Caligula

Episode 12

For most of its runtime, Caligula's final episode is a hot mess, so poorly directed and shoddily paced that I was unsure it could possibly recover. The episode first wastes valuable time by needlessly recapping all of Ritsu's character development from last week as he hightails it back to Mobius with Aria. Back with the Go-Home Club, Kotono gets to share her own personal history, since she was interrupted by Marie's grenades a couple weeks ago, and it turns out she's a single mom who would rather live out a virtual life as a beautiful teenager than care for her son. As is the case with every other character in this series, it's too little and too late, and the moment feels especially awkward since Kotono is just stopping to monologue her backstory at everyone as the world around them falls apart. Above them, μ's sadness and desperation has transformed into raging anguish, and she even takes on a dark new form to reflect her apocalyptic intentions.

This is where the Ostinato Musicians make their long overdue appearance as antagonists, but anyone hoping for one last team showdown is going to be sorely disappointed; despite taking the time to show everyone transforming and donning their Catharsis Effects, the battle cuts away before anyone lands a single punch, instead choosing to cut back to Shogo's one-on-one fight with Thorn/Ichika. It's a poorly executed encounter overall, with sloppy art and janky animation sapping any sense of urgency or tension from the episode. Plus, all we learn about this version of Ichika is that she's an avatar of Asuka Natsume, some obsessive stalker of the real-world Ichika that harbors a grudge against Shogo for Ichika's death and his own loneliness. That's all well and good, but saving such a trite reveal for the show's climax is just another question mark to be tossed into the pile of puzzling choices Caligula has made.

None of this fighting matters much anyway, as Ritsu shows up in the nick of time so Aria can send everyone back to the real world and take on μ by himself. Surprisingly, this is where the episode began to pick up. The scene between Ritsu and μ adopts the same dreamlike watercolors that marked the last conversation they shared, but it feels much more fully realized here, with the colors and tones not coming across so much like a cheap filter. The dialogue that Ritsu and μ share consists mostly of cliché platitudes about how humans are contradictory creatures that are made up of love and fear in equal measures, but the actors do their best to sell the otherwise shaky material. Reina Ueda especially imbues μ with a life and personality that Caligula's script was never able to live up to; it's too bad that μ ended up more as a plot device than a real character, because I think Ueda could develop her into a really solid tragic villain with better material.

It's when Ritsu at last pulls the trigger on his tragic creation that the episode really blossoms, however, and it's a shame that Caligula's best sequence only manages to fill up the final few minutes of its final episode. This is where we see glimpses of the Go-Home Club members returning to their real-world lives: Kotono goes back to her son, Suzuna possibly reunites with Shonen-Doll, Mifue apologizes to her mother, Izuru takes back his life from his mother, Naruko gets started on her light novel, and even Shogo steps back out into the sunlight. Ritsu is even shown speaking to a restored μ, and I almost felt the faintest wisp of nostalgia as he reached out to touch her hand before the credits rolled. Given how bad Caligula's writing has been this season, the pathos these sequences evoke is completely unearned, but it is there; the show even adds the neat touch of superimposing the characters with their silhouettes until they each reach their moment of personal fulfillment. It's a genuinely well-done sequence, and it offers yet another look at what a better version of Caligula might have looked like.

Unfortunately, the Caligula we got was mostly an incoherent mess. The characters were too thin for the drama to work, and the action promised in the series' flashy OP barely existed in the episodes themselves. Perhaps The Caligula Effect is a more satisfying version of this story, but whether you look at this anime adaptation as a standalone product or a commercial for the game, Caligula mostly fails to leave any impact whatsoever. This show was so forgettable that most weeks I struggled to even remember it existed, and I got paid to review it! You're better off watching or playing Persona instead.

Rating: C-

Caligula is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

James is an English teacher who has loved anime his entire life, and he spends way too much time on Twitter and his blog.