We’re back with even more supernatural shenanigans with this week’s episode of Midnight Occult Civil Servants! This week dials it back, with only one Another causing havoc in the city. Can the team find a peaceful solution to their problem or will it escalate to something much bigger?!

Original Japanese Title:  都庁展望室の異世界エレベーター

Plot

The Nocturnal Department investigates an elevator that is rumored to transport its riders to another world! But, the truth is even stranger than they ever imagined!

Episode Highlights

Occult Message Board: Seo shows Arata an online message board where people post about the strange goings on in the city. This is not uncommon from real life online forums and message boards, though like in real life, the message board in the show is prone to misinformation.

Sakaki the Host: It’s been mentioned before in passing, but, we get confirmation that Sakaki used to be a host before he became a civil servant working for the Nocturnal Division. He has also been seen looking through an old case file on several missing women, which hints that he may have personal reasons for looking into the case.

Themes and Trivia

Pandora’s Box: Rather than introducing us to multiple new Anothers, this week’s episode focuses on one in particular, Pandora. It’s revealed that Pandora is responsible for ‘abducting’ unlucky elevator riders and stealing their memories. Pandora is a figure in Greek myth; she was the first woman created for mankind by Hephaestus on Zeus’s orders, and blessed with gifts by each of the gods. After Prometheus gave humanity fire, Zeus gave her to Prometheus’s brother Epimetheus to take as a wife. While with him, Pandora opened a jar (often translated as a box) left in his care containing all the evils of the world. In doing so, Pandora released all the world’s misfortunes on mankind. While there are some differences between this Pandora and her myth counterpart, both are carrying a box which they use to collect all the misfortune they unleashed on the world.

Comments

This week’s episode teaches us and Arata a very important lesson: just because he can understand what Anothers are saying, doesn’t mean he can always reason with them. Despite talking with Pandora at length, he is unable to get her to see things from his perspective. She doesn’t see anything wrong with taking people’s bad memories despite Arata insisting otherwise. This is a big blow to Arata, since he tends to go into his missions expecting to save the day and sway people’s perceptions on Anothers, but that isn’t always a one-size-fits-all solution.

There was also a bit more hints about Sakaki’s past. Last week, we saw him looking through an unsolved missing persons case, which he wrongly ascribed to a local god, Kio Gongen. This week he thinks the real culprit is Pandora, though this is also proven to be false. What is his connection to the case? Why does he care so much? Was one of the victims someone close to him? I guess we can add this to the pile of ongoing mysteries…

Can’t Always Win them All

This week’s episode wasn’t as exciting for me as the others, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Episode 5, ‘The Parallel World Elevator of the City Hall Observation Deck’ goes a long way in fleshing out some ongoing mysteries of the series while also driving home just how dangerous working in the Nocturnal Division can be. So, all in all, a pretty solid episode.

Don’t forget to check the rest of our Spring 2019 reviews. Midnight Occult Civil Servants is also part of our weekly anime previews.

NEXT TIME: “Devil and Sense of Loss” (悪魔と喪失感)

Midnight Occult Civil Servants

Spring 2019 | Anime Info | Streaming