English Dub Review: Midnight Occult Civil Servants “The Parallel World Elevator of the City Hall Observation Deck”

Elevator to another dimension.

Overview:

There’s been a series of spiriting aways, and the group is dispatched to solve the case.

Our Take:

Although Pandora is pretty adamant about not stopping, the fact that it shakes Miyako is honestly, kind of hilarious? Certainly, Pandora is the first Another that is completely unfazed by the fact that she might be harming or inconveniencing humans, but she isn’t out to deliberately hurt them. It just so happens to be that they are what is harboring the negative emotions she needs to fill the box– this is as opposed to an Another that would be actively targeting humans to consume and or harm.

The second part is that Miyako doesn’t really try negotiating with her. All he does is point that her actions might be harmful to people, but when she responds that it doesn’t matter to her, he doesn’t even argue back. Of course, this could be fear or nervousness, since Miyako is obviously uncomfortable in that situation. However, then he instantly turns around and marks that as an example of how communication with some Anothers are impossible, even if they speak the same language. Kind of weird that he’s so quick to jump to a snap judgment when he doesn’t even try? Maybe this is going to be pointed out as a moral failing on Miyako’s part, but it seems so far that it’s been played pretty straight. Which is kind of a shame!

I do kind of wish this moral conundrum could have been with a more dynamic Another, instead of one that’s morally gray, but I suppose it’s easier to make a clear distinction between good and bad in this type of show. Overall, for a story setting up a morality problem, the crux of the issue being so poorly constructed only hurts the impact overall. This sort of thing needs to be firm, not flimsy.

Mostly, this seems to be setting up that Sakaki is hiding his past, specifically one we know from his internal monologue, has to do with his missing sister. It’s fairly likely to guess that at this point, she was spirited away by an Another, and he has been desperately trying to find her. His grief and longing to see her again are strong enough to bring him to Pandora, and that might be a liability later on. It’s unclear how exactly that’s going to go, but we’ll see.