Caligula Episode 11 – Anime QandA Review

What’s the show? Caligula, Episode 11.

So, going by the previous reviews this’ll either be a really good episode or a not-so good episode. Which is it? Thankfully a good one!

Great, so what happens in this episode that sets it apart from others? Well~ for one thing most of the episode takes place outside of Mobius in the real world! And what’s more we get the classic bait and switch where the audience thinks Ritsu (the protagonist) is the guy we follow around for half the episode only to find out that irl Ritsu is ~actually~ a socially awkward guy who looks completely different to the Mobius persona, and the good looking guy we’ve been following for the first half of the episode is actually irl Ritsu’s team leader.

And is this a big deal? Well, not really… but it’s interesting at the very least that our suave, well-read and confident protagonist has none of the charm or social confidence that his real life counterpart has–it’s all modelled on his out-going team leader. Also, irl Ritsu is the one responsible for μ’s creation (and probably Mobius by extension) and therefore is responsible for her twisted ideals about happiness.

So why’d he leave Mobius and all of his friends inside in the last episode? Well if he’s the one who made her this way then he can be the one to fix her–something he evidently needed to be outside of Mobius to do. Yes it’s time to patch μ!

Right. And is the entire episode set in the real world? Or are there some scenes in Mobius too? There’s a few sporadically interspersed between, Marie–or Wicked as she goes by now–continues to throw explosives at the members of the ‘Go Home Club’ and to very little effect I might add… I mean I know glasses girl has a shielding ability as part of her powers, but the fact no one so much as gets a scratch is uniquely annoying. Mostly the scenes in Mobius felt like ‘action padding’ as if to maintain a sense of momentum and add “high-stakes” in this–the penultimate episode.

So aside from the non-threatening action scenes, it’s a good episode? Yeah I enjoyed it for what it is, it gave us some context for certain important plot-points. Namely that Ritsu and his team-leader work for a company that’s made an AI that inadvertently ends up putting certain people into a coma by contracting what seems like a digital disease. And that’s where Mobius is getting its new inhabitants from. It’s quite interesting stuff, and while I can’t help but feel it’s come a little too late in the narrative it still makes for a very interesting episode that hopefully pays off in full come the finale!

Previous Caligula Reviews:

Episode 1 Review
Episode 2 Review
Episode 3 Review
Episode 4 Review
Episode 5 Review
Episode 6 Review
Episode 7 Review
Episode 8 Review
Episode 9 Review
Episode 10 Review