English Dub Review: BEM “Liar”

 

Bela happens upon someone who recognizes her appearance.

Our Take:

Instead of focusing on the police girl, she is mostly a side-narrator as the story shifts to focus on Bela. She is masquerading as a student in a prominent girls academy when one day she runs into a woman who recognizes her by face.

Admittedly, I thought it would be that Bela doesn’t age and Mary actually had been her, but I was pleasantly surprised to find out that they’re two different people. Bela is still a monstrous being but had taken on Mary’s form after the young girl died. Her curiosity and passion about humanity leads her to find out what happened to Mary, and most importantly, who’s responsible for her death. What she comes upon, that Mary was manipulated and murdered for being too kind in a harsh society, is an answer that makes her furious.

It most importantly shows that the Upper society, which for the most part seems to be a modern city, is just as morally corrupt as those across the bridge. Even though for the most part it puts itself up as a standup, virtuous place, there’s nothing actually barring crime from happening. People can still be jealous and petty, and set things up to hurt one another. The only real difference, in the end, seems to be the living conditions, as human nature is ultimately the same.

Despite this, Bela is still determined to one day be human. Although she couldn’t carry out justice with her own hands, she still honored Mary’s memory by finding the killer and she slowly started understanding a little more what being human is like. When she first took on Mary’s form, she thought Mary’s struggle to want to live even in the face of death was a qualification for being human. Now she understands that there’s another component: wanting to have a dream. Mary wanted her jewelry career to succeed so much that she decided to risk her life to clear her name. It’s that kind of determination that humanity has, and Bela has since learned that.

Of course, Bela has that kind of determination herself. As Belo points out, there’s no need to actually go as far as assimilating into the human world, but she does so for research. Her preparation towards something that might not end up happening, that’s a kind of determination too.