Silent Mobius - 22: Crying

Title:Silent Mobius
Episode:22: Crying
Synopsis
Episode 22: CRYING / 暗転 = Anten; for its double meaning see ↗here. I would use the second option, hinting at both AMP's status and Ganossa's achievement in this episode.

Katsumi seems to be in anguish over Lebia being seriously injured, but Mana and Rally wonder if she may have intentionally caused the accident herself. They fear that she has been possessed by the demon sword "Medium", and staged the crash to remove the most skillful defender of the Police computer files. This would enable Ganossa to seize the "Avalanche" file about Project Gaea--something he absolutely needs.
Comments
Stretch:
If Katsumi has been possessed by a "demon sword", might Grosspoliner be an effective antidote? When Katsumi drew her sword (was that Medium?) on Mana in the Giga-room, I was thinking that maybe Mana would produce Grospoliner in response, but it didn't happen. At the scene of Roy's death, didn't it occur to Yuki that she was walking right into the deadly situation that she had seen in her dream? I thought that maybe she would tell the others to remain out of sight and watch what happened when she approached Katsumi, but again that didn't happen; I guess she has too much trust in her. The impression I'm getting of the series as a whole is of a really neat story which didn't get as good an anime presentation as it deserved. Finally, when I saw a red-haired woman embracing Ganossa at the end of the last episode, I assumed that it must be Rally (which would make her some sort of spy/saboteur). But I see now that the "evil" Katsumi is marked by red hair.

Devil Doll:
With the course of events becoming ever more complex now, episode 22 begins with a short recap of episode 21, as both are a kind of double feature again. And you'll get information about elements that haven't been explained up to now: Time for answers!

We've seen Ma-ken Medium and Grospoliner battling each other already - in episode 20 when Rosa attacked Rally and Grospoliner interfered without anyone calling for him. Grospoliner defended Rally (not Mana) - he knows Rally from the days 30 years ago. But the only one whom he is linked to (by a contract of blood!) is - Katsumi. They're both "a part of each other"... so how could he try to hurt that girl?

It's easy to say that Yuki should be more careful - but look at things from her point of view. Yuki thinks of Katsumi as her closest friend; both grew up without that much of a family (elaborated in more detail in Silent Mobius The Motion Picture 2). Remember why she invited Lum Cheng? To prevent Lum Cheng from getting closer to Katsumi! Yuki is jealous of Lum Cheng, that's how important Katsumi is for her. It was Yuki who helped Katsumi to find her place within the AMP (episode 4), and it was Yuki who was the "target" of Katsumi's "attack" in episode 21 (which she experienced as Katsumi saving her from that LH's attack - you now see how important it was that Katsumi brought that wine along so that neither Nami nor Yuki would be able to do what they can do best...). Remember how Yuki dealt with Annie back in episode 10, and look how even the tough and skeptical Kiddy was disgusted by her own behavior near the end of episode 21. Yuki is the youngest and least mature AMP member, and unlike Kiddy she hasn't heard what Mana said about Katsumi. What's more, Rally and Mana keep a lot of secrets and didn't tell the AMP members about Ma-ken Medium, for example. Yuki trusts Katsumi, and what's more, she wants Katsumi to be trustworthy. Mistrusting her best friend would violate everything Yuki stands for.

Back in episode 15, I wrote: "This 'small object' is one of several plausibility issues of the series." Now you can see what I mean: The content of that box is a necessary requirement for Ganossa to proceed with his plan. Why didn't Rally simply destroy it? It's not like the AMP would try to make any use of these data. Another plausibility issue that I can now mention is: Obviously there is some way of moving around in time (for example, Rosa talking to Tooru at the end of episode 16). It's never fully explained how that works and how much control the protagonists have over it, but if they had it would cause a myriad of questions, such as: Why didn't they attack Avalanche Wong to get those data? Or why didn't they travel back in time to the Silent Crisis and steal them there where no AMP would hinder them? This whole jumping around in time creates quite a plausibility mess, so the best we can do is assume that there is no full control about these moves and they can happen only by "fate" in certain crucial situations (Katsumi talking to Fuyuka back in episode 13, remember? Try to guess when that conversation takes place in Katsumi's time line...).

as for Silent Möbius in total: I agree wholeheartedly. It's a neat story. But the anime version is much better than the manga in terms of storytelling (the manga contains all the ideas but neither a plausible sequence nor that element of linking everything together, using parts that look like side stories to actually prepare elements that will become crucial several episodes later, and the parallel developments that the final arc mainly relies on. The manga tells story in an almost random order during its first half and is more sequential in the second one, and as such much less surprising in its development (and strange enough, Asamiya Kia got famous for the manga). So in my eyes the anime is a huge improvement over the manga, while at the same time requiring to read the original story to fully understand what happened. Which is exactly what I did in Silent Möbius. Remember the "Director's Cut" versions of Evangelion episodes 21-24? Doing something like that with Silent Möbius would be so great, providing the missing background every now and then... this is what I'm trying to do with our conversation and those postings as you need certain information early in order to not get frustrated by this series.

Certainly the anime lacks explanations and plausibility of several concepts in general, but the storytelling, the forming of suspense, is what makes the second half a chilling ride for me, much like GitS SAC1 which might come closest in both terms of narration form and main protagonists (a special police force). Then again, Silent Möbius uses very different topics such as Love and Trust where GitS is much "colder" in its message; the GitS characters are excellent performers - but is any of them likable? GitS is pure cyberpunk; Silent Möbius has elements of Magic and Fate that make it different (and similar to Night Wizard indeed). For Silent Möbius the question of the characters being likable is so crucial because the audience has to face them being tortured - Katsumi losing Roy, Yuki losing her time with Tooru, Kiddy almost killing Ralph... how many more victims will we get? (In Mai HiME you can simply count the remaining girls to answer this question, so there's no suspense about this aspect, you simply know the result beforehand. But after both Roy had to face the death of his best friend Aida and then Katsumi had to face the death of her beloved Roy right when she made her decision for him despite her own nature, everything seems to be possible now. The whole middle section from episode 12 to 20 saw Katsumi suffering.)

I'm still waiting for your bet on who'll become the hero of this show... this is the time to guess, you're not getting another chance as you'll have to make up your mind before you'll see the hints - both the true ones and the false ones... beginning in episode 23.
After episode 17, Stretch pointed out the "Hawk's new strategy of picking off AMP members one by one rather than taking on the team as a whole; they're 0 for 2 so far." What about doing the maths again about this aspect now?

As for the 30 seconds previews at the end of each episode, beware:
Preview for episode 23: SPOILERISH - DON'T WATCH!


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