Occultic;Nine

Episode 5

Following up on last week, Sarai has just chased down a paranoid Yuta. But in spite of Yuta's worst fears, Professor Hashigami's son isn't angry at him – he just wants information. Sarai has been trying to investigate his father's murder himself, but the police are denying him intel, so he's been looking for Yuta, who'd walked in on the scene but left without informing the police. Yuta, who's been driven a bit nuts by paranoia, is just relieved that he isn't being accused of the crime and agrees to help. However, he keeps the key he extracted from the corpse's molar a secret. I'm not sure why. Maybe he's afraid, or maybe he realizes that the key is especially important to whatever is going on. Either way, Sarai is now working with the Kiri Kiri Basura crew.

Their first order of business is deciphering Hashigami's dying message, the word “code.” Sarai lets Yuta into his dad's office, where they start searching. Apparently it was raided at the exact same time that he was murdered, meaning that this was a planned conspiracy on multiple levels. Hashigami's desk has a lock, but it's already been broken into. Stumped, Yuta lies down and mopes. That's when freaky talking radio Zonko-chan wakes up and starts yelling at him. She points out that Hashigami has drawn some sort of weird pattern on his ceiling with glue, revealing the “code.” Yuta is like “whoa” and runs off to tell Sarai.

Later at the café, Sarai has managed to decipher the code. It seems to contain the names of the 256 dead people who were just dredged out of that lake. So Hashigami was definitely involved with that somehow. Yuta tells him that a doujinshi (Ririka's) predicted the murder, and after Sarai takes a moment to get over how chuuni that is, he checks the manga to find that it contains further information for deciphering the code. Yuta once again deigns to tell him about the key, and they part ways.

Later on, Yuta is chilling in the café when nerd lord detective Shuu shows up. He obviously suspects that Yuta was involved and starts probing him for suspicious behavior. Yuta's poker face collapses instantly, but he doesn't actually reveal anything. Shuu excuses himself. Now that Yuta knows for sure that the cops are on his trial, I'm certain his mental state will only improve.

Shuu's also begun intruding on Aria Kurenaino's corner of the narrative. He's been loitering around her place, which makes her ghost partner Kiryu Kusakabe suspicious. When he stalks Shuu to find out more, he witnesses the meeting with Yuta at the café. He also saw Ryoko there and recognized her as a recent customer. This is enough for he and Aria to conclude that there's a conspiracy against them. They resolve to set a trap for their imagined pursuers, meaning that the Kiri Kiri Basura crew may encounter some resistance whenever they need to reach out to her. At that moment, Shuu arrives to question Aria.

Meanwhile, in another part of the story, doujinshi author Ririka is talking to that weird ghost kid who showed up before Miyuu's friend Chi's disappearance. She's talking about Frankenstein, how he was made out of spare parts from many different corpses but lacked a soul. She then speculates about the possibility of making an artificial soul out of pieces from many other souls. This sets up the expectation that this is the reason for those 256 deaths – their souls were harvested in order to build some sort of soul Frankenstein. She also says a bunch more cryptic stuff about “this being the new world,” but there's no making heads or tails of it yet. It probably has something to do with “Nikola Tesla's supernatural theorem” or whatever that plot point was.

Recovering from its rough beginning, Occultic;Nine's storytelling has settled into a brisk but comfortable pace. The characters are coming together and deciphering more aspects of the conspiracy. I still feel like it's impossible to solve this mystery ahead of time, and I don't see any thematic meat here, but I think that the point is just to enjoy the ride. I'm certainly having more fun than I thought I would be at the start. (Although to be fair, my expectations going in were quite low.) As the show enters its middle stretch, it's grown into a solid conspiracy thriller for people with nerdy inclinations. The production values remain compelling, some of the best in a visually impressive season. It's a shame that Occultic;Nine seems to have done so much to repel its audience right off the bat – it's only been on an upward trajectory since then. Ah well. The ending will determine a lot about how this show ultimately plays. The whole thing is just plot point soup right now, and I'd be impressed if Occultic;Nine succeeds in turning it into something coherent. For now, however, it's doing fine.

Grade: B

Occultic;Nine is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

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