English Dub Review: Dimension W “Resurrected Nightmare”

Overview.

The final bit and treat of the episode was seeing K.K. getting his face bashed in by Kyoma, as well as finding out that Lwai is a robot with two bodies! Well, more specifically, he has two copies of himself since he is a robot and this makes me curious about how it works. Can Lwai share information from one copy to the next? Are there more copies?

What really matters most is Kyoma and his role in all this. As his memories start to trickle back, he seems to come to terms with Mira and who/what she is – and Loo is a key catalyst in that. After Mira saves him (with the help of the Eastriver siblings), Kyoma finally, for the first time, shows Mira some genuine affection (and boy, does she like it). And when they encounter Loo in the tunnels, Kyoma sees him for what he is – a kindly little kid being asked to do the work of a professional killer. But Kyoma also sees that Loo is, in a sense, a realization of what Miyabi might have become – and that only deepens his desire to protect Loo in the way he couldn’t protect Miyabi.

Miyabi is like a ghost who’s hovering over Kyoma’s shoulder through everything that happens in this story – a fitting and not accidental metaphor given the nature of the plot. We get to see Kyoma really go into badass – even berserker – mode for the first time here when he thinks KK has killed Loo. So much has been taken away from Kyoma – not just the love of his life, his memories and so many of his comrades, but his sense of honor too, as he feels he’s let them down – and he’s had this thrown in his face in the most painful ways. KK fucked with the wrong guy, basically.

Mira stopping Kyoma from killing KK will no doubt rub some viewers the wrong way, but for me, it’s perfectly in-character. Of course, Kyoma would have killed KK, but Miyabi wouldn’t, and that’s the point – she complimented him in every way. She was the gentleness and kindness that filled the gaps in him, and he loved her for it. And this incident is a way to show us that a link really does exist between Mira and Miyabi, perhaps more than simply the body that Mira inhabits.

There’s a lot going on here, I won’t deny that. Couched in all this hard sci-fi iconography are some fairly complex questions Iwahara is asking about the nature of identity, reality, and perception. What are we to make of these seemingly empty bodies that return from the void, their “souls” gone forever? Where exactly did those souls go? Just how sentient is Mira, who’s seemingly all-mechanical yet shows undeniably human emotions – and how does she differ from Lwai, whose physical brain is seemingly intact inside a robotic body (of course the reveal that Lwai has multiple bodies could throw his whole nature into question)? With all the scientific jargon surrounding Dimension W, I think the writer is telling a story here that’s more metaphysical than anything – Dimension W is more than it seems to be. And that applies to the series that shares its name as well.

The parallel between Miyabi and Mira as she jumps in to save Kyoma from himself could be the turning point for Kyoma in this series. He actually listened and took philosophical advice from a robot! He obviously thinks she’s cute, I mean her body was built to be Miyabi’s new vessel, but now he might actual think she’s alive. As for Lwai’s body, it seems to be more of a puppet than actual living thing. He has another one! And probably more. Is he just hooked up to a computer somewhere and living through an interface? He might even just be a brain in a jar. Kind of creepy.

I’m glad Lwai isn’t dead, but also miffed the show passed on the opportunity to whittle down the huge cast at least a little. I’m worried the last two episodes will continue the trend of vomiting out more and more plot and metaphysical technobabble than the quasi-philosophical gibberish you’d hear in the Matrix Movies. Prove me wrong, DW.