Dimension W

More anime intros need to feature the main characters dancing to the song, especially for characters that would never be caught dead dancing in the first place.

I'll be honest, I really wanted to like this show.

One of the most frustrating things about adapting a manga into an anime ISN'T that the anime will inevitably play out differently or cut out certain scenes - that's to be expected, since the two mediums operate very differently to begin with, and what works in one format likely does not work in the other. No, in my opinion, the MOST frustrating thing is that in order for a manga or novel to get adapted at all, it has to happen while the source material is still hot, to ensure that it will have an active audience when it comes out that can buy into it and hopefully pay for the cost of its continued existence.

It sucks because what this usually ends up translating to is one single season of a show that tries as hard as it can to cram as much of the source material into a scant 12-13 episodes as possible, and will ultimately cut off at a point still pretty early in the original. Sometimes this can work - for example, I liked how the Dream Eater Merry anime wrapped up what it started - but it's extremely difficult finding a balance that will both function in animated series format and still remain faithful to the source. Animation is an expensive and very time-consuming process, and all adapted anime rely on an active, thriving "customer base" if they ever hope to see a second season.

This is why so many adapted anime feel like floating fragments; incomplete and somewhat stilted.

Es un perdedor, querida. ¿Por qué no lo matas?

Enter Dimension W, a single-season "sci-fi" anime that combines a very loose and hand-waved form of science with more of a paranormal/ghost story approach to storytelling. The titular W is defined in this show as a "fourth dimension", following X, Y and Z (length, width, and height - or depth, depending on who you ask). However, unlike in most scientific circles, W in this case measures not "time", but "possibility". W is the dimension in which all forms of potential alternate realities reside, and scientists in the "prime" world have created transdimensional devices (coils) that can harness and tap into this "possibility", transforming it into an unlimited supply of power that then proceeds to outmode all other forms of consumable energy on planet earth. God, if only.

However, due to its nature as a world of literal infinite possibility, W is highly unstable and horrifically dangerous if not filtered correctly. Only coils manufactured by a company appropriately dubbed "New Tesla" are considered safe to use. Naturally though, despite the risks involved, an active underground market exists for a variety of bootleg coils that offer far greater power than a standard New Tesla model can produce. The trade-off is that overloading a coil can result in multiple realities overlapping each other, producing nightmarish glitches in the prime reality.

Despite being definitively textbook opposites, science and the paranormal actually work quite well together, considering the paranormal is just science we can't yet define.

Our main character is a gruff and emotionally-stunted loner of a man named Kyouma, who works as a mercenary hunting and reclaiming illegal coils for a private contractor under New Tesla. Renowned for his extraordinary ability to throw stuff good, Kyouma is a man of few words, and shoulders a massive grudge against coils and everything they stand for. He takes great pains to live his personal life completely divorced of them, demanding to be paid exclusively in cash and fossil fuels - two highly uncommon commodities in his world - to maintain his gas-powered cars and keep him off the economic grid. His bounty hunting weapon of choice is an arsenal of long needles connected to an inexhaustible supply of wire that he can throw with superhuman strength and precision.

The story kicks off when Kyouma crosses paths with a peppy young girl during a coil bust and ends up botching the job due to her interference. The girl (Mira) happens to be related to one of the world's leading scientists in coils and W research, who later that episode proceeds to zap himself into the aether (presumably directly into W itself), leaving behind only a cryptic clue for her to follow him. As it turns out, Mira is an android - and a remarkably human one at that - and will prove to be a vital asset in future coil recovery, as well as unlocking other dark secrets about New Tesla and the W research they're been covering up all these years.

Much to his dismay, Kyouma is charged with taking care of Mira by his employer, and spends the rest of the anime begrudgingly dragging her along like she's just some piece of trash robot companion.

Don't ever hit children. You can never be sure what they're made of.

The series spends its first half setting up characters and teasing out little details for us to piece together about how coils and dimension W function. During the first few jobs, we're treated to hints about Kyouma's repressed military past, the unsettling horrors of what W is capable of, and recurring appearances by a mysterious masked stranger who is also collecting certain illegal coils for his own secretive purpose. Once all the necessary pieces are in place and the show establishes its premise, its players, and its general vibe, we spend the entire second half of the series in a single location, in what feels much more like a video game-y final dungeon sequence than a structured story.

In true anime fashion, the back half plays out like a tournament arc, with a hitherto unheard-of roster of rival bounty hunters all being dispatched to an abandoned laboratory on Easter Island to locate and secure what may very well be the holy grail of illegal coils. After a rapid-fire introduction to a half-dozen new side characters, the entire endgame becomes a competition to brave the glitched-reality badlands of the island, outsmart the automated defense robots, locate and secure the coil in question, and crack our main cast's remaining mysteries, all in six episodes or less. To say the second half of the anime feels completely different from the first is a bit of an understatement.

Featuring special guest appearance by Will Smith.

Now, in case this is the first of my Reviews you're reading, I should explain: I'm one of those filthy anime-onlies who never reads the manga. As such, in all my reviews, I try to focus on treating the anime as its own production, existing on its own merits outside of its original material. In Dimension W's case, without acknowledging the missing parts from the manga, it definitely felt like the show ramped up too quickly. I loved the vibe of first 6 episodes, learning about each of the characters and the way their world works by watching them investigate haunted hotels, re-live memories via tears in reality, and rewrite the outcomes by altering their own perceptions. It's all powered by inexplicable pseudo-science, but who doesn't love a good ghost story?

But by the second half, Dimension W kind of feels like a façade of an anime. It's nicely stylized and polished on the surface, but if you take a peek under the hood, its core is flimsy and missing a lot of key components. I wouldn't say it's an issue of pace - stars know I regularly make fun of people who complain about "pacing issues" - but I strongly feel like the show would have benefitted enormously from about double its total episode count. Closed-off characters like Kyouma need room to grow, and shine brighter the longer we spend wiping the dirt away, rather than simply dumping all the lore all at once during a tournament arc.

Contrary to popular opinion, I find enormous value in details that don't add anything substantial to a show's Lore or Plot, like robotic suits of armor that shoot lasers from their helmets.

This brings me back to my first point about adaptated anime. Fellow weebs will probably disagree with me on this, but I think an anime that deviates from the manga - even heavily - isn't necessarily a bad thing. I think adaptations work best when they're allowed to be their own thing (for example, the Scott Pilgrim comics vs the movie). This is frustrating in Dimension W's case, since it feels like there's so much missing in the animated version that it doesn't stand up very well on its own. It genuinely feels like the anime goes straight from Act 1 to Act 3 after a mere 6 episodes. Knowing how much more is left unadapted from the source material, I hate to phrase it this way, but it makes the anime feel like a very expensive 288-minute trailer for the manga.

Now, despite my tone, I don't want to imply that Dimension W is a bad show. I really liked Kyouma's dour, emotionally constipated character, especially in contrast to the more amicable and outgoing people he ends up surrounded by. And although Mira suffers from a mild case of being a teenager constantly getting put in belfie poses, I enjoyed her earnest curiosity and irrational human-machine mannerisms. There's a surprising level of diversity on display in the side characters (hurrah for fat people existing!), and the show even makes good use of its action sequences and soundtrack. Really, the only part of the show that floundered for me was its undercooked story elements and lack of room to breathe.

She's not Like That™, she's just drawn that way.

Look, I'm not a big fan of multiverses or the "many worlds" theory. The idea that events can happen in two separate timelines that can eventually be converged or crossed over for the sake of carrying a plot element usually just elicits an eyeroll from me (fuck you in particular, BioShock Infinite). The concept of W acting as a conduit for all eventualities and possibilties creates an all-too-convenient way for the characters to bypass the laws of physics, and isn't nearly as clever as the series wants you to think it is. Then again, I think it would have worked just fine if the show weren't trying to be serious about it.

At one point we're told that someone piloting a robot body remotely from across the world is able to do so because they're transmitting through W, which somehow means there's no lag because there exists an alternate reality where that's possible, I guess. Meanwhile, hearing someone explain that robots are equipped with coil-powered shields that "divert the force of the impact into dimension W at the point of contact" comes across like that one NPC who explains how your rechargeable shield works at the beginning of a game. Nice lore I guess, but it feels kind of unnecessary for characters to just go around saying it out loud, ya know?

I did appreciate the disturbing the visuals of what happens when a coil overloads and causes multiple possible realities to overlap and solidify in the prime reality.

I think that's what frustrates me the most about this show. Aside from the parts that feel "missing", there was a strong potential for an extremely cool series here that just got lost underneath its need to appeal to the original material. It could have joined the Cowboy Bebops and Slayers and Triguns of the anime world by following a group of misfits on their strange misadventures, uncovering treasure troves of history, conspiracy, and character growth, if only it had been given time to wander a bit more. Perhaps there's an alternate reality somewhere in W where that show is the one that got made, and we just missed out.

Either way, I did really appreciate what the show was TRYING to do (and probably achieves to a greater extent in the manga), and I don't regret watching it at all. It's not something I'll likely watch again later on down the road, but for what it is, it's a decent attempt at science-driven ghost stories with some cool and interesting characters to boot. It's not exactly what I'd call cyberpunk, but if you enjoy things that are commonly labelled as such, I think you might enjoy it too.

Elsewhere in the multiverse of possibility, Captain Planet feels an inexplicable warmth radiating deep within his heart.

For follow-up recommendations, one easy show that I think matches the same tone, style, vibe and pace of Dimension W is the "A Certain" franchise, starting with A Certain Magical Index. If you liked one, you'll almost certainly like the other. That said, Index also suffers from cramming too much into too small a package in later seasons, which is weird given how massive and sprawling that franchise has become. In the here and now of 2024, you might also like other not-quite-sci-fi anime like Dandadan or Undead Unluck. If you're in the mood for something a bit more heady but still in the same ballpark, try C (The Money of Soul and Possibility Control).

But if there's one other anime I'd really like to draw your attention to that follows the same path of mixing "high concept" science with strange paranormality, it would be Occultic;Nine. Mostly only known for being "the other anime from the guy who made Steins;Gate and has that girl with the huge gazongas", Occultic;Nine has a wildly intriguing story that blends Nikola Tesla's late-life beliefs about the afterlife with conspiracy-laden occult magic in the modern era. Not only do I think fans of Dimension W would like it (if they don't mind a once-per-episode scene with Big Titty Girl doing her thing), I think I actually want to rewatch it myself for a future review now!

Honestly, "flashbang" is the best way to describe this show. Loud, bright, and immediate, but it's over quickly and doesn't leave a lasting impact.

As of writing this review, I'm currently on vacation for a week! You would think this means I have plenty of time to start digging into that backlog of other shows I want to revisit, but in actuality, I'm totally preoccupied with something else right now. And if all goes according to plan, you'll find out what that thing is soon enough...stay tuned!

(UPDATE: I released a new album! Click the "something else" above and go give it a listen, it fucking rules!)