Infinite Dendrogram

Episode 13

So after one more delay, the last episode of Infinite Dendrogram is here. Not quite ‘infinite’ but it still feels like we've been with this series for quite a while for a one-cour series. Along with some last-minute elements dropped into the wrap-up here, it also means I'm a bit glad so many late-game twists were loaded on the previous episode, giving me some big points of reference to hold onto while I waited an extra week for this finale. It also means that this final episode gets to feel less overstuffed itself, at least going out on a balanced note in terms of structure, even as it hasn't really followed through on much of its conceptual stuff.

It's kind of funny that some of my bigger criticisms of the previous episode were focused on Infinite Dendrogram showing off too much too quickly in terms of reveals like Shu's powers or the protagonists' knowledge of Marie's true identity. The reason being that in this one I take issue with how coyly it skirts around a major reveal. The biggest driving questions raised in this final episode revolve around the true nature of Dendrogram's world, and the way that affects how Ray and Franklin see it. There's something to be said about how we as anime viewers at this point just take hyper-realistic VRMMO games at face-value as story conceits, when in actual reality such a level of interactivity and immersion would be wholly unbelievable. Such as it is that the occasionally-repeated refrain in the show of 'Is this really a game?' takes shape with Franklin and Ray making clear that they're asking that question genuinely, and they may be onto something. Whether it's a full alternate universe or a true place of purely digital creation isn't elaborated on, but the fidelity of Dendrogram as a place marks it and its inhabitants as ‘real’, regardless.

The lack of further specification here is what hurts any point the series is trying to make in my eyes. The full detailed history of how Infinite Dendrogram was either found or founded isn't lore I'm keenly interested in, but making the conceit of the core question clear without even hinting at an answer makes it come across like just one more hook dangled out to be elaborated on later as a way to keep what plot this series has moving. Dendrogram hasn't shied away from at least attempting philosophical fights between characters before, so for Franklin's revelation that his extent of knowledge about it amounts to “Hey, I don't know either” comes off like the series delaying an interesting point at best, and a sign that the author hasn't figured it out yet themselves at worst. It means that the conceptual argument that drives Ray's forceful final blows against Franklin is one we've already tread before: Even by artificial standards, the tians are people with agency so killing them is bad. Franklin's been portrayed as a gleefully evil villain from day one, so revealing that he knows this and enacts his horrors out of a general real-world sociopathy rather than mere disregard for supposed video-game characters is unnecessary to paint him as the big bad guy or drive Ray's quest to stop him. So both hero and villain come away with little character depth as a result.

But it's danced around the potentially-interesting conceptual questions of its own premise so often that I can't say I was really expecting that level of thematic resonance here at the end of Infinite Dendrogram. As far as wrapping up an actual single-season narrative, the show does so with enough style that I can call it reasonably satisfying. It continues to do this thing where it shows off the impossible powers of veteran players, like an earth mage who crushes Franklin's underground-beastie contingency plan with but a mere thought. As I've mentioned before, I actually like displays like that in how it makes clear that Ray isn't the most overpowered character on this supernatural server. And Ray gets some good moves in finishing off Franklin, doing stuff like punching his own arm off or wielding Nemesis's sword form with his teeth! It's the kind of crazy that actually got me into Dendrogram for that stretch in the middle, and I was glad to see a return to form at the finish line. If it's not dwelling on its ideas, it's at least good to see the show still having fun with itself. It means that even for the points where it devolves into a few more over-detailed ability explanations or trots out another late-game character backstory, it never feels like too much of a slog.

Said backstory is actually rather minimally explained since we technically already got it: Franklin's real-world identity turns out to be Hugo's older sister, explaining their devotion to the mad scientist apart from daft faith in obviously-evil methods. It presents a moderately-interesting balance to Rook's attempts to talk Hugo out of following Franklin last episode, since we already know the depths of Hugo's feelings towards faithfully protecting family. It's an effective follow-through on the concepts brought up in previous episodes of why people play these games and how they go about doing so. Even as the reshuffling also exists in service of setting places for whatever story comes after this, if not in anime form yet.

And that's your lot for Infinite Dendrogram at this point. As I feared, the plot about Marie's true identity is brushed off with a lighthearted rematch between her and Ray that we don't even get to see start before the final credits roll. A bunch of other high-level players are name-checked to make clear that I was mistaken in thinking that the show didn't have enough left to show us. Ray and Hugo might be encountering each other in real life?! It's a watchable enough show with plenty of ‘stuff’ in it that will make it fun for plenty of people. But I find myself frustrated at how showing off all that stuff often came at the expense of the ideas it could have explored with its setup. It was still fine, but won't change any minds about the VRMMO genre of anime.

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Infinite Dendrogram is currently streaming on Funimation.