English Dub Review: Boogiepop and Others “Overdrive: The King of Distortion 4”

It was in you all along.

Overview:

The Temple escalates, and secrets are uncovered.

Our Take:

The most important part of the episode comes at the end, with Teratsuki’s last recording. Teratsuki’s video that he left behind is quite revealing, as it shows several of his motives. He is an artificial human, as I expected, created by Towa to control the economy. He did succeed in that respect, having gained the ability to be extremely successful business-wise, but became a little too good at his job. He reveals via video that while there aren’t any rulers of society, there are overseers trying to manipulate it- and that is Towa. From what we have seen so far, Towa’s reach spreads incredibly far, with each storyline featuring at least one synthetic human working for them, whether they realize it or not. Teratsuki is one of them, although he’s since lost interest in the organization and defected, in his own way.

The purpose of the Moon Temple is to attract those with potential and to eventually give them access to the final room. If they made it far enough to encounter Teratsuki’s video, then they have the potential to survive against and possibly stop Towa’s plans. While Teratsuki is dead and had no intention of raising the final sword against Towa himself, he isn’t very pleased with them trying to control everything. This is his rebellion for the future, in his own way.

One of the most important things in the video is something that he doesn’t mention: the King of Distortion. Considering that Teratsuki comes completely clean about what his motives are and what caused them, it’s unlikely that he’d leave out something so important. From this, we can guess one of two things about the King: one, that he wasn’t created by Teratsuki, and two, that he is likely inhabiting the Moon Temple out of convenience. The King seems to be almost testing people; he constantly refers to his actions as running an experiment and is overall quite passive. He isn’t classified as a threat to humanity just yet, although if he matures he likely could be. While this could be simply because he doesn’t inhabit a physical form, the King seems more interested in seeing how people react, and if people accept him, rather than creating damage himself. In comparison to Teratsuki’s Temple being a physical obstruction, the King is rather distant. It seems that they happen to coincide, rather than something that was brought together by design.