Occultic;Nine Episode 03 Review: She Cracked

Several facts have been made clearer in Occultic;Nine’s latest developments, but more questions have arisen! The only sure thing, though, is that these provoke us into thinking harder about what the hell is going on! In our last review, we’ve tried to decipher the situation by listing down important clues we noticed, so here’s to hoping we can manage to analyze the new ones!

Japanese Title: 妄想だったのだろうか

Plot

This anime just really loves teasing us with answers that only rise more questions! For example, the opening scene immediately explained what happened with Chi-chan during the previous episode, but it actually just made us ask ‘what the heck was that?’ It was also shown that Moritsuka was going deeper in his investigations, and in a sense, has been the one connecting with the other characters still out of the loop. The disturbing scenario with Ria has been finally revealed as well, and we’ve seen that Gamon’s guilt had slowly crept up on him. Then there was a really shocking and bizarre event at the end that made ask us ‘what the heck was that????’ again!

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Episode Highlights

The kid that appeared in front of Chi-chan looked like he came out straight from a psychological horror movie. I mean, that creepy face just gave me the heebie jeebies, and they matched it with an incredibly eerie giggle to boot. Good job, staff. He was also holding a book. Maybe it’s connected to the occult too, or related to the card in the picture Myu got from her friend. Plus, the creepy child said he ‘found’ Chi. It’s certainly very intriguing, and another factor we have to think about.

With that, we can probably say that Ririka didn’t directly have anything to do with the girl’s disappearance, unlike what I speculated last week. But, she probably knew something about it; she did see what happened to Professor Hashigami in a dream, according to her at least. From this we can guess that she can see the future through dreams? Kinda makes you wonder if she’ll be a huge asset to these investigations, though we still have to see if she can control what she wants to see.

One of the two events that stood out to me in this episode was Ria, or rather, Aria’s point of view regarding that case with her brother. Incredibly close brother-sister relationships bordering on incest are not all that uncommon in anime, but I guess theirs takes the cake. She just adored her brother so much that she stole his corpse away from the hospital while she was still recovering from an operation, managed to live with his rotting corpse for a year, and even acted like he was alive! Meanwhile, here I am trying to understand my two brothers every single day (just kidding; I love them). Sibling love can’t get any better, or worse than Aria and her brother’s. It is though a bit understandable, because she had only him in the world, especially since she was actually dealing with bullies and sexual abuse.

Seeing Gamon finally appear in the last half of the episode made me quite happy, to be honest. Though, seeing him too worked up by his guilt and paranoia was really pitiful! His desperation was very evident every time he wished that the tooth-key would go in. I did too, just so we could finally figure out what it’s for! But, alas, the show still wants us to be left in the dark, just like how it just left us to wonder who in the world the demon that tried to kill him was (My hunch is that it’s Kusakabe)! It’s also quite unclear if it was all just a dream or not. Very curious indeed.

The second thing that got my attention was the lake of dead bodies, which was the first scene in the first episode. Just imagine, 51 dead bodies, and probably more! What could have caused that to happen? Plus, that intro seemed to be what Sumikaze dreamed of and told Hashigami-sensei before!

There are two other things I noticed all throughout the episode that I think are worthy to note. We’ve got the mysterious phone-calls received by Ryo-tas, Aria, Sumikaze, Gamon and, surprisingly, Izumi, the manager of the shop. Then, when Ryo-tas left, Izumin seemed a bit…odd.

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Themes & Trivia

Nikola Tesla –Tesla was mentioned by the old man and Hashigami-sensei. The scientist is best known for contributing to the alternating current electricity supply system, but his other achievements also allowed the birth of radio and TV, and also sparked the industrial revolution. The two characters both mentioned that Tesla’s experiments have somehow delved into the supernatural. I researched on this: there were actually some sites that said Tesla’s experiments dabbled with trying to open up the universe, manipulate matter and energy, and the like. Some even said that he was mad, and his missing documents have something to do with those things. Read more about the genius scientist here.

Comments

I’m quite pleased that Occultic;Nine finally had a normal pace in this episode. It’s like getting a breather at last, what with all the rushed explanations and abundance of scenes in the previous two episodes. The mystery can be appreciated much better now, especially since the creators seem to be intent on bringing more questions as soon as we get a few answers. I hope that the next episodes will have this kind of pace so that we won’t get lost again.

Aesthetically, it’s such a relief to see the art doing really well! Truthfully, it seemed to be simpler compared to the past episodes, but the quality didn’t suffer that much. To top it off, they still included small details. Like, did anyone notice Aria’s reflection in the mirror when she was narrating her fulfilling one year with bro? It felt like an Easter-egg! Then they added amazing voice-acting, notably Kaji Yuki’s voice when Gamon saw the demon. It’s such a treat!

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It’s a gathering of clues and dead bodies

With another set of questions added to our list of stuff to figure out, it’s hard to believe that we’re only at the third chapter! The plot thickens, as they say. Because of this, I’m just incredibly excited for next week! The mystery is just so good, and I certainly appreciate a good mystery! How about you? Are these enigmas working well for you? How about the pacing?

Additionally, if you know other amazing mysteries like this (or better!), I’m quite interested to hear about them! Please leave comments and suggestions below!

NEXT TIME: Psycho Daisies | 犯人は我聞悠太だ (Hannin wa Gamon Yuuta Da)

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