Dies Irae

Episode 4

With episode 4, Dies irae takes a small step forward by actually starting to make sense. Whether or not that will help make it into a decent series remains to be seen, but at least it is some kind of progress.

The necessary context finally comes in a most detested form: the info dump. Admittedly, it's a relatively short speech as Kai lays out many of the particulars of Ren's situation and what her group is trying to do. Frankly, few series were more in desperate need of some kind of info dump than this one. As a result, we now know that the Longinus Deizehn Orden mentioned in episode 1 is a round table formed by Karl Krafft (aka Mercurius), which had 13 members during the World War II era but now has less, and at a mere 11 years of membership, Kai is one of the newer replacements. If I'm understanding correctly, they want a war so they can summon the upper hierarchy of their group back to get their wishes granted, and since these are peaceful times and they're so much more powerful than the average person, they need a worthy opponent to wage war against. Hence Ren must be trained up to become that opponent, and that's Kai's task.

The logic behind all this is still wonky enough that the full picture must be more complex, and we do know that Krafft/Mercurius is some kind of dimension-hopping entity, so I'm guessing the lower-tier flunkies are getting seriously played in all this. Guillotine Girl's role in this is now a little clearer; a contract must be made with soul-eating relic weapons (many of them cursed) to gain power, and apparently Ren's is the guillotine. Once he learns to manifest his power, he can turn his limbs into blades and even sprout them from his back, which he manages before the end of the episode when a spider-themed creep named Spinne sufficiently provokes him by making him believe that Kasumi has been killed. Naturally, that turns out to be a bad idea for Spinne, and we finally get to see Ren go full badass.

All of this still makes for some mediocre content, but at least two scenes spruce up the episode a bit. One is a scene where Ren pretends that Kai is his new girlfriend to deflect queries from Kasumi, and Kai reluctantly plays along with it, though not without pinching his butt. It's actually an effectively amusing sequence. The other is what happens to Spinne as he meets his demise, with those CG-animated hordes of skeletal claws drawing his body into the ground as he screams in one of the series' neatest visuals since the first episode. There's also plenty more blood to splatter around and solid ongoing musical support.

One additional tidbit is Spinne's off-hand comment implying that Ren is “the child of a monster.” Apparently, we'll have to have to wait to find out more about that.

More SimulDub Thoughts: With episode 1 now available in dubbed form, we can hear the voices of the main cast in English. Jad Saxton, who voices Guillotine Girl, is using some kind of accent that I think is supposed to sound German, but she speaks too softly and indistinctly to tell for sure. Ren, Kasumi, and Rea are all well-cast and performed adequately, though.

Rating: C+

Dies irae is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.