Hello! I don't know what prompted you to click on this review, whether it was simple curiosity, you genuinely wonder what I think of this show, or you've watched this show yourself in the past so you know exactly what's coming. But whatever the case, we're going to go on an adventure today. Because this review is in fact going to be a total breakdown of this show and therefore means, this review is going to be FULL SPOILERS. I feel a special warning needs to be given right away since this is a mystery and if you find out everything, the effect of the show will be ruined. So once again, THIS REVIEW GIVES AWAY THE ENTIRETY OF THE PLOT OR WHATEVER MYSTERY WAS PRESENT IN THIS ANIME.

But if you wanted a non-spoilers take on this show, let me go ahead and quickly sum up the review I am about to write. This show is an amazing and wonderful journey to go on. I was in awe with almost every single scene at how masterfully crafted the dialogue was. It felt as if I was trapped within this show and could not leave until the last grains of the sand in an hourglass tumbled to the bottom. I would absolutely recommend everyone to watch this show, and give it a score of 10/100.

And no, that isn't a typo, and I did not forget a zero.

Let's just dive right into this, now.

youtube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_HNq_Pa2t4)

Also, this show did NOT deserve this OP.

#Chapter One: Introductions#

This is an adaptation of the novel of the same title by MORI Hiroshi, brought to us by A-1 Pictures. On top of this anime adaptation, it also received a visual novel, a manga adaptation, and a live TV drama. But we're here of course, to discuss the anime. Also, there'll be an entire section dedicated to the author himself, but like I said, we are forced to discuss the anime first.

Though, I'm not really too sure where to start. Like going in, I was aware that this was apparently of the mystery genre, but then the first episode was more or less mostly just the two main characters sitting in a room talking to each other.

Let's get this right out of the way, this show is almost entirely dialogue. Apart from like a select series of scenes that show a certain character's past, every scene is talking and more talking. Like something happens in episode two, and basically the rest of the episodes are more less entirely the characters talking about what happened in episode two and who did it, and how it happened, and just... I feel bad for anybody who actually got suckered into actually caring about the ultimate result.

You have all this goddamned build up and I can just picture someone seriously watching this show and actually going: "Well who's the killer? What was the meaning of this? How did they do it? ...Oh, that's how it happened? That's... who did it? ...Oh. Ohhhhhhhh. Fuck."

Like this may or may not be perceived as a bit harsh, but I'm talking Glasslip level type of scenes. They just talk and talk and talk and talk and talk, but unlike Glasslip, there's a layer of incomprehensible pretentiousness to almost all of the dialogue that I just found kept bringing me back into it. That being said, there were definitely some conversations that were a bit more bland where despite trying my best to retain my focus on the show, I found myself staring at the wall in front of my computer as they continued to talk.

But then the mystery element I was told that was present in the show finally showed itself and then... then the characters started to talk again.

Did I mention that there is talking in this anime? Did I mention that they recap the original incident that this show is based entirely around several times after the viewer themselves watches it happen? Like okay, I get it. Stop going over the exact same thing again, and again, and again. Do something to try and figure it out. Do anything. Just do anything, PLEASE.

We had eleven episodes to get this done in, and it feels like nothing had happened at all of note like five episodes in. Like even at the very end, when the show was finally giving us answers, it still felt like the show hadn't even started.

I really need to stress this. There has been no other series where I have been this confounded about what the fuck the overall purpose of the series was upon finishing it. Like after finishing Glasslip, I could actually say "well this was a slice of life/drama series that tried to tell a story but like with chicken metaphors I guess". But with Perfect Insider like... everything about the mystery itself and the motivations of the characters investigating the mystery is just so fucking nonsensical and all over the place that I just can't. I just can't.

I feel like I'm dissecting some alien life form, trying to figure out what the fuck it even is.

#Chapter Two: Characters#

Okay, in this series, we have three characters that matter. Obviously, there are more than three characters in the show, but only three matter. And even right now a day after finishing watching this show, I'm already blanking on the names of two out of the three characters. The only reason why I remember the third is because her name is said and brought up in all the dialogue over and over, and over again.

First, we have one of two of our protagonists. Souhei Saikawa. Let's go over the things that the show establishes about his character, shall we? He is a professor, he hates watermelon and other things, he can't properly do his eyedrops, he doesn't care much about anything really, he has a hobby of shutting the other protagonist the fuck down almost passively whenever he can, and he smokes. He smokes a lot. Almost every other scene, he's smoking. In the first couple of episodes, he asks if he can smoke in the island laboratory at least two times, maybe three. And him repeatedly asking if he can smoke is perhaps one of the most notable things I can recall about his character.

Oh, and apparently, he's intelligent. There's absolutely nothing about his character that is established apart from his past with the other protagonist that goes beyond "he's some professor", yet he is treated and acts like a "detective" character. Or well, he eventually starts acting like this. In the first handful of episodes, he could honestly give less than two shits about the mystery and is actually on the verge of leaving just because I guess he doesn't give a fuck anymore despite the fact two people are dead at this point. He eventually doesn't leave because he's pestered by the other protagonist or rather, his sidekick character, and then he finally starts to act a bit more proactive in trying to figure this whole thing out.

Then, when everything starts to get revealed, the series starts treating him and the culprit character like they're fucking Detective Akechi and Twenty Faces right out of Ranpo Edogawa's fiction. Like he's some brilliant detective that figured out this culprit's scheme and the culprit gets away to fight another day but they respect the professor's intellect and they're gonna return and fuck with him again at some point and just go fuck yourself (I thought this phrase a lot throughout watching the entirety of this show). I'm sorry, but you're not Ranpo Edogawa. Maybe you could have potentially fooled me, if your goddamned professor character had acted like he gave a shit before the series actually REQUIRED him to.

But hey, maybe he gets fleshed out a bit more or he does actually have to face the culprit again in the nine other novels MORI Hiroshi wrote about this guy and his sidekick. Thankfully, I'll never find out, because even if they ever get translated, I never want to read a single thing by this guy if this is in fact a genuine and true adaptation of something he wrote. Unlike with Ranpo Kitan, I have much more reason to believe this is the case.

Let's not get sidetracked any further though, and move onto the sidekick character, Moe Nishinosono. A... I actually don't know if she's a student of the professor, or what. Like I can still remember the backstory they eventually gave to how she and the professor met but... I can't recall if she was actually a student of the professor at the university or if she just creepily hangs around him 24/7.

One of my favorite parts in this series was how much the professor just shut and put Nishinosono down. I know that may or may not sound a bit sadistic, but it eventually began to approach an absurd level. Like from the very start of the show, Nishinosono is in love with the professor but the professor seems to only be interested in the third character, and of course Nishinosono (I'm honestly going to start just calling her "Nishi" after this point) gets super fucking upset and pouty if the professor even comes into close contact with any other female character.

And like her love for the professor is no fucking secret, he is basically completely aware of it and he is still shutting her down.

Jesus Christ. Also, I don't want to make the comparison to Kobayashi in Ranpo Kitan because Kobayashi was way more of a fun and interesting character, but Nishi almost feels... like okay.

First of all, she's the one who's primarily interested in solving the mystery of the show, and actually makes a struggling effort to try and get Professor Who Gives a Fuck to care. But like after a corpse missing their legs and arms is wheeled out on a cart, she's acting like it's no fucking big deal and she repeatedly mentions "wow I can't believe I can laugh when the third character is FUCKING DEAD" but then like in an episode or two, like some switch is flipped, and her character is just crying at numerous points of the episode. And I just... like what? Why are you having this emotion now? YOU WERE PERFECTLY FINE IN JUST THE OTHER EPISODE. THE RESEARCHERS AND SCIENTISTS OF THIS LABORATORY WERE FREAKING THE FUCK OUT BECAUSE THERE'S APPARENTLY A MURDERER ON THE LOOSE, BUT YOU WERE FINE. NOW YOU'RE CRYING. WHY?

And then, and THEN, EIGHT EPISODES INTO THE SHOW AND AFTER NISHI BASICALLY HAD TO DRAG THE PROFESSOR BACK TO THE LABROATORY AFTER AN EPISODE THAT IS STRAIGHT UP JUST 100% "well the professor and nishi will leave the lab and take a break from the mystery aka THE ENTIRE POINT OF THE SHOW"...

NISHI STRAIGHT UP SAYS...

...REALLY?

OF THE TWO CHARACTERS, YOU WERE THE ONE WHO WAS ACTING LIKE YOU CARED ABOUT THIS MYSTERY THE MOST. IF EVEN THE CHARACTERS DON'T CARE, THEN HOW IN THE FUCK AM I SUPPOSED TO? TWO PEOPLE ARE APPARENTLY DEAD, BUT I JUST CARE ABOUT GETTING CLOSE TO THIS PROFESSOR WHO DOESN'T GIVE A FUCK AND REPEATEDLY SHUTS ME THE FUCK DOWN EVEN THOUGH YEARS AGO, APPARENTLY HE CARED ENOUGH TO MORE OR LESS GET ME TO HAVE A DESIRE TO LIVE ON AFTER MY PARENTS DIED IN A HORRIFIC PLANE CRASH.

Our third and final character is Shiki Magata, and she is...

...Actually you know what, stop. Just stop. We'll get to her later.

#Chapter Three: Dialogue Dialogue Dialogue#

So, let's talk about the dialogue. Episode one is a perfect... like episode one has everything you're going to get from the rest of the show. Because ninety percent of it is just characters sitting or standing in a room talking with each other, and the dialogue is just... like take pretentious or dumb lines someone thought was cool or smart, odd and sometimes downright baffling scene transitions, and just a general numbing boredom and throw them all into a pot and mix it up, and you get Perfect Insider.

From the very start, I was fully engaged in this show because almost every time I was starting to feel bored, there would be a line of dialogue that would really strike me and forcibly drag the attention of my brain back to the show. There were just so many... like see, it honestly feels like to me that this show is in fact an adaptation of an actual novel, but simultaneously, it feels like it's NOT. Because I am in utter disbelief... like a part of my brain stubbornly wants to give the original creator a sliver of the benefit of the doubt. Like no, this novel is apparently well liked, it apparently won awards, the original novel CANNOT possibly be this bad.

What's the most important information to know about a character to establish in the first episode if it's NOT what they don't like to eat?

And full disclosure maybe the original novel is in fact slightly better, but I am most likely never going to find out, because even if this particular novel was translated in English (it's not), that is how negative of an overall impression this anime has made on me. Like if this anime is even slightly accurate to MORI Hiroshi's novel, then holy shit that novel is literally a waste of paper.

...That's admittedly probably one of the harshest things I've ever written about a person's work of fiction without having actually read the original source material, but let me try and justify it in the rest of the 9,000 words of this review.

Don't get me wrong. I have nothing wrong with having a lot of dialogue. Hell, Glasslip was even worse in this department as that dialogue got way less laughs out of me, but I'd still probably not even call Glasslip the worst show I've ever watched. But if you're going to have a lot of dialogue and want it to be ~~purposely~~ good, then it has to be well written or interesting in any way.

Working out the details of a single murder or aspects of it over and over and over again in multiple episodes is... look, I haven't watched the TV drama, but I find it fucking suspect that in the TV drama version, the story that this anime is adapting is like only two episodes. It makes me wonder, were the TV drama people simply cutting a bunch of redundant shit out from the novel, or if the anime staff were desperately trying to stretch out the material to eleven episodes.

Those are the things I'm thinking about when I look back on this series. Not memorable characters, not memorable scenes, but trying to figure out whose fault it is.

I mentioned this in the section about the Characters, but it bears repeating. There are just so many weird and strange emotional or tonal shifts that happen throughout the dialogue. You think it's going to go one way, but then it completely flies off into the unknown.

God damn it, Nishi. There is a MUTILATED CORPSE ON A CART just in the other hallway.

Why is Nishi so upbeat and jovial after witnessing a corpse who has had their legs and arms sawed off be wheeled out on an automated cart? Why does she start crying throughout an entire episode after having a dream? Was it just a delayed reaction to the corpse? The staff of the laboratory facility is shown freaking out and sound genuinely distressed around when the murders happen, but then the rest of the time they seem perfectly normal? Isn't there supposed to be a murderer still roaming around? Why the fuck does one of them feel like it's the perfect time to show Nishi the virtual reality machines where the virtual world is shown being created in the form of LEGO BLOCKS? She's hopping around on skyscrapers with her ideal and perfect dream version of the professor WASN'T THIS A FUCKING MYSTERY SERIES WITH MURDERS, WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING.

Then the girl that forced her to undress so she could show her the virtual reality machine tells her from the other pod over that she's having a sexual experience with a different virtual version of the professor WHICH ISN'T WEIRD AT ALL. BUT HEY IN THE END, THE VIRTUAL REALITY MACHINE ENDS UP PROGRESSING THE PLOT, WHEN THE KILLER REALIZES WHAT THE FUCK THE PERSON WHO WAS MOST INTERESTED IN THE MYSTERY IS DOING WITH HER TIME AND THEN CONTACTS HER THROUGH THE VIRTUAL REALITY MACHINE.

"That's pretty weird. They haven't made as much progress as I would have thought. I guess I'll throw them a bone?"

Also, can I just say... I'm going to go further into this later, but it was really fucking transparent what they were doing when they kept mentioning specific details over and over again. The more and more you bring something up as a concrete thing, the more it's gonna cause me to question if that's really the case. Professor and Nishi already know that Magata, our third character, has been isolated in this room for fifteen years and that nobody has been in or out for the entirety of those fifteen years.

...Why do you keep bringing it up? Why do you keep bringing up the fact that she created this operating system the ENTIRE FACILITY runs on over and over again? Why do you keep saying this operating system that SHE designed is perfect and foolproof when something WENT WRONG? Are these important plot points? Should I jot them down in my notepad?

Oh, this is important. Can't finish this section off without talking about this. There is an actual scene where Professor and Magata's older sister sit down and talk, and it's been multiple episodes after Magata's sister has entered the show, but she hasn't gotten a single line of dialogue.

Lo and behold, you could miss them mentioning this detail, but she is from America or for some reason speaks only in English? So the Professor has a conversation with her in English and it lasts from five to ten minutes, possibly even longer, but it feels like it goes on for fucking ever. I was immediately ejected from the scene, because my attention immediately flew to seeing how long it was going to go on for.

It feels so very much like something they took right from the novel and it just does not translate. In a novel form, you just include as a side note: "The Professor and Magata's sister spoke in English." But in anime form, we... have to actually hear that conversation, and nothing is correct. I can't even describe it. It is hands down one of the absolute worst scenes of the entire show as I've never been so forcibly knocked out of a show before. Additionally, my favorite detail about that scene is the fact that Magata's sister speaks in English

To conclude on the dialogue, can I just throw this out there? The professor straight up says to Nishi at one point early on that he hates expository dialogue in mysteries.

...What. The fuck. Did you just say.

#Chapter Four: Deciphering the Plot#

Maybe the actual title of this show should have been Everything Becomes F...

...ucking Stupid.

Because now I'm going to attempt to accurately describe the plot of this series, which is not going to be a very easy task at all.

The show starts with the Professor and Nishi talking in his office, the Professor leaves temporarily to go help a student with his computer problems, Nishi takes the opportunity to snoop and look at the Professor's computer and to her dismay finds that he was reading about Shiki Magata who is in fact female and thus this irritates Nishi, who then proceeds to suggest to the Professor to take his entire class to the island where Shiki Magata is being kept in isolation in the Magata Research Facility as a result of having killed her own parents as a child but was found insane rather than guilty.

Almost the entire rest of the show takes place on this island, that Nishi pushes the Professor into going to with his entire class. For Nishi knows that the Professor has an interest in meeting Magata as he admires her for some reason, so she wishes to meet with Magata again now that the Professor knows she's capable of meeting with her, but doesn't wish to let the Professor and Magata actually meet themselves.

...But then when they get to the facility, oh no, it turns out she was murdered and had her arms and legs cut off! And then, the rest of the show is about them solving (or not solving) the mystery.

There are multiple plot threads going on throughout the show and they're all thrown together in one gigantic jumbled mess. It'll switch from one to the other at the drop of a fucking hat. We've got them trying to solve the mystery, Nishi's prior meeting with Magata which it'll switch to multiple times throughout the entirety of the show, scenes showing Magata's past with her INCESTUOUS ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIP WITH HER UNCLE and her murdering her parents because literally why not, and the past of or how Nishi and the Professor met.

...But the main plot of the show is of course obviously, them trying to solve the mystery. Which coincidentally, or perhaps not coincidentally, is I think perhaps the absolute worst section of the show. Like both the scenes of Magata's past as well as how Nishi met the Professor could have been removed from this show and expanded into complete and far more interesting shows than... the actual main plot of this show.

That finally brings us to where this review is about to finally and at long last go completely off the rails. I hope you paid attention to the warning at the start of the review if you cared about being spoiled.

Because there's no way I can possibly discuss how terrible the mystery of the show is without fully giving it away entirely.

But first, here is a completely irrelevant exchange that happens several episodes before the mystery is solved.

Have you figured it out yet?

#Chapter Five: The Culprit#

...Before we reach the peak of idiocy, something needs to be stated really quickly. As my reviews are to an extent purposely comedic in nature, it could be perceived that I'm often exaggerating when I bring up the more absurd moments in certain shows I review, such as this one. However...

In most cases, but especially this one, I must stress that this is in fact the show. I am in fact not trying to make it sound any funnier or more absurd than it is, this is actually what the show has to offer. I genuinely feel sorry for anyone who sat through the entirety of this show seriously watching it and hoping for all of the dialogue to build up to anything. Because it just fucking crashes and burns in perhaps one of the most spectacular train wrecks I have ever seen.

The culprit of the show, the person who was behind it all, the murderer of Shiki Magata our one out of THREE characters... drumroll please...

...is Shiki Magata.

Wow. The victim is ALSO the murderer? That'd be a pretty good and satisfying twist in itself, RIGHT?

But no, there's more. See, the truth really was that nobody else but Shiki Magata entered that room fifteen years ago. However, do you remember her incestuous relationship she had with her uncle? That's right. She was pregnant with her cousin daughter when she went into isolation after knifing her parents to death after originally planning on manipulating her uncle to commit the murders. You're probably clawing at your computer monitor at this point, begging for this to stop. But it doesn't. There's even more.

See, the corpse that is wheeled out at the start of the show is in fact a Magata. It is in fact, Shiki Magata's daughter. Who was posing as her older sister (SHE HAS AGED FIFTEEN YEARS BUT NO NOBODY QUESTIONS THE FACT THAT THE IMPOSTOR SHIKI MAGATA LOOKS EXACTLY HOW SHE DOES WHEN SHE ENTERED THE ROOM), whom eventually wished for her daughter to eventually kill her. But as a result of Nishi asking the false Shiki Magata a three word long question, that being, "Who are you?", Shiki's daughter became conflicted to the point where she killed herself. Shiki Magata being absolutely brilliant and a genius realized, okay, my plan didn't go as I planned it, so now I'll cut off my daughter's arms and legs, put the rest of her corpse on a cart, and then wheel it out into the hallway when the door will open at the very specific moment I programmed into the operating system the people who are apparently supposedly keeping me in isolation used for the entire facility of which I'm being kept isolated in.

I know it really seems like I'm making this shit up on the spot, but I'm not, I swear. If I were, I would be an award winning and published novelist like MORI Hiroshi, god damn it.

This way, I can then use my daughter's mutilated corpse which I then also took the time to dress up in a wedding dress after I removed her arms and legs as a distraction, so I can get into the elevator and get to the roof, and when my uncle who is the director of this facility in which I was being kept isolated comes back in the helicopter, I will pretend to be my older sister from America who may or may not be a complete lie I created myself. I will then later return to the roof and my uncle will allow me to personally and literally stab him in the back gruesomely with my knife, because I wanted my daughter to kill both her parents and while I'm perfectly fine with murdering my uncle aka her father, I'm later going to say I won't kill myself, I instead want someone else to kill me.

Oh, and then I'm going to just fuck with the Professor and Nishi and purposely try and see if they can catch me, and then I will get away, but then I'll come back to talk to the Professor specifically because I apparently respected his totally present intellect, and then pretend I am captured by his guards after meeting with him, but that was completely unneeded and just one last thing to fuck with the Professor and also further mislead the viewer.

Instead, I get away completely scot free, and the show ends with me talking to my alternate personalities.

...

...This is a real show that exists. There is no possible way to defend this twist.

They made it a point to have false Magata to be shown wearing gloves in her video meeting with Nishi because the purpose of the gloves were to prevent false Magata from leaving fingerprints for her fifteen year long stay in that room with her mother? But... but, shouldn't they have had cameras in the room itself to keep track of what this person being kept isolated since she brutally murdered her parents is doing? IF THEY HAD CAMERAS, AT ONE POINT OR ANOTHER IN THE SPAN OF FIFTEEN YEARS, ONE OF THOSE CAMERAS WOULD CATCH TWO MAGATAS ON THE SCREEN ONCE. But no, just have the front of outside of the door have cameras. That makes total sense.

But what makes this twist even more offensive is that like throughout the entire show, Magata is treated like a fucking brilliant and level headed genius by almost all of the characters. One of the hugest aspects of the Professor's character is that he admires and supposedly wants to be like Magata. But we're straight up shown that at thirteen years old, this apparent genius actively entered an incestuous relationship with her uncle, and I think the original purpose she had for this was she was going to have her uncle be the one to commit the murders.

Yet when time to comes to brutally murder her parents with a knife, she just straight up takes the knife away from the uncle and basically does it herself. It's established and reiterated over and over again that Magata has alternate personalities, and is actually shown at various points of the show to actually talk to these alternate personalities. But hey TGG, she can make operating systems and a Lego Block Virtual Reality system, SHE'S A GENIUS. Are you kidding me?

WHY WOULD YOU LET THE PERSON YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE KEEPING ISOLATED DESIGN THE ENTIRE OPERATING SYSTEM OF THE FACILITY? DON'T YOU THINK THAT WAS A BAD IDEA? YOU CAN GO AHEAD AND TRY TO GO FOR THE ACTUALLY INSANE BUT GENIUS MURDERER CHARACTER, BUT THE MOMENT THAT IT IS ESTABLISHED THAT SHE HAD ABSOLUTELY NO PROBLEMS WITH HACKING HER DAUGHTER'S ARMS AND LEGS OFF AFTER SHE KILLED HERSELF AS A RESULT OF HER MOTHER'S ACTIONS, IMMEDIATELY, THERE IS NO WAY TO STILL BE CAPABLE OF EMPATHIZING WITH THIS CHARACTER.

BUT YET, THE OTHER CHARACTERS STILL TREAT HER LIKE A GENIUS. THE PROFESSOR HAS A LAUGH AFTER HE MEETS WITH HER AGAIN AFTER HE REALIZES SHE PULLED ONE LAST POINTLESS TRICK ON HIM AND THEN GOT AWAY.

SHE GETS AWAY. AFTER FUCKING EVERYTHING, SHE GETS AWAY, AND THE SERIES JUST ENDS. IT JUST STOPS.

_This is actually how the show ends. Magata talking to nobody in virtual reality/dream space, then credits. And that's it. That's literally it._

WHAT THE FUCK. I'M OKAY WITH THINGS WHERE THE VILLAIN WINS IN THE END OR GETS AWAY SCOT FREE, BUT THE VILLAIN HAS TO BE AN INTERESTING OR WELL CREATED CHARACTER. NOT LITERALLY PERHAPS ONE OF THE MOST ACTUALLY INSANE CHARACTERS I HAVE EVER SEEN IN ANY MEDIUM.

Like oh, I sawed my daughter's arms and legs off, but I'm gonna enter this cat and mouse game with these LITERALLY RANDOM STRANGERS and have a long extended conversation in English with this Professor while I'm pretending to be my own older and American sister.

...WHY? I WILL PAY MONEY TO ANYONE WHO IS CAPABLE OF MAKING SENSE OF THIS CHARACTER'S ACTIONS THROUGHOUT THIS SERIES BEYOND "WELL, SHE'S AN INSANE PERSON". I KNOW SHE HERSELF STATES THAT SHE WANTS TO BE CAUGHT/KILLED, BUT UGH.

#Chapter Six: Computer Jargons#

...You would think I'd be done, after that last section, but no. You see, this series is honestly almost too perfect in how absolutely terrible it is. The entire show, it's pounded into your head that the operating system that this facility runs on is foolproof and perfect as it was designed by the most brilliant genius that has ever lived within this universe, Shiki Magata.

...It's not like this isolated genius killer could have possibly purposely sneaked a couple of secret flaws into the operating system to facilitate her escape or rather, when her room's door finally begins to open for the first time in fifteen years. And, of course, it's not like the people running this facility would check any of the versions of the operating system Magata gives them for any funny business. It's not like she's been stuck in a room for fifteen years, it's not like she's ever going to want to escape so she can be outside ever again.

So, what was the flaw? What was the little thing that Magata sneaked in resulting the cameras losing that one single second where she slips out of her room right after her daughter's mutilated corpse is wheeled out?

...It's time to discuss hexadecimals, and the title and one of the mysteries of this show. In other words, the saying "Everything Becomes F." The characters discuss this saying that Magata leaves for them and what it could possibly mean. Magata has been stuck in that room for fifteen years, Magata's secret daughter is fifteen years old, the books and volumes Magata has in her room only go up to the number fifteen, and I believe the idea that a human mind basically straight up goes onto a downslide after the age of fifteen is repeatedly brought up and believed by Magata herself.

Everything becomes F...

See, this is where a basic general knowledge of hexadecimals comes in handy. Everybody knows about hexadecimals. Approximately .025 percent of all people on this Earth are aware of what hexadecimals are and the purpose they serve, but they are also aware that...

...Ugh. Let's just... let's just drop the act and open Wikipedia.

In mathematics and computing, hexadecimal (also base 16, or hex) is a positional numeral system with a radix, or base, of 16. It uses sixteen distinct symbols, most often the symbols 0–9 to represent values zero to nine, and A, B, C, D, E, F (or alternatively a, b, c, d, e, f) to represent values ten to fifteen.

Hexadecimal numerals are widely used by computer system designers and programmers. As each hexadecimal digit represents four binary digits (bits), it allows a more human-friendly representation of binary-coded values. One hexadecimal digit represents a nibble (4 bits), which is half of an octet or byte (8 bits). For example, a single byte can have values ranging from 00000000 to 11111111 in binary form, but this may be more conveniently represented as 00 to FF in hexadecimal.

In a non-programming context, a subscript is typically used to give the radix, for example the decimal value 10,995 would be expressed in hexadecimal as 2AF316. Several notations are used to support hexadecimal representation of constants in programming languages, usually involving a prefix or suffix. The prefix "0x" is used in C and related languages, where this value might be denoted as 0x2AF3.

Everything becomes F... in other words, everything becomes fifteen, because F or rather, FFFFFF is in fact the hexadecimal that represents the number fifteen. The operating system that Magata designed is basically designed to have time either fall back or skip forward a single minute later fifteen years after she enters the room, causing the camera recording the front of the door of her room, to basically have two files of that one particular minute, leading to the one that actually captures her escaping to the elevator being overwritten.

And that, my friends, is the genius scheme that the brilliant Magata uses to escape her room prison so she can murder her uncle lover, and then eventually proceed to escape the island.

Should note that there's actually more to this, like while fifteen was I believe the key number involved, seven was also a relevant number because seven is apparently a "lonely number" or something. I just... this part of the show is just so fucking needlessly convoluted and dumb I just can't even be bothered to try and decipher it.

I mean, did I say convoluted and dumb? I meant smart, intelligent, and deeply thought out.

...But my question is however, why think of something that convoluted fifteen years in advance? She apparently murdered her parents in the first place to "free herself", but that result led to her... while she was somehow found not guilty but rather insane, it results in her being stuck in one single room for fifteen years. Of like the two scenes we saw of her parents, they didn't seem like bad people at all. But no, I have to murder my parents, and if I ever have a child of my own, I want her or him to murder their parents as well for some reason. Because you cannot be "free" unless you fucking brutally kill your parents.

...Did you know that... apparently MORI Hiroshi receives criticism over... this? These computer jargons?

In addition, Mori's works, especially The Perfect Insider, is often criticized for the overuse of computer jargons. He responds that it is perfectly natural for people with some background knowledge to have a better understanding than others. According to Mori, computer jargons are not much different from proper nouns, like the names of celebrities or fashion brands, in the sense that they are in most cases just there as ornament that serves to create a particular mood.

Yeah, no. I'm willing to believe a huge amount of people, the majority really, are even aware of what hexadecimals are. Just like I'm also willing to believe everybody reviewing this review right now is capable of reading binary. Why else would I just randomly include binary in a review if that wasn't the case?

...See, like even if you can't perfectly read binary ~~or find a free binary translator online~~, it creates a particular mood!

Let's be honest here. The hexadecimals did manage to create a particular mood. I haven't laughed as hard as I did when Magata and the Professor started to talk about hexadecimals in her virtual reality Lego Block machine in a looooooong time.

#Chapter Seven: The Man Himself#

We're now far past being completely off the rails. Now, we're fully into the "Wikipedia section" of the review. As a disclaimer, I just want to say, as a person, MORI Hiroshi is probably a kind enough person in real life and I bare him no genuine ill will.

But after completing Perfect Insider, and going through his English Wikipedia page

~~haha seriously using Wikipedia as a source~~

for at least some answers to my many, many questions... well, just to say the least, I don't think I have any reason to believe the novel is any better than what this anime presented to me. In a lot of cases, I like to give the original creators the benefit of the doubt. Maybe it's a farcical representation of twisted versions of his stories or ideas, maybe it reads better or is just a bad adaptation, etc. But the impression I got of him as a writer is just...

_~~just want to reiterate, I'm not seriously judging a person via information off of their Wikipedia page BUT~~_

Like if you were curious why I was putting his name like I have been, that's because he insists others do so. And let's be honest here, since I'm completely shitting on both a probably faithful representation of his debut work as a writer and also partly him himself, I should at least put his name the way he insists it be written. While he may be famous for his mystery novels, he considers his status as a craftsman and researcher to be above that of a novelist. Oh...

But well, why did he originally decide to become a writer? Well once, he just joked that he'd just automatically become a writer by the age of forty. He also has stated he want an additional source of income to help fund the expansion of his miniature garden railway. Additionally, he wanted to impress his daughter who happened to be a fan of mystery novels.

...Look, all those reasons are valid enough to become a novelist. But, if you started writing on a whim or not because specifically you enjoy or want to write good stories, my impression of you as a writer is going to immediately slide a bit. So when "computer jargons" come into play in one of your stories, I'm going to be more of the mindset that you were just stringing together complete nonsense to make something completely convoluted. You can bring your knowledge about science and computers into your mystery novels. Hell, that's probably a great idea! But you have to still make it interesting or bare some relevance to the mystery and make it seem like not a gigantic asspull.

Like hexadecimals? That's really what you went with? It clashes so fucking horribly with what we've been shown of this character. She's murdered multiple people bluntly with a knife, has alternate personalities, is a genuinely a sociopath, and this is the clever thing she comes up with, to get away. HEXADECIMALS. OPERATING SYSTEMS. VIRTUAL REALITY LEGO BLOCKS. OVERWRITING VIDEO FILES.

I honestly think it’s almost on par with the idea of trying to tell a story entirely through chicken metaphors.

Then salt is just slammed into my wounds because this is apparently not originally the first novel he wrote about the Professor and Nishi. No, this was the fourth. His editor viewed this however as the most shocking of the four, so it became the first to be published.

...What? Okay, you wrote a series of four novels about these two characters, let's take the very last one and publish it first? So wait, is there an actual introduction in one of the later S&M novels? In the anime, these characters were never introduced. The first episode just starts up, they're in the office and talking, and then they go to the island on a class wide camping trip, and then murder just happens. What?

As someone who has been stuck in writer's block hell for a year or two since writing a shitty self-published thing I did in high school that I don't ever actually want other people to see, there is no other way for me to take someone saying "oh I finished my novel by just writing every night for like three hours" other than the way it sounds.

Oh, writing is so easy! In the twenty two years I've been writing, I've written somewhere over thirty mystery novels and countless short stories and all this other stuff, because writing is just so easy.

Also trust me, I know how this is sounding. And I know as someone who has never actually read (or will read) any of his non-adapted stories, I might be acting a little too harsh.

So let's turn around and get to the heart of the matter.

#Chapter Eight: The Mephisto Prize#

The original novel of Subete ga F ni Naru won an award after being published in 1996, you know. It won the acclaimed Mephisto Prize by the editors of Mephisto Magazine. The award was as well coincidentally, established in 1996. That's a weird coincidence, but whatever, the magazine just happened to start this award and just happened to pick this novel that happened to to be a debut novel of this guy both in the same year...

No big deal, it was just a coincidence--oh...

So... MORI Hiroshi's editor has stated that the entire purpose of and reason why the Mephisto Prize was established was so they could give it to MORI Hiroshi for Subete ga F ni Naru to make his debut more sensational. What? What? His editor just came out and admitted this? I mean I'm sure he was a great researcher before he switched to writing, but that doesn't automatically mean he's going to be a good writer. How does that not sound sketchy as fuck?

Okay, this is gonna be your very first published novel, here is an award to draw more attention to it.

To be fair, since then, the Mephisto Prize has been given to fifty other novels (also it's generally to previously unpublished novels), so it's not like it’s something that just went away right after kickstarting MORI Hiroshi's thirty novel plus career as a novelist but... like if his editor hadn't apparently said this himself, I would have thought nothing of it.

But to be fair, starting an entirely new award for Subete ga F ni Naru specifically makes a lot more sense with an ulterior motive. I mean typically anyways, it's not like debut novelists cause a new award to be created. The Edogawa Ranpo Prize, the Bram Stoker Award, etc... obviously, those came after the writers they're named after... and sure, the Mephisto Prize isn't named after MORI Hiroshi but the actual magazine but why would his editor ever think it's a good idea to just throw that out there???

Oh, it was just to make his initial debut more sensational. No big deal.

It's just yet another weird footnote on top of everything else connected to this fucking series.

"It's an award winning novel!!! An adaptation of the award winning novel from MORI Hiroshi!!! Please watch/buy the book!!! It won an award!!!"

#Chapter Nine: The Point of it All#

Let's correct our course here and get back to the series. What... exactly was the point of this series? Or rather, I guess I'm asking, what was the point of this story? This being the fourth story MORI Hiroshi about this Professor and his jealous pouty sidekick made a lot of things make more sense. Perhaps in the other stories the Professor is possibly a bit more proactive or acts interested in the mysteries...? Maybe? Maybe they actually successfully catch the fucking culprit in one of the nine other novels.

Because like believe me, I am by no means a mystery buff (I've read literally one). That's just not my primary genre. BUT, I've always thought that the point of reading a mystery was... like you're supposed to be able to take an interest in the characters trying to figure out who did something and then usually, bringing that person to justice. Sure, if the culprit character is a good or interesting character or if the writer intends on having her show up again then them getting away in the end is fine depending on how you do it.

But from the brief descriptions of the other stories they covered in the TV drama, it seemed like the other S&M stories are mostly unrelated. Everything Becomes F, or the ones involving Magata, are like in the middle of the series. So... what was with that ending, then? Magata gets away, but then the show ends with Magata talking with her daughter/her alternate personalities, and then the credits roll, and that's the end. So Magata just gets away and wanders off somewhere else??? What was that ending if not to basically just once and for all fully confirm that Magata is fucking completely insane rather than some genius like the show’s been treating her?

Was I supposed to be invested in the process of them trying to figure out the mystery and NOT react so negatively when it turned out to be a convoluted pile of garbage? Hexadecimals! Computers! How convoluted the entire thing is just undercut by the fact that this was all just planned in advance. Oh okay, so it wasn’t a virus or anything that messed up the operating system and caused the whole actual mystery of the show, it’s just that Magata knew exactly when she’d need the door to open so she just wrote it into the operating system that she was allowed to design and the facility actually used without checking any of the versions over at all FOR FIFTEEN YEARS.

...Additionally, the show never answered enormously important questions. How exactly did she hack off her dead daughter’s arms and legs? When they went into her room, firstly, it was entirely spotless, and additionally, I didn’t see any of the tools that you would probably need to remove a person’s arms and legs. The show made the point to have her daughter be shown wearing gloves so the daughter didn’t leave any fingerprints thus proving that she wasn’t Shiki Magata but… like you’re telling me right after Magata’s daughter killed herself, she was just standing there with the hacksaw at the ready, AND NOT A SINGLE DROP OF BLOOD HIT THE GROUND? YOU WANT TO GO INTO FULL DETAIL ABOUT HEXADECIMALS, BUT NO, THESE DETAILS, NO, THEY DON’T MATTER. HEXADECIMALS ARE WHAT MATTER.

Let’s not even go into how she could have possibly given birth to a daughter alone with no doctor or anything, and then raised that daughter for fifteen years without somebody finding out. I mean what did she do? Uh yeah, can you go out and buy some baby food and pass it through the door slot? I don’t know, maybe that’s EXACTLY what she did. It’s actually established that she can just have the security people watching over her door buy stuff for her and then just pass it to her through the door slot without questioning why she would want these things.

If you were to recommend me this series as a “great” or even “good” mystery and I took your recommendation seriously and watched it, I think the result would have been I would have never wanted to even come close to the mystery genre ever again if this is an example of a GOOD mystery.

If that’s out, then… was I supposed to care or feel interested in the characters of Professor and Nishi? Or find any of their dialogue interesting or entertaining? I find that hard to believe. I’m really not exaggerating when I call him Professor Who Gives a Fuck. He just smokes, shuts down Nishi, and admires and wants to be more like Miss I Killed My Uncle, Parents, and Cut My Daughter Cousin’s Arms and Legs Off After She Killed Herself Because of My Actions. That’s his entire character.

And when they really start to go into the past between Professor and Nishi, it’s way too fucking late for it to matter. It’s so late when the reveal happens that it honestly seemed to me like Nishi herself had forgotten this and was remembering it along with the audience, but I think she’s supposed to actually remember it? But like the show itself cuts away when it’s showing the meeting between her and Magata before the show’s start where Magata asks her “well wasn’t there someone standing next to you when you saw your parents fucking die and also why do you love the professor so much that you stalk him”.

Like the mystery was well in progress, but the show’s still doling out information about the past of our actual two main characters. It felt so nonsensical to me when watching it, but like I said, Everything Becomes F not being the first S&M story makes it make way more sense. Though, now I have to wonder if the story that’s actually about the death of Nishi’s parents and her meeting with the Professor are like the fourth novel since MORI Hiroshi’s editor said “hey let’s just fuck up the order because this one is more shocking! It’s fine! Who cares!”

So the characters are awful, the dialogue is awful, the mystery is awful, and basically nothing that mattered was actually brought to any sort of satisfying resolution. Again, I must ask myself… what was the point of this show?

I still have no fucking idea. Wait… no. That's not true.

They made… a proper adaptation of this guy’s original novel for… fans of the original novel/series. Which… apparently exist somewhere out in the world because how in the hell could he still be writing novels if literally NOBODY read them?

Look, I haven’t read the novel myself, but I’m willing to wager that if A-1 Pictures had done any meddling rather than straight up adapting the novel word for word as I believe they did, I think it would have actually done more good than bad.

Like even taking changing the actual mystery or removing hexadecimals off of the table, just… like, the Professor and Magata’s discussion in English could have happened off the screen. That is clearly something they took right from the novel that is fucking terrible in actual execution.

That’s really all I have for people looking if they’re seriously considering watching this. If you’re already a fan of this guy’s stories or find them interesting then… sure. Otherwise, definitely not, especially if you’re in search of a satisfying or well written mystery series. But if you’re someone like me who can derive entertainment from things I simultaneously view to be as fucking horrible, then I would totally (and did at the very start) recommend this series.

I mean, if you’ve read this far, the effect is somewhat ruined because of the spoilers, but I still strongly recommend it as a fan of entertainingly bad shows. Oh… did I even mention that the ultimate moment when they confront Magata/THE KILLER and explain the hexadecimals, they do it through the Lego Block virtual reality? And like Magata and the Professor are sitting together on chairs on a Lego Block virtual beach while Nishi is just in some dumpy room yelling out her incorrect conclusions through virtual reality space that the viewer themselves know to be entirely incorrect at this point?

Did I mention that at this point the police are in the real life world room and working to trace Magata’s access to VIRTUAL REALITY WORLD? There’s… there’s just so much to unpack and question (in a bad way), that frankly, I personally believe this series is amazing.

Oh yeah, when the Professor just decides he’s spent enough time in the facility after two people have already died and leaves with the intention of getting off the island, he and Nishi are just allowed to go freely. Why? I genuinely expected for any of the staff to say, I don’t know…

Hmm… oh, I got it.

YOU TWO CAN'T JUST LEAVE. YOU RANDOMLY SHOWED THE FUCK UP AND MURDERS STARTED HAPPENING OUT OF THE BLUE. HELL, THEY INITIALLY GOT INTO THE FACILITY VIA NISHI LYING ABOUT HAVING A HEADACHE OR SOMETHING.

MAYBE ONE OF YOU IS THE CULPRIT, OR EVEN IF WE DON’T EXPECT THAT TO BE THE CASE, SHOULDN’T THE FACILITY BE ON TOTAL LOCK DOWN UNTIL THE POLICE COME OR WE FIND THE FUCKING MURDERER?

BUT THEN, ONE OF THE SCIENTISTS COMES AFTER THEM AND I THOUGHT OH SHIT, FINALLY, FINALLY SOME LOGIC IS GOING TO ENTER THE PICTURE! BUT NO, HE JUST OFFERS THE PROFESSOR A BRIBE TO KEEP HIS MOUTH SHUT TO THE AUTHORITIES ABOUT THE MURDERER AND THE CORPSES BECAUSE THEY HAD SOME PROJECT THEY WERE WORKING ON AND IT WOULD INTERFERE WITH IT.

HOWEVER, THEN THE AUTHORITIES COME AND THE PROFESSOR IS ALL LIKE… “tomorrow nishi, we becomes liars.”

BUT THEN AFTER A PHONE CONVERSATION WITH HER POLICE CHIEF UNCLE WHO JUST STRAIGHT UP SAID “yeah fuck no I can’t cover up two murders for a week what the fuck are you on about” SO THEY JUST END UP TELLING THEM EVERYTHING AND THAT WAS THAT.

The Professor just apologizes to main scientist guy and he just shrugs it off.

Oh well geez, I’m glad that was resolved satisfyingly.

“This is going to be a plot occurence that might change things--oh nevermind, it’s over.”

The Professor should have just abandoned Nishi on the island and that should have been the actual end of the show.

#Chapter Fifteen: Conclusions#

We covered a lot of ground here today, but this was in fact an anime review, believe it or not. Perfect Insider… as said at the very start of this review, I give it a 1 out of 15. However, I can probably see why MORI Hiroshi is an acclaimed writer (wow, the mysteries are so complicated and there’s stuff about computers! AWARD WINNING NOVEL!!!) but I can also see why none of his stories have ever once won the Edogawa Ranpo award. Or apparently any other award but the Mephisto Prize, for that matter.

As I said in the previous section, I would probably only genuinely recommend this series to either fans of MORI Hiroshi or those like me who like watching gruesome and horrific train wrecks unfold before their very eyes. But if the day ever comes that we receive an animated Perfect Insider 2, I'd be fully for watching S&M to get on the case yet again!

...And fail to catch the culprit, again. Because they’re fucking terrible in absolutely every single way.