Dimension W

Episode 8

This episode opens up with a brief summation of Salva's backstory. He's the adopted son of a vaguely North African King, intended to inherit the throne. But the second Salva's adoption was finalized, the king produces a biological child – Lwai – who immediately becomes the new heir apparent, relegating Salva to grand vizier duties. This takes us to where we are now, with Salva's plot to do something for Lwai's sake.

Following that burst of characterization, Salva proceeds to spend the entire episode unconscious after the energy ball wrecks their transport ship. All of the Collectors – minus the German mole twins – emerge from the wreckage together alongside Lwai, but Salva, Lasithi, and Sanchos (the guy of the Mexican duo) have been knocked out. They arrive at a cabin, where a TV plays a recording of Salva saying that their mission is super serious and should be completed even if he's taken out. (This recording somehow plays on all of the many TVs scattered throughout the island's wasteland, even the clearly broken ones. There's also a shot of Loser looking at some of them that emphasizes his strange resemblance to Persona 4's Izanagi.) The Collectors get going, with Mexican catgirl Cassidy staying behind to make sure that their bosses' comatose bodies aren't murdered or something. Zombies have also shown up in the basement, because Dimension W does that, I guess. At that point, the energy ball comes back to inspect Cassidy. It looks like she's done for, but Lasithi suddenly wakes up to explain that it's “only interested in men,” so it leaves them alone. (“What a homo!” Cassidy exclaims, raising the implication that Dimension W is somehow both male and capable of sexual attraction.) Lwai runs off to fight robots and complete his mysterious mission. When they're alone, two of the most standoffish collectors – Russian tough guy Yuri Antonov and wannabe Tarantino character K.K. – get into an altercation. K.K. captures Antonov and performs some kind of nasty-looking surgery on him. As usual, all motivations are still unclear.

Back with our actual main characters, things make slightly more sense. They're going to go find the coil that created this big mess. While fighting robots, they run into the German mole twins, who are honestly pretty adorable. They team up, with the twins clearing out the path that Kyouma used during his traumatic mission several years ago. Driving through the tunnel, Kyouma has some kind of Dimension W-fueled panic attack. They're stopped when Loser shows up, because it's just not a party without him. At this point, the episode abruptly ends.

Well, that all did nothing to provide cohesion to an already scattershot series. Dimension W has always suffered from a lack of momentum, but it's reaching critical mass now. (Ironically, right when our heroes are approaching a location known as a dead zone for energy.) Up to this point, no episode in the African prince/Easter Island arc has segued into the next very well, but now that can be said for any scene within the episodes themselves. What does Salva want with the Easter Island coil? What's the deal with robo-Lwai? What is that black energy ball, and why is it only into dudes? What does Loser want? And why is the show ignoring our two leads (who are already under-developed) to focus on a bunch of gimmicky bit players? And most importantly, why should I care about anything that's happening at this point?

Kyouma's backstory arrived arbitrarily, and now Salva's does too. How does this all come together into a cohesive whole? I mean, there's creating a sense of mystery and suspense, and then there's just tossing plot points against the wall without any sense of an overall narrative structure. If good pacing juggles its narrative threads, Dimension W spills them all on the floor and expects you to sort them out yourself. This show has a promising premise, but it's wasted on a delivery where each scene feels arbitrary. Why characterize Salva at the beginning of an episode where he is otherwise absent? Even then, we didn't learn anything about what he wants to do. He was disinherited and may have a chip on his shoulder because of that, but this was the point to reveal the character's intentions in more detail, because otherwise, I don't know what all this runaround is supposed to mean. Why all the secrecy? The Collector's mission seems to differ from Lwai's. Why does their real goal need so much cover, and how is all this supposed to save their nation? Dimension W has crippled itself by withholding information.

At least Mira has finally called Kyouma out on his attitude. After last week's articulation of his dead girlfriend past, it strikes me that there's a chance that Mira is his dead girlfriend, now robot-ified. This would be the lamest, most cliché course of action possible, but Dimension W has thus far not shied away from lame clichés. Oh well.

I have to say that this episode entertained me somewhat more than the previous one, if only because it was so off-the-wall. If last week was conventional to a fault, this week was incompetent in a more complex and interesting way. A lot of the show's faults are probably due to the director, Kanta Kamei, who unfortunately cannot direct a compelling action scene to save his life. With a general writing quality that skirts the line between competence and incompetence, Dimension W could have been solidly enjoyable (peaking at something like the gorgeous but boilerplate Samurai Champloo), but that didn't happen. It seems like the dimension where Dimension W is a good show exists only in a realm of other possibilities.

Grade: C

Dimension W is currently streaming on Funimation.

Gabriella Ekens studies film and literature at a US university. Follow her on twitter.