English Dub Review: RErideD: Derrida, Who Leaps Through Time “The Time Leaper”

Leapin’ lizards!

Overview (Spoilers!)

Yuri shows Derrida the video that Mage left behind when she ran away. Videaux explains that the government brought in Rebuild to fix the DZ situation, so no one is holding them responsible. Yuri theorizes that Rebuild might have a lead on where to find Mage, so they plan to break into Rebuild’s office to steal the data.

The gang drives through an eerie tunnel. Yuri takes issue with Videaux’s reluctance to help anyone for free. Suddenly, DZs swarm the group. Derrida realizes that the DZs are almost out of battery and are only moving in reaction to the car’s lights. If they can get past the DZs without triggering their censors, the group should be okay. But when Graham’s wheels crunch over some debris, the DZs are activated. Videaux barrels the car through them.

They transfer Graham’s AI to Derrida’s phone, and, using Derrida’s old employee card, he and Videaux sneak into Rebuild. Videaux stresses that he is opposed to revenge on principle, so he won’t help Derrida get revenge on Andrei.

They split up to search the offices, and Derrida logs onto the system as Nathan. While trying to remember the details of Mage’s party, Derrida once again sees Ange, who tells him that Mage is waiting for him. Derrida is suddenly overcome with the need to kill Andrei but stops when he remembers Videaux’s advice. Derrida hallucinates a snowstorm and his old apartment. Videaux announces that he’s copied every file related to Mage. Just as Derrida finds shocking info on Nathan’s account, Yuri calls to say that security is coming.

The alarms sound. Yuri drives Graham to meet them, even though she’s never driven a car before. Videaux manages to shoot his way through the building’s security systems. They leap onto the car, drive through the city wall, and escape. Derrida shows them what he learned: that the DZ bug was put in intentionally, engineered by Rebuild and the government from the start. Videaux promises to help with his plan to find Mage and end the war. Derrida realizes that his flashback somehow changed the past?

Our Take

Wait, what?

So let me get this straight. Derrida has a weird hallucination-flashback of standing in his apartment when he should have been at Mage’s party, and now Yuri has camera footage of him being late to the party because he was too busy standing in his apartment to show up on time? What? I don’t understand what just happened at all.

That being said, this is by far my favorite episode of RErideD to date. This show has no idea how to write believable emotions, but when episodes focus on the science-fictional thriller elements of this story, the writers actually pull off something entertaining. Even the animation is a step up from past installments: characters’ faces are more detailed, and shots of the derelict city are nicely painted. Once again, this show succeeds at creating a tense and creepy ambiance during the DZ encounters—that shot of the DZ leaning down and shining its red eyes through Videaux’s windshield is seriously terrifying.

The worldbuilding in this episode actually makes sense. We learn that war is still on and that the internet infrastructure has been damaged, but no one cares about fixing it anywhere but in the wealthy city center. Videaux’s explanation—that the government wouldn’t try to get justice for the faulty robots they commissioned lest they are held liable—seems reasonable to my limited understanding of legalese. And the revelation that Rebuild and the government planned the DZ malfunction from the beginning is a surprising twist that also elicits an “Of course they did!” from an astute viewer. I really like the social commentary here too—that while wars may seem like they’re fought for some great righteous purpose, often governments only wage them so that powerful members of society can profit. I’m digging this.

And I enjoy the way that Derrida and Videaux work together, combining Derrida’s knowledge of the DZs and Videaux’s street smarts. Derrida admits that he hacked into the company system when he worked there so that he could stay and work after-hours, and he’s such a nerdy goody-two-shoes that I can’t help but laugh. Videaux’s thoughts on revenge are surprisingly profound, and I love the way he becomes a more complex character every episode. Plus, unless you’re about to write a new Hamlet or Sweeney Todd, most revenge tragedy plots have been done to death already. I’m glad it seems like we won’t have to sit through one here.

Other parts of the episode make less sense. Like, uh—what was the point of going through that tunnel to get to Rebuild when they could have just driven through the wall in the first place? How is Graham so sturdy that constant crashes—and Videaux literally shooting a gun through the windshield—don’t result in any dents or cracked glass? Plus, the dialogue is still awkward as ever. When Derrida asks Videaux to elaborate on his info about the tunnel, he randomly doesn’t answer for like two minutes. And why, pray tell, in this world of killer robots and government assassinations, would Yuri jump to the conclusion that people who disappeared in a tunnel were killed by a ghost? Give me a break. Honestly, for someone who’s so chill about being shot at or driving a car into walls, Yuri’s terror at the spooky cave is bizarrely exaggerated—because the writers think women are easily spooked, I guess.

And, ugh. Mayuka says she thinks Yuri and Derrida would be cute together, and I almost gagged at the most ridiculous forced romance I’ve ever seen. She’s underage, he’s old enough to be her father, and he knew her when she was seven years old. Who wants this romance? Who ships this?! To be honest, at this episode’s opening, I thought Yuri and Mage had a thing going. I mean, they used to live together, and Mage tells Yuri “I love you” in that video, and her name is literally Yuri. So pardon me if I don’t run out and pair her up to with the first bland male character I see.

Sometimes, this show is just so weird. Videaux refuses to leave Graham behind, so they… leave the car chilling in the tunnel with Yuri and Mayuka, and upload the AI to Derrida’s phone, for… no reason? I can understand Videaux’s reluctance to just abandon his car, and it’s a cute scene—Graham says “I can’t endorse this plan of action,” and Derrida lovingly strokes the hood. But they didn’t abandon the car—they left it with Yuri. So why the need to put the AI on Derrida’s phone? Also, why did we skip from that to them already in the Rebuild office? You’re not going to show us a scene of them breaking into the building?! Really? Plus, why would Nathan’s password be happy birthday just because his last login was the day of Mage’s party? He didn’t necessarily set the password that day, right? How did Derrida guess it on the first try? 

But what I really don’t understand is the sequence between Derrida and Ange. After he sees her, he suddenly gets taken over by this intense need to kill Andrei, and it comes out of nowhere. Why did he ever have a gun in his old lab, and why is it still there all these years later? But more importantly, what’s his plan? Andrei isn’t even in the building! Derrida’s just going to grab his gun, run out of the office in the middle of his breaking-and-entering reconnaissance mission, and go to Andrei’s home for some good old-fashioned murder?! WHAT?!?!?!?!?

So, there you have it. Sometimes this episode is fun, like when Yuri haphazardly swerves Graham down the highway and declares, “I’m definitely getting my license this year!” Sometimes it makes literally no sense at all, like when Yuri is sitting in the back seat of the car and somehow takes a head-on, front-facing picture of Derrida, who is sitting in the front seat and doesn’t even really turn around. But hey, at least it isn’t boring.