English Dub Review: In/Spectre “The Ultimate Fiction”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

For the past few episodes, Kotoko has been coming up with possible explanations for Steel Lady Nanase’s existence and posting them on the wiki. None of them were believed by enough people, and were quickly debunked by Rikka. Now, Kotoko presents a final solution based on kernels of fiction from her previous three.

Her fourth and final answer is that Steel Lady Nanase is not a ghost at all, but is in fact Karin Nanase herself dressing up in order to cover up a crime she committed years ago. She murdered a lookalike and led everyone to believe she had perished in order to make a fresh start away from the Idol business. It’s just crazy enough to be believed, so it looks like Rikka is finished… unless she has one last trick up her sleeve.

Our Take:

I’ve got to say, Kotoko’s ultimate fiction was pretty darn entertaining. Of all the stories she’s woven throughout the past several episodes, this one was definitely the juiciest. It took too long for us to arrive at this point, but I’m glad it did lead to somewhere that was fairly worthwhile. Kuro looks to have finished Steel Lady Nanase off once and for all, but there is one last episode remaining, so you never know.

So yes, the entirety of The Ultimate Fiction takes place, once again, inside Saki’s car. While I don’t necessarily have complaints about how this episode presents the theory Kotoko presents, I do feel like the show dragged its feet in getting to this point. It was kind of a cool idea to have Kotoko’s previous theories feed into her final one, but honestly, I didn’t see much of the awe-inspiring connection that Saki and the wiki users were picking up on.

The theory itself is fascinating, though. The perfect insane conspiracy theory for the online age: Karin Nanase not only didn’t die, she faked her own death and murdered Detective Turada to cover it up. Plus she happens to be the one running the entire wiki page. I don’t know, I feel like if she led with this one, it might’ve been believed right away! But no, we had to have multiple episodes of Saki and Kotoko talking about percentages and anonymous users and what constitutes fiction. Another thing I’m kind of lost on is how exactly Rikka and Kuro’s powers work. They kill themselves, and that allows them to see into the future… kind of? It’s represented visually as them choosing a new path, so maybe it’s best just to think about it like that and then stop thinking about it.

The Ultimate Fiction does a little bit of work in redeeming the show to me, though it still could use a kick in the pants so that it’ll just get on with things. I would love to know what happened behind the scenes, because it really feels like the writers just came up with 9 episodes and then stretched the episodes out in order to reach the needed season count. Oh well, at least it was an entertaining way to (hopefully, please for the love of all things holy) finish out this arc in Saki’s online wiki car.