Caligula Episode 3: Control Through Complacency
Before I start, I should apologise for not being active these past few days. I’ve been somewhat busy this past week, but the bigger reason I haven’t made a post is because I simply haven’t had much to say about Steins;Gate 0, SAO, or My Hero Academia’s most recent episodes. Not because they’re bad, far from it. But they’re all very much in their setup phase. I don’t want to just make a post for the sake of it, I want to make sure I can add a bit more to the discussion than a simple recap post and a thumbs up or a thumbs down on the episode’s individual qualities.
Caligula, on the other hand, is something I’ve had a fun time watching and thinking about during each of the three episodes that are out right now, and given the attention my posts on Caligula have received, others would seem to agree. I may try watching something else such as Persona 5 or Megalo Box if I face a similar situation next week, but for now, here’s my thoughts on episode 3 of Caligula.
Firstly I should admit something- so far, characters in Caligula haven’t been all that interesting. I'd been focusing on more interesting aspects of the show in my first two reviews, but it's absolutely true that there hasn't been much strong character work going on so far. In episode 1 Ritsu came off as a bit nerd which made him somewhat interesting, but in these past two episodes he feels almost like an entirely different and much more bland character than his episode 1 counterpart. A lot of that may due to the panic and stress he’s under, but it still feels disappointing that he doesn't get almost anything interesting to say or do. This episode, however, finally did some solid character work not for Ritsu, who barely gets a footnote in this episode, but for Mifue, the girl whose journey has been happening somewhat under our noses for the past few episodes. Considering how little impact her story has been making so far, it’s actually kind of incredible how a lot of the subtle details managed to build up to a really impactful turn in this episode. While I’ve had interesting thoughts on the first two episodes, I’d say that this episode is the most viscerally entertaining so far, and it didn’t even feature a single fight scene. There’s still a lot of interesting ideas to unpack, so let’s get started.
After the end of the last episode Mifue has been searching for answers regarding her missing mother, an anorexic(?) woman who was replaced with a much healthier, attractive looking alternative in the first episode. She still seems to be in a little bit of denial surrounding the true nature of Mobius, it seems to be something she’s pushing to the back of her mind in favour of searching for her mother. Yet, it’s still seeming pretty likely at this point that neither of the mothers were real to begin with. To search for answers, she attends a tea party event ran by a girl called Sweet P, because allegedly they share lots of underground news and rumours which might help Mifue understand the situation with her mother better. The girl wearing glasses who seems to be interested in getting the latest scoop also shows up to this party, but so far despite being in every episode she hasn’t left much of an impact yet.
The tea party itself is a great example of the fact that the excellent tension, paranoia, and overall atmosphere conjured by the first episode wasn’t a flash in the bag affair. The tea party starts off looking like a seemingly silly and pointless diversion to the viewer, especially given how little impact Mifue has left so far. But slowly sinister undertones start creeping up as it becomes more apparent that the entire episode is going to be focused on this event. The fact that they all have ‘fairy names’ representing flowers, the fact that that the girls won’t respond to Mifue unless she’s constantly acting super cute, and the gluttonous attitudes of the other girls at the table slowly start to creep up on both Mifue and the viewer, and the frustration Mifue is under while acting faux-cute is almost nail biting. On a personal level, it helps for me because few things gross me out more than gluttony- I can take gore, sex, and all manner of other things, but something about constant eating really gets under my skins. You could say that much like Mifue herself, I have a distaste for fat people and messy food. It’s something about the lack of self-control, the wastefulness, the unhealthiness, the selfishness- it makes me feel fat just looking at characters like these consume so much. That’s not me thinking I’m a better or more moral person than a fat individual. It’s just one of those uncontrollable things that freaks me out on an psychological level.
But it’s not just about the gluttony, it’s about Sweet P’s psychotic obsession with aesthetics that really elevates this sequence to greater levels that match with the thematics of the rest of the show. The gluttony itself, the act of growing fat, selfish, and complacent, serves as a mirror for what Mobius itself is doing to its citizens on a metaphorical level. Anything they desire on a physical, emotional, and aesthetic level is provided for, and they can have their wishes catered to even when they’re not actively thinking about what they want. It’s revealed that in the real world, Sweet P herself is actually a fat, middle-aged man, somebody who blogs about ramen. And here in Mobius, he can be everything he wants to be. As Sweet P he can be a cute little girl with frilly and sweet aesthetics, he can eat as much as he wants without getting fat, and he can even hold power and information- he can be intimidating to someone like Mifue. In Mobius, he has all that he could ever desire. As he explains to Mifue, there’s no reason for them to even think. Mu will provide for them.
When Mifue snaps, it’s both cathartic and a little scary. While we could tell that she was under pressure, the way she snaps reveals a lot more deep seated resentment towards… well, something, than we had previously known about her. The way this is expressed is that she has a distaste for fat people, but the way she expresses it makes it seems like she’s more upset at selfish people in general. Makes you wonder if somebody hurt her in the real world.
Sweet P attempts to break down Mifue’s entire perspective by explaining that such an outburst only really reveals the ugliness in her own heart- and that it was also Mifue herself who wished her mother to be erased and replaced. A flashback sequence reveals possibly one of the most horrifying ideas in this episode, even if it’s not as disgusting as the tea party itself on a visual level. We see Mu asking Mifue what she can do to make Mifue happier in Mobius, and Mifue just kind of shrugs and explains that she would be happier if she could at least eat a meal with her mother, who seems to dislike eating in general. Mu, instead of deciding to alter her mother’s behaviour (which would have been scary enough by itself) instead just decides to replace the mother entirely with somebody who is healthier looking and more upbeat. As such, Mifue kind of erased her mother completely by accident. It shows both how simultaneously powerful and naive Mu really is, and just how far away she is from understanding humans despite so desperately wanting them to be happy, which is a point I touched on in the last post. But this episode just goes to show what lengths will go to to allow people to enter a state where they think they will be happy, and in the process, allowing people like Sweet P and her entourage to live out a lifestyle of pure selfishness, complacency, and sinful excess.
In the future, it’s likely we’ll also see ways in which other characters defending the fabric of Mobius’ reality have fallen victim to their own desires, their own obsession with aesthetics and base physical wants, and I’m very excited to see what they’ll do with other characters like Sweet P. This structure could very much fall in line with a ‘villain of the week’ format, which I’d be fine with.
On that note, it turns out Sweet P was actually a boss fight in her original game, and that Ritsu seemed to actually be with Mifue at this point in the game. Yet, there’s not a single instance of combat in this episode. Which is likely why Sweet P is defeated simply by embarrassing her rather than trying to fight her. I’m fine with that, honestly, since the fight scenes have been a weaker aspect of the show compared to the psychological ideas at play. As the plotline with Ritsu develops I’m sure proper combat will become more commonplace, but I hope episodes like this one continue to be the norm going forward.
Lastly, at the very end of the episode we seem to get a glimpse at the real world, at the machines the citizens of Mobius seem to be sleeping in. It’s definitely interesting, and it makes it look like a government facility. Makes me wonder if Mu was created for some sort of real world purpose- population control, perhaps? Is it just Otaku or people dissatisfied with the world who come to Mobius? The way the themes of the series are playing out, it would seem that the people in Mobius are here voluntarily. But by that measure it looks like much more than a mere video game as well, so it’ll be interesting to see what relevance the real world will have during the plot.
That’s all I had to say. Feel free to discuss this episode with me in the comments!
