Active Raid

Episode 12

The title of this season's final Active Raid, “For Whom Does Order Exist?”, seems like a pretty good question for a better show to explore. But as far as the show we're actually watching goes, Active Raid ended with all the grace and excitement it could likely muster. This wasn't a truly great episode, but it was a fine episode of Active Raid, and ending on a respectable note is all I could hope for from this show.

In the wake of the fumbling USDF actions that concluded last week's episode, Mythos opened this episode with full control of Japan's entire digital network. While the stuffy politicians bickered about assigning blame, Mythos revealed one more trump card - the stupid web app Liko, which he'd apparently seeded with a program that could take over any computer it was installed on. One of Active Raid's best qualities is its fatigued sense of humor about the modern world, and having the breakdown of society be predicated on downloading annoying apps was one more great sign of the times.

From there, the episode hurried through a series of negotiations and feints and political maneuverings, as Mythos and Bird tested their relationship while the government attempted to maintain some sense of control. This material was compelling enough in that usual Active Raid “all in a day's work” way - the show rarely feels legitimately dramatic, but can still keep its plot movements entertaining.

In the end, Unit 8 were able to corner Mythos by using information from Bird and jamming his administrator access in one specific stakeout location. This led to one of the show's most compelling fight scenes, where nearly the entire Unit 8 team worked together to fight off a much stronger Willwear while staying within the boundaries of their jamming units. And as the members of Unit 8 sternly announced Mythos' technological isolation, we finally got his actual origin story.

Apparently, Mythos had once been the child leader of an apocalyptic cult, who committed mass suicide in an incident known as the “Fruit of Tragedy.” In the wake of that incident, Mythos found himself trapped within Japan, having lost contact with his sister after she was moved overseas. And so, in an echo of the various episodic antagonists who'd all found themselves unable to adjust to modern Japan, Mythos' anger was born of isolation, of an inability to find meaning and connection in an order that clearly did not exist for him.

This backstory made some sense given the show's themes, but it was both underwritten and delivered far too late in the narrative to have any real significance. Why should we care about Mythos' unhappiness, if it was born of him leading a cult to suicide? And how is his problem in any way the government's fault? Active Raid clearly wants to make some kind of point about the dehumanizing dangers of bureaucracy and uneven justice of the modern world, but by leaving its principal antagonist a cipher until revealing him as a one-note villain at the end (“I just wanted friends!”), it's unable to arrive at a point with any kind of weight. For a story like this to spark reflection in the viewer, it has to be conceivable that both sides are in the right or in the wrong; here, “child leader of suicide cult is sad because he can't see his sister” doesn't leave much room for moral ambiguity.

That said, the failings of Mythos as a character are more a general flaw of the show than an issue specific to this episode. As far as finales go, this episode moved well, hit its idea and character notes with relative competence, and tied up basically all of the show's lingering threads. You did okay, Active Raid.

Overall: B+

Active Raid is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

Nick writes about anime, storytelling, and the meaning of life at Wrong Every Time.