Then, we set the vial of poison to open if a certain sort of atom decays in the next hour. Is the Fumika alive or dead when you open the box? Can you even tell?
That seems to be the question posed in Shigofumi 5, wherein a deeper plot concerning the shadowy origins of Fumika are revealed, by the boy who had a crush on her (and she on him), no less. It’s fitting, therefore, that the series made a Schrodinger’s Cat reference in this episode, then, since we don’t actually know what’s going on with Fumika or why she is working for the Shigofumi Praesidium. Is she alive? Is she dead? The plot angle isn’t something I anticipated from the series at the beginning (or, well, I did, but in a different form than it is now). I’m assuming that the mysterious reason she’s doing this is to atone for her sin of killing her gradient-hair father (who doesn’t sound like he’s too hot of a guy from the small clip we see of him at the beginning).
Shigofumi seems to be adept at leavening more serious themes with comedy, which is a good thing. SERIOUS BUSINESS is all well and good, but sometimes you need a laugh, and the character designs are too attractive to waste on a serious show. I’d almost argue that the character designs and overall art style fit a series of this calibre: they’re just “serious” enough to not make the serious side laughable, and they’re soft enough to make the cute moments (such as Fumika terrified of cats) be appropriately cute. It’s a hard thing to explain, but the designs are attractive, and the overall art direction is quite well done. It’s not visually the same as true tears, but it doesn’t need to be. Plus, the Shigofumi uniforms are stylinh–it’s like postal worker uniforms, except anime. And awesome hats. More girls need awesome hats.
Anime wa Bakuhatsu da! 