English Dub Review: Scarlet Nexus “The Hunt for Nagi”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

Yuito finds himself acting as the commander of a new squad dubbed the 01 Platoon. He’s having memory loss issues and goes to get them checked out at the OSF Hospital. While there, his team sees Nagi leaving the building. They track him down to a seemingly abandoned hospital in a destroyed town, but run into an Other who they have to defeat before facing Nagi. Meanwhile, Kasane navigates the world of Karin and the rebels while trying to find Naomi and uncover what it is they’re doing at the secret research facility.

Our Take:

This week’s episode of Scarlet Nexus finds Kasane and Yuito returning to their various factions and becoming somewhat co-protagonists in the series. Both of them are lost and trying to find out what’s going on, but they’re coming at it from opposite sides of the power struggle that has taken place in New Himuka. There’s a lot of questions to be explored that are raised here, and following Yuito and Kasane makes for one of the more engaging storylines so far.

So many things have happened the last few weeks that it’s no wonder Yuito is super confused about where exactly he is and what he’s doing. Going from being a foot soldier to suddenly being named the leader of a new platoon is no small matter—indeed, it seems like the only reason he got the post was because the New Himuka government needed a hero figure and since his father was assassinated, he fit the bill. Yuito himself doesn’t really do much throughout the episode, as it’s his team that does most of the digging. But what they find is more than a little fascinating.

First of all, Hanabi helps a so-caled ‘dud’. Duds are people born without any connection to Psynet or any psionic powers. They account for a very small percentage of the population, apparently, which is why we’ve never heard tell of them before. But in a world built around Psynet, it’s interesting to consider their perspective. Based on how the show frames this scene, it looks like the government may be treating the duds in less than acceptable ways.

Then there’s the whole Nagi thing. He and Yuito were fast friends when the show began, but that quickly changed after he was seemingly mind wiped by the government after seeing Naomi’s transformation into an Other. We haven’t really seen or heard much from him since then, but that will probably change in the weeks to come. I’m guessing that he’s the government’s new super weapon, and he and Yuito are going to square off for real.

While Yuito’s following his ex-friend’s trail, Kasane is confronting Karin about what he’s really up to. Though he claims to want to dismantle the New Himukan government based on their abominable research, it sure seems like he’s up to some weird secret research himself. And he’s certainly trying to keep Kasane away from Naomi for some reason. Much like Yuito, Kasane has a friend squad of her own who help her investigate. Next week’s episode looks like it’ll be a doozy with Yuito meeting new Nagi and Kasane potentially reuniting with Naomi in Other form.