Kokkoku Episode 5: Motives Matter, So What Do These Characters Want?

Review:

With the exception of Majima, who laid out her motivation this week of recovering her family from stasis (which, probably shouldn’t be possible but more on that one later), I have to wonder if we know what any of these characters actually want. The family at first were trying to recover all their members from kidnappers, but since then, haven’t really seemed to be prioritising that objective. The cult guys all just seem to want to have sex or sexually harass girls in stasis, and the guys in charge want the stone but haven’t actually given us anything to go on as to what they want with it.

Now, I know the grandfather’s version of what stasis is isn’t exactly reliable given he is just remembering stuff he’s been told, but he described it like a still frame in a movie. And even suggested leaving stasis and re-entering it in order to leave the villains behind and then rescue the other family members. But what that suggested was that being left in stasis meant that you were stuck in that frame forever. Therefore, Majima entering stasis again shouldn’t bring her in touch with her family who should in fact be stuck in a different frame. So either the grandfather’s explanation was rubbish, or the heralds jump between different frames, or the story has a major plot hole that might push this mystery beyond repair.

The story also hasn’t fixed the issue of not actually having any characters the audience can connect to given so far they are all pretty bland, horrible, or undeveloped. At five episodes in, it really is time for the story to step it up and start filling in some of these cracks. As curious as I am about the mystery, I’m starting to wonder if the explanation will be worth it if the quality of the journey doesn’t improve.

Thanks for reading.

Karandi James

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