English Dub Review: Code:Realize “Forgiveness for the Past”

Monster is sometimes in the eye of the beholder.

Overview (Spoilers)

Cardia is in shock. She just discovered her father’s hidden lab. In it, a dozen or so copies of her. She is a homonculus, an artificial human, and it seems she may just be precision engineered to be the monster everyone believed her to be. Frankenstein reveals he had suspicions of such but didn’t want to say anything. It wouldn’t have done anything but hurt her. Cardia runs off on her own, returning to the country home that once kept her prisoner in the hopes of finding some hidden clue as to her father’s plans. There is a fear here, however. A dark portion of her history she wishes to leave behind. A time where she ran away from her father and tried to hide with a single mother and her daughter. Things did not go well. The townspeople treated her as a monster and locked her and her new friend in a tiny cave together. The fumes from Cardia’s poison killed the woman before she could get ventilation for her. Ever since then, Cardia could not forgive herself and voluntarily locked herself away in her father’s country house.

In the modern day, she discovers a hidden compartment in her old room. In it is a note for her from her father. She doesn’t get much of a chance to read it since the townsfolk have realized she’s back. A mob gathers outside, wanting nothing more than to tear her limb from acidic limb in the vain hopes that doing so will lift the disease and starvation from the village. Just as they are about to descend upon her, Lupin arrives to carry her away. As he does, he shouts to the townspeople to stop listening to their charlatan priest, who had been leading the people on this insane hunt in the first place. The two run away and make camp for the night in the forest. Guilt continues to eat away at Cardia until Lupin consoles her with his story. His teacher was a great thief, and one who also stole from the corrupt to give to the needy. However, there was one great shame in his life. Something he had run away from, rather than face, and the guilt drove him to drink. When a gig went south, his teacher got shot by his accomplices. Lupin was the one who informed the police of the gig in the first place. That was the past that he ran from. It is for that reason, he can see the guilt weighing on her. Because of that, he sees her not as a monster, but as a normal girl. As they head back to the railroad, they encounter the daughter of the woman Cardia’s poison killed. She tells them not to go that way. The mob is waiting up ahead. She can’t forgive Cardia for the death of her mother, but she doesn’t see the homonculous as a bad person either. She certainly doesn’t deserve to get killed. The pair makes their way to the train by a different route, and Lupin reads the note Beckford left for Cardia: A mathematical formula and a letter. If she were to ever feel lost, She was to go to St. Paul’s Cathedral to join her father underground. There, he would be working on his secret project. Code: Realize, his terrorist plot. The same thing Lupin’s teacher and from all those years ago.

Our Take

Yay! An episode with some content and plot development! After that silly blimp race last episode, this one does a much better job deepening the two main characters. Not by much, mind you, but it does give them a bit more story foundation to stand on. The episode threatens to force Cardia into a backslide, riddling her with guilt and self-hatred all over again. To be honest, I wish that she had stood up for herself against that mob instead of backing down. I’m not against Lupin saving her from their assault, but I would have liked to see her progress instead of regress at exposure to her past. Lupin’s story was one I’d been hoping to see. We’d gotten the backstory of everyone in the cast except for St. Germaine, and getting Lupin’s motivations in all this is helpful. He’s basically attempting to undo the misdeeds of his teacher, thereby absolving his own guilt in his teacher’s death. This led him to London and saw him to gather the group. It’s a good ambition and one that seems in keeping with his character.

The dialogue wasn’t poorly written at all. The translation fit the characters’ mouth-movements well and didn’t sound forced or artificial at all. In fact, I feel like Jill Harris (Cardia) and J. Michael Tatum (Lupin) gave better performances this week. Both characters felt like they had a bit more depth and breadth of their emotion. This means a lot for Cardia, who typically sounds so sullen and flatlined. Lupin gave more than just his charismatic best. There actually was a hint of vulnerability in him here, which I don’t often see in Tatum’s work.

I’ve honestly just grown bored with the visuals of this show. It is rare for there to be any compelling camera work. The shots are straightforward, static, and lacking in drama. The best animation we see in this episode are the filters they have overlaying everything for shots where the light shines through falling dust. Otherwise, the characters don’t move a whole lot. Cheats are done to make you think they are moving more than they really are, but they’re a whole lot more pronounced than other anime I watched.