What’s the show? Caligula, Episode 5.
The ever perplexing show that’s either really weird and good and smart or is just kinda derivative and forced? That’s the one!
So which is it this week? Kinda both, kinda neither. It’s just messy to be honest.
“Messy”? How so? Well there’s a vague Cinderella/Snow White ~thing~ going on with this episode, what with the plot being about “finding a partner” and the antagonist of the episode being an overly made-up woman who’s obsessed with being the most beautiful woman in Mobius (the fictional world).
Uh-huh, is that all? No! I mean this episode felt especially fractured, no mean feat considering the majority of the episode took place in one place (a theme park). It’s weird, because even though this episode was nowhere near up to the quality of this show at it’s best (Episode 4 so far) it was still wholly interesting and at least better than the weak Alice In Wonderland episode. And even the aforementioned fractured nature of this episode kinda worked in its favour.
How do you mean? Well, we’re given a slither of knowledge to the overarching workings of this artificial world, all the while a contrived high-school romance goes on around it. Or at least what this twisted anime’s perception of what passes for a ‘romance’ is. And kudos where kudos is due, they pretty much nailed ‘basic male sexuality’ in a very succinct way!
Anything else to add? I liked the new girl they introduced Kotono Kashiwaba, the fact that she ~transformed~ before any of the main cast learnt to was a nice touch, and I liked her little speech about wanting to return to the real world “even if it’s hell”. There’s something brutally honest and kind of heart-breaking about that, it comes down to the whole, ‘beautiful lie’ versus ‘ugly reality’ thing that’s very relatable in our modern lives.
Right… I also like that the show is taking it’s time to introduce elements, it’s like the opposite of PERSONA 5 the Animation at this point, which I only compare the two because they’re both based on video games, and while unlike PERSONA, I haven’t played the Caligula game, but I get the feeling that they’re not adapting the entire game here which is helping the anime stay more focused—Well as focused as this show can be. Either way I’m still very positive about this show’s potential and hope it continues to grow, and build upon it’s strengths.
Previous Caligula Reviews:
Episode 1 Review
Episode 2 Review
Episode 3 Review
Episode 4 Review
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Anime QandA 
This was so disjointed. So those two girls picked up Shougo to presumably take him to the re-brainwashing center, but nah, we didn’t do that? And Kotono is the best at getting guys re-brainwashed, but she wants out of the system? This whole episode made very little sense beyond “We know that people waking up to the system is a problem and this is what we do about it.” It’s just all over the place.
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