tastic. Her coil, which had previously jutted out of her chest like Iron Man's heart battery, is now contained in what can only be described as a “cleavage vagina.” I'm not bothered by it, but if you're more squeamish about how women's bodies are framed in your anime, that aspect has become more prominent. With Mira chained up in fetish-position at the episode's conclusion, it looks like we'll get more of that next week. Tune in to find out whether all of this exposition ends up making any sense!

Grade: B+

Dimension W is currently streaming on Funimation.

Gabriella Ekens studies film and literature at a US university. Follow her on twitter.