I can’t shake the vibe that there’s more here than met the eye. But we’ll get to that soon enough. With Undead Girl Murder Farce back in pure mystery mode, this ep was a mix of stunning stylistic flourishes and an occasionally disjointed narrative. It didn’t seem to flow as naturally as most episodes have so far – the look was as elegant as ever, but the writing drifted into clumsy territory here and there. Since this week was clearly a build-up to the real fireworks, I suspect there might have been some awkward pacing issues for the anime to deal with.
As for the mystery itself, I don’t trust the mayor’s narrative (or the mayor himself) one bit. His recollections were beautifully drawn and animated, but his story was full of holes. That bit about testing the outsiders was interesting – it didn’t go as dark as I was expecting. But everyone in town is lying about whole Rosa and Jutte affair – including Cnut, the “outsider” engineer who says he found the injured pregnant woman in the woods (and fell in love with her). In mystery stories like this most of the liars have elements of truth in their lies, and I’m sure that’s the case here. But I’m pretty certain that the werewolf mother and daughter are the key to the whole scenario.
What about the mayor’s story that werewolves evolve through selective breeding? Well, the fact that the one we met at the end of the episode indeed seemed immune to silver bullets lends credence to it. And his reference to the kindsfuhrer, the supposed super-werewolf (“it’s a God to them”) that might have been born? That we have no evidence to support at this point, and until given reason to believe otherwise I’m going to assume it’s just a story.
Then we have Alma (Nabatame Hitomi) who also seems to be critical to the whole situation. An outsider artist living at the edge of the woods who claims to see a golden wolf no one else has seen? Not only that, she paints pictures of dead girls, and Aya notes that she lied about being a trained artist from an artistic family. It’s all very neat and tidy and would tie up a lot of loose ends very neatly, especially given what happens at the end of the episode. But it’s all too obvious for me to take it at face value.
Then we have two more Royce agents (briefly teased last week), Alice Rapidshot (Asai Ayaka) and Kyle Chaintail (Nozawa Sou). With their ludicrous costumes and even more ludicrous names these Royce folks feel like they fell out of Baccano! and into UMGF. That’s no bad thing, and said I smelled a “whiff of Baccano!” in this show way back after the premiere. But Kyle’s character design is a bit… And generally I don’t find these Royce guys as charismatic as most of the cast. Kyle at least is willing to cut a deal with Aya when persuaded that it’s in both their best interests. With Banquet also having arrived (but not announced themselves) the action is certain to ramp up last week.
As to what’s really going on here, I’m not sure except that it’s nothing so simple as Alma being the culprit. The way her “transformation” was shown was odd, for starters, and we never saw her face. I haven’t figured out how Jutte and Louise fit together either (perhaps in the ultimate sense – the flashbacks hint at it), though after this week I’m even more convinced that they do. Jutte being the one behind all this as some sort of revenge plot is one realistic possibility, though somehow I’m not convinced that werewolves are the ruthless killers the villagers portray them as.
Nicc
September 9, 2023 at 8:24 amI too am not buying that the mystery has been solved already and there’s more that we haven’t seen yet. There are things that don’t really add up yet. The bit about the selective breeding to create the ultimate werewolf suggests that there are female and male werewolves. The only werewolves we have been shown so far are females, which includes Alma, if that’s indeed her. It does appear that everybody in the village is hiding something.
In the middle of the mystery, the two Royce agents have made their way to the village and make some trouble for our trio. Just like with the mayor, Aya manages to cut a deal with them too. We also get to see Tsugaru… “recharge” with Aya for the first time since the first episode. I’m assuming that this is at least a semi-regular ritual that Shizuku still can’t get used to after all this time. Aya was about to say something about the window (The broken window with the debris on the outside, I assume. This suggests that somebody broke out instead of in), but is interrupted by a sudden commotion at Alma’s hut. She appears to transform into a werewolf, a golden one that she brought up earlier. Right, we don’t see her face and it could be a performance art like Tsugaru is always doing. The werewolf escapes and the trio gives chase, along with the two Royce agents.
As you mentioned earlier, silver bullets don’t work on it and it tries to yeet Aya over the waterfall. Shizuku makes the save, but it looks like she’s going to unexpectedly drop in on the werewolf village below. Tsugaru’s genuine concern does show that their relationship is more than just a bickering pair. The arrival of Banquet in the last arc changed the direction of diamond heist. I expect that they’ll do the same when they make it to the village. We already know that they don’t handle things with kid gloves and so things will indeed ramp up next week.
Rasu
September 12, 2023 at 7:14 amI think it was all a farce, especially because of the monotonous “nooo!” -Aya shouted-. I think there is a small chance that Alma is a werewolf but not the culprit and of course that she worked together with Aya to fool Banquet, Royce and the doctor himself (quite possibly the real culprit). The werewolf village is supposedly behind the falls, then the accident happens on the river that could connect to it, in front of enough eyes to give them an excuse to do a solo search since they are no longer needed because “crime It’s already been resolved.” (without yet breaking the verbal contract with Royce and allowing enough loophole to fool them along with Banquet and the mayor).
To me, the girl in the wheelchair is not only obviously suspicious as well as the key to everything, but she also shares an eerily similar appearance to the presumed dead werewolf girl. I think there were actually more werewolves and more people who knew the truth, so the wheelchair girl, the werewolf girl, and Alma were very aware of it and they were also complicit in the whole charade (which began on that fateful night during the flashback of the first episode), maybe that includes the parents too, but I have my doubts about the extent to which they knew the whole truth. Both girls may have swapped places at some point, but even though they weren’t responsible for the other girls’ deaths, they knew who the culprit was and used the scenario he set up so that she (the wolf pretending to be the other girl) could escape. He, the doctor, must be the silver wolf, which is why he was looking for her with the gun in hand to get rid of her, until he was interrupted by the protagonists to use them as an alibi.
On the other hand, the girl is the one with whom Baquet would try to experiment with (the evolved wolf).
It’s very possible that not only will the doctor let his guard down now, thinking that he got what he wanted with Alma saying all that and blaming himself, but also, The Banquet must already be waiting for them at the entrance to the werewolf village.
Given the opening image, either the girl has scars from that night, or unfortunately Banquet will manage to get hold of her to fuse her with Aya’s body.
Rasu
September 12, 2023 at 7:18 amI forgot to mention that I also think that Tsugaru purposedly messes up with Shizuku whenever he exchanges fluids with Aya (and that Aya is aware of that). I think that, more than being close to her, they’re all collaborating as always, with he acting as if he’s worried about her as part of the charade as well.
Guardian Enzo
September 12, 2023 at 7:48 amI agree with that, pretty much. The three of them know their dynamic very well – it’s a sort of performance.
Simone
September 12, 2023 at 3:25 pmSome kind of farce involving murder and an undead girl, if you wish.