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Caligula
Episode 3

by James Beckett,

How would you rate episode 3 of
Caligula ?
Community score: 3.5

Caligula's third episode takes an interesting approach following μ's revelation from last week, by choosing not to address it at all. In the end, maybe two or three minutes of this episode are devoted to Ritsu aimlessly wandering the city until he finally decides to meet up with Shogo and get an explanation out of him. The other twenty minutes eschew all that to hone in on Mifue, as her own search for answers about her missing mother places her smack dab in the middle of a rather twisted take on Alice's mad tea party. As a standalone story, Mifue's trip down the virtual rabbit hole has some merit, especially in how it takes advantage of Mobius' elastic and ominous properties as a setting. As a piece of Caligula's increasingly jumbled rising action though, episode 3 is a mess that leaves me with some pressing concerns about the direction this anime is headed.

The story starts off strong, as Mifue follows some conspicuous ads to join up with SweetP and her tea party from hell, where she's forced to wear cutesy clothing and put on saccharine affectations in order to communicate with the goth-lolita princess and her off-putting cronies. This lengthy sequence is well-directed, doing a good job of communicating Mobius' unease and SweetP's particular brand of maniacal charm. Also invited to the tea party is the obsessive blogger Naruko, and I appreciated finally seeing her get involved in the action. SweetP herself serves as a convenient introduction to the series' set of antagonistic fashionistas, the Ostinato Musicians. We still have no idea what their goals are, outside of working vaguely to oppose our protagonists, but the presence of more traditional villains helps provide Caligula with a stronger narrative foundation.

However, the episode takes a turn when SweetP and her cronies begin grotesquely indulging in mountains of food, with the underlings becoming more engorged and misshapen as they wolf down bowls of ramen and cakes. This leads to Mifue completely breaking down, as she angrily raves against not just the girls in front of her, but all fat people in general, as she finds them inherently disgusting. We also learn that she inadvertently wished her gaunt and sickly mother away, since she was sick of being unable to eat comfortably around her. It's still unclear whether or not the sickly mother was just as much of a fake as the replacement, but otherwise this jarring character turn does make sense on paper, despite being presented so poorly.

The Persona influences remain obvious here, as Mifue's story feels right at home with the introductory dungeons of games like Persona 4, which used the psychological nature of their dungeons to set up the main cast of characters. The main difference between Caligula's approach vs. Persona's has to do with economy of characterization. Mifue's story isn't given enough time to be properly established before we see the cracks in her personality show; outside of her issues with her mother's eating disorder, we've gotten to know almost nothing about her personality or life before this week. Because of this, her disdain for obese people makes her incredibly unlikable, where it might have played differently if we had seen how her relationship with her mother and anxieties over her own body image might have led to these issues. There's a line or two from SweetP that suggests Mifue might be overweight in the real world, but it just isn't clear enough to pay off emotionally yet.

The conclusion of the episode rings false too, as SweetP is herself revealed to be an overweight and unpopular male blogger, but only because Naruko conveniently remembers some of the real SweetP's tics and catchphrases. This makes SweetP's embarrassment and retreat feel both unearned and lacking in context. What did SweetP stand to gain from any of this? What have she and the other Musicians lost in their defeat? Mifue seems to have learned nothing of importance this week; she's already figured out that she lives in a digital construct of a world and that her mother has been taken from her due to μ's meddling. Everything beyond is lacking too much context to feel worthwhile yet.

By the time Ritsu makes his way to Shogo at the end of the episode, it feels like remarkably little has been accomplished. We know a little more about Mifue, but that knowledge doesn't shed light on anything meaningful just yet. Naruko has bumbled her way into the plot, but it's difficult to get excited about adding new members to the cast when the ones we've already met still haven't had the chance to do anything important. There's still time for Caligula to pull its disparate pieces together into something more cohesive, but this kind of haphazard plotting is never a good sign.

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.


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