Subete ga F ni Naru: The Perfect Insider

"People who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do."

 - Steve Jobs

Subete ga F ni Naru / Everything Becomes F: The Perfect Insider (2015) is an 11 episode long animated murder mystery series adapted from a 1996 japanese novel of the same name by Hiroshi Mori. Subete ga F ni Naru is part of a short story series named the S&M series where Professor Saikawa and his student Moe encounter and solve crimes.

The story begins with a diary, a man trying to figure out the fate and thoughts of a girl, while crying. The flashback of this man and the underaged girl continue throughout the show and are heavily part of the solution and understanding of the most important character in it. The story is a modernized version of the original story so it takes place in 2015 - new computers, a costy modern ferrari looking car, which a cheery youngish girl who happens to be extremely good at counting because she's apparently extremely smart; a person named Nishinosono Moe, is driving while on her way to Professor Saikawa Souhei's apartment. Saikawa, the chain smoker, is a rather apathetic glasses man who is good with computers and who stops to think all sorts of abstract questions: Who am I? Where do I come from? Where am I going? these three 'great' questions are ones that Saikawa wants to constantly think about.

Moe mentions that she had gone to the Magata Labs to meet up with a person named Magata Shiki, a genius programmer who has been rumored to have multiple different personalities. By the age of 11 Magata had claimed her doctorate. The rumours say that Magata killed her own parents. As Moe asks Magata about what really appened - she claims: "A doll killed them."
According to Saikawa, Magata now resides in a lab on the area of Himaka Island, in Mikawa Bay, conducting her researches. As Magata is highly praised by any other genius in the world, Saikawa claims that he wants to meet up with her for his abstract goal of "being able to leave this world."
The first episode ends as Moe reminiscenses back to the meeting with Magata Shiki as she asks one final question: "Who are you?" and Shiki seems surprised.

Moe and the professor travel to the island on a ship along with a group of other students - it's a field trip of sorts but it's not explained well enough for the watcher to mak. The lab workers have been working with Magata on the island for 15 years but here's the kicker - During that time the communication is done by a mic and a camera and what's more Magata has NEVER been outside since locking herself up, for 15 long years.

We learn couple of things in the second episode: the subsystem that runs the lab is named Deborah, the lab personnel have been trying to contact Magata but have not been able to get contact to her, and that Shiki has a younger sister.
As the people in the lab gather and are about to open Magata's door which has not been opened for 15 years, to check out whether she had collapsed, a weird... doll? appears as the door to Magata's office opens and the lights in the room keep flashing as the subsystem supposedly malfunctions, and the body starts moving forward. It's not a doll, it's the pure white body of Magata Shiki herself, dressed in a wedding dress. This is the best part of the entire show; suspense, tension, mystery.

A doctor over the scene checks her pulse and tells everyone that Dr. Magata Shiki was murdered. Her legs and arms were amputated and she was placed on a cart. Also the subsystem Deborah for some reason went out of control during the moment when the crime was exposed; it's almost as if it all had been timed. Also, according to witness statements no one went in and out of Magata's room.

As there is only one entrance; the door to Magata's room, and no one had gone in and out of it, the murderer has to be in, right? else it would be a locked room murder. Which it is.
The director of the lab, Shinso, arrives on a helicopter along with Magata's younger sister. Moe and the others ask him to contact the police with the helicopter's radio as the phones of the lab don't work and leave inside, but when they go back to the roof, the director is found dead; the radio has been destroyed and a knife is on his neck.

Here's the weird part of the story: it feels almost like the watcher should know these characters and what's going on, like the trip and the students on it - who are these? the case cast as well; every single one of them is absolutely forgettable, not even one-note, just background characters, at best. No one reacts to the horrifying murders realistically, they just eat cookies and sandwiches and drink coffee instead... There's barely any actual potential culprits to pick on in this story - they don't go over the potential suspects. The clues to be able to solve the case are laid out immediately after they happen as well, by episode 4 the extremely smart Moe and Saikawa should have been able to deduce what was going on with the case for the most part. There's an incredible lack of actual content in the episodes as well, as every last thing gets stretched out. The pacing of the series should fit three episodes, but this one is 11. Frankly there's ALOT of pretentious-feeling dialogue to stretch out the episodes.

So: The soundtrack is mediocre. OP and ED are decent. Animations are average at best with lack of colors, characters are garbage; only the 2 MC's are notable and the other is an edgelord and the other is a girl who is in love with the her sensei and the story is pretentious and tiring. On my re-watch I was absolutely done by episode seven even though I started it with open mind - the Magata flashbacks are different from what you'd be used to while watching anime but the handling of dialogue and information is terribly done. Ah on another note I noticed some similar tropes that are shared between this and Kubikiri Cycle another Light Novel murder mystery series; both of these handle pretentious dialogue and lack of information during investigations, both have main characters who contemplate hiding the murders from the police, those types of things on top of them both having the identical generic murder mystery settings.

Subete ga F ni Naru's story starts from 15 years ago - a very important number for the series other than 7 - it jumps between the past where the watcher learns of Magata Shiki's relationship with a pedo uncle as she entraps him, and the present day where the murder of Magata Shiki - behind locked doors - and the director - outdoors - have happened. Talking about the number 15, back then Magata Shiki killed her parents and created the lab where she's been for 15 years - the mystery of her "killing her parents?" is shown clearly by the end of episode 6 and never theorised (as in what really could have happened), which is very disappointing. There is one "reveal" to her killing her parents but it should be so obvious I almost forgot about it. The clueing in this story is 50/50 - most of it does make sense and some of it does not or are not presented in a way that allow for the watcher to come up with a conclusion. They handle the story in a way that they actually show or tell the answers before gathering the clues, however some of it also does not make sense such as the doctor checking Magata's corpse and not being able to tell the obvious thing that would instantly bring an answer to this case with a little bit of thinking.

It's a show that's dragged to no end, the drama with Moe's love towards Saikawa is terribly written in and the story is filled to the brim with stalling and pseudo-intellectual nonsense; instead of handling a mystery story with logical thinking and facts, the characters only consider what-ifs ad-nauseum, and worst of all: there's a looong sequence of terrible and slow engrish by the voice actors. The 11 episode anime version is not recommended. I advise people to check out the live action version for a considerably better pacing, even though even that gets some complaints about it from the watchers from what I've heard. Weird huh.