Un-Go - Episode 7

After last week's superb episode of Un-Go, this week's instalment follows directly on from that in a sense, as Shinjurou continues his discussion with the prisoner and so-called novelist who seems intent upon using our "defeated detective" as a major part of his attempts to create a novel from reality.

If this isn't odd enough, even more notable is this prisoner's sidekick - a configuration that almost seems to match that of Shinjurou and Inga, with a suspicion that grows even stronger as Shinjurou finds himself feeling dizzy and ultimately falling unconscious in the prison's visiting room.

When he awakes, our protagonist is faced with a very different "reality", as he finds himself working on the set of a movie set in the midst of a war and starring three young girls.  Just what is the film about, and what is the director up to?  While the first question seems to be answered with the response "it's a film about girls running around in their pants", the actresses themselves have far more varied, considered and wide-reaching opinions on the work in which they are involved, while Shinjurou seems unavoidably dragged towards the sense of mystery that he feels in everything around him - but this time, it seems as though the prime suspect for his eventual suspicions is none other than himself.

There's really only one word for this episode of Un-Go, and that word is "weird".  This, however, is no bad thing, as everything about the instalment does a wonderful job of unnerving and confusing the viewer.  To start with it seems that we're quite clearly in a kind of dream sequences, but then even the contents of that dream become so unsettling and off-kilter that even this is thrown into doubt before the tail end of the episode seems to suggest some kind of link between what we've seen and reality.  This all combines to create an uncomfortable viewing experience that is nonetheless fascinating - it's a brave, cleverly positioned and avant-garde piece of work that I can't help but admire, even if its full implications aren't going to be revealed until the next episode.