Your Forma

Episode 9

For fun, without context, I'll give you some insight into my writing process when reviewing Your Forma's latest episode, with an excerpt from the notes I wrote while watching:

CHAINSAW?!
WTF WTF WTF WTF WTF
THIS IS HORRIBLE
IT'S BABYLON EPISODE 7 ALL OVER AGAIN

Let's just say I did not expect this tonal – and qualitative – heel-turn, in what is undoubtedly Your Forma's best episode to date, by a large margin. Episode nine finally gives us a flashback that contextualizes a protagonist's behavior and motivations.

Unfortunately, this isn't a return to the skipped novel volume one that introduces cyber-inspector Echika Hieda and her relationship to her Amicus robotic assistant Harold Lucraft. It looks like we're never getting that, which continues to strike me as ridiculous when director Takaharu Ozaki's stated intention with his anime adaptation was to streamline the story to focus on the two leads' relationship. Echika doesn't even appear in this episode.

What we do get is clarification on what the previously blink-and-you'll-miss-it mentions of “The Nightmare of St. Petersburg” were all about. Although I've resisted reading the original novels so that I can offer a true anime-only review experience, I at least looked online to find out where in the novels this flashback originates, and it's from volume 4. Four years prior to the story's 2024 present day, Harold is found “homeless” in St. Petersburg, Russia, by the local police. We previously learned that Harold and his two (now sadly deceased) RF Model siblings were special Amicus robots built specifically as gifts for the UK's royal family. It transpires all three were stolen, and subsequently sold at auction. Harold's new owner seemed to be a murderer, and although Harold was unable to consciously testify against him, he could not withhold consent to have his memory successfully used as evidence.

Somehow Harold then ends up “adopted” by Sozon Chernov, a detective. I don't fully understand how this happened and why Harold wasn't sent back to his owners in London, but as usual, the show doesn't seem interested in explaining much about its world or the decisions its characters make. Harold's inventor Lexie gives consent, so I suppose that means everything's okay? Human detective and Amicus robot develop a playful friendship (where have we seen this before?), with Sozon at one point confirming Harold's unique individuality, claiming he never once acted how Sozon wanted him to, stating “you're just like a little brother to me.”

Becoming an official part of the family, Harold moves in with Sozon and his wife Darya (who we briefly met, without explanation, in the first episode), and we see them, adorably, decorate a bedroom all of Harold's own, with walls painted to match his eye color. Two years later, Harold and Sozon work together investigating murders, specifically the work of the “Amicus Sympathizer serial killer”, in a case that would later become known as “The Nightmare of St. Petersburg." Well, that sounds ominous.

Eagle-eyed viewers already know that Darya's husband died at some point, knowledge which lends the episode an uneasy air of creeping dread. As Sozon becomes increasingly obsessed with tracking down the killer, working long hours and pulling all-nighters, he won't even listen to Harold's advice to take an evening off. Sadly, this leads to one of the most viscerally horrific scenes I have ever witnessed in Japanese animation.

When Sozon doesn't come home, a worried Harold tracks down his last movements and enters a secluded house, before opening a trapdoor and descending into a dark basement. It seems Lexie didn't program enough horror movie tropes into his cultural databanks, as everything about the situation screams “don't go down there, Harold, call for backup first!” Obviously, Harold's sense of dread hasn't yet developed, as he proceeds down the dark stairs to see his beloved big brother/partner gagged and strapped to a chair, desperately making muffled warning noises.

Taken by surprise by the killer, Harold is tied to a support post, gagged, and forced to watch as the perpetrator systematically dismembers a fully conscious and screaming Sozon with a chainsaw. Your Forma surprisingly doesn't hold back from depicting the sheer bloodiness of this brutal act. We see Sozon's blood splatter across the room, see his face as he recognizes the inevitability of his imminent, barbaric death, as his remorseless killer delights in causing Harold untold emotional pain. He's “only” a robot, but it's clear that Harold feels more than just what he is programmed to – the killer teaches him despair, hopelessness, and most likely, fury.

While both lurid and senseless, Sozon's death is a powerful scene that I never want to watch ever again. It could probably have been just as effectively done without such horrifying imagery of his broken body with separated limbs, but we now fully know what memories continue to torture Harold to this day. Unlike a human being's pliant, malleable, organic brain, Harold's digital memories will never lose detail, never reduce in intensity. He can likely replay every moment of pure, helpless terror, again and again, without loss of fidelity. For humans, the tendency of memories to fade can be both curse and blessing. What these experiences mean for Harold going forward, I don't know, but suddenly I find myself more interested.

Rating:

Your Forma is currently streaming on Samsung TV+ in the U.S., YouTube, and other services worldwide on Wednesdays.