Good lord was this episode ever silly. Perfect Insider’s mystery has always been silly, but this episode just completely leaned into its “reveals” as if it was expecting them to come off as either compelling or profound, and noooope. Like Souhei and Magata’s philosophy, it’s just total nonsense. I guess I got taken in on the long con by this show, but I don’t really mind – there were plenty of strong elements throughout (even this episode was very pretty), and I’d rather be optimistic about shows than not. Sometimes a show knows its characters are ridiculous, and sometimes it’s just as ridiculous as they are.

You can check out my full review over at ANN, or my notes below!

“Aster-Colored Truth”

“I understand you want to meet Magata Shiki, but wake up”

Moe meets Magata in a dark, claustrophobic room. Souhei meets her at a platform on the ocean sea. Reflective of how each of them sees this digital world?

I like the concept of this artificial sea with the legos slowly falling in the background, like a waterfall feeding the basin

Souhei says “people only live for fifteen years, at which point they kill their parents and become fourteen”

Souhei says Moe met Magata’s daughter

Magata’s daughter was taught that killing her parents is natural. But this is all so far beyond believable

Due to its hexadecimal recording system, the largest number Red Magic can naturally count to is, er, FFFF. This whole sequence is… something

And that was the timer

“Why didn’t you erase all traces of the Trojan horse?” “Because I wanted someone to notice. Someone like you”

“A daughter killing her mother is a terrible thing!”

“Your reasoning isn’t logical. It’s very emotional”

Moe’s “who are you?” apparently threw the daughter off her matri/patricide destiny

“Your reasoning is very emotional.” “Yes, I admit the contradiction”

The daughter couldn’t understand her mother’s reasoning, and wanted to be “free.” Souhei describes himself as free in this place, free of his body, floating

Contrasting this to when Moe wanted to be “free,” after her parents’ death

The show never sells Souhei and Magata’s philosophy, though. It just describes them as “geniuses,” and so we’re supposed to take it at face value

“Sensei! Don’t leave me alone!”

“There’s no such person as Magata Miki” Yep