Your Forma

Episode 5

While we're at the start of a new arc with episode 5, it's directly related to the previous story – specifically the emotional repercussions suffered by poor Echika, who was overpowered by assailants (twice), forcibly restrained, and made somewhat complicit in RF Model inventor Lexi Carter's schemes. She learned potentially devastating secrets about the true nature of her synthetic RF Model Amicus partner Harold, yet is unable to share them with him.

Now, it seems, she's (understandably) suffering from a degree of PTSD – she's not sleeping well, and in order to control her emotional responses around Harold, she's resorting to the use of a definitely suspect neurotransmitter-regulatory cartridge. This is a device she plugs directly into her neck access port, which apparently helps correct her stress-addled brainwaves. You don't need to be a doctor to imagine that's probably not healthy. Perhaps, I don't know, consider counseling or something instead?

Echika's device supplier is her friend Bigga, a self-declared biohacker who doesn't seem all that confident in her work. Anime-only viewers know almost nothing about this cutesy younger female character. Although she briefly appeared in the first episode, we received zero context about her identity or links to Echika, due to the still-baffling decision for the anime to skip novel volume one's material. I'd hoped that with the beginning of a new arc this wouldn't be so much a problem, but I can't help feeling there's essential background information about this world and characters that I'm missing. This leads to me second- guessing the interactions between every character – am I supposed to know more about these people and their inter-relationships? How exactly does the titular Your Forma technology work anyway? It's mentioned in this episode it's some kind of thread, presumably somehow woven into people's brains, but that's it.

In this world there's a “Luddite” subculture that reject the implantation of Your Forma into their brains, and their existence does pose some difficulties for cyber-inspectors. Without access ports, there's no brain-diving for info. Last arc featured an entire region in England populated by Luddites that didn't even have internet provision. That at least can be thought of as charmingly quaint, if a little backwards. However, there are more extremist Luddites like the mysterious “E” who posts inflammatory material online via what sounds like multiple VPNs, without the use of Your Forma. Their existence in this world does ring true, however. There are plenty of (usually older) people in our world who, to this day, still don't use the internet, or smartphones. Some of E's acolytes cause trouble for Echika and her colleagues, but we don't know exactly what their motivations are yet.

There's also a subplot about a ring of E-drug dealers (is Bigga involved with this?), including one that looks like Anime Walter White. When Echika attempts to brain-dive these discount Breaking Bad-a-likes, she discovers, to her horror, that she's no longer able to brain-dive effectively. Her previous genius-level data-processing levels have plummeted due to trauma and, for poorly-explained technobabble reasons, apparently will never recover. That sounds extremely arbitrary and highly likely to be resolved by similarly ill-defined plot mumbo-jumbo later.

What this means is she's summarily relieved of cyber-inspector duties and essentially demoted to run-of-the mill grunt detective work, which results in her being attacked by a Luddite and having coffee poured on her. Nice. To add insult to injury, she then sees Harold with his new, female, beautiful, French, talented (her data processing skills are improving) partner. No wonder she coldly brushes off his concerned overtures, though I do think Echika's acting kind of childishly. Oh well, at least Bigga offers to biohack Echika's data processing ability better. Surely nothing can go wrong?

Your Forma's interesting world keeps me engaged enough to keep wanting to watch, but the bizarre choice to cut the story's introduction keeps hurting the show's ability to tell a coherent story where I care enough about the characters. Echika and Harold seem like they could be compelling, but… there's something missing that keeps me from really engaging with them.

Further adding to my Your Forma-associated bafflement are the international streaming choices. In North America your only option is via Samsung's streaming service, if you own one of their devices. Before Your Forma, I had no idea Samsung even had a streaming service. I imagine most of their customers still don't. In the UK, where I live, my only option is via YouTube, which is nice I suppose, because it's free. Unfortunately, every episode from the fourth onwards is available to stream for only a week after release, with no news regarding any longer-term options. WTF?

Rating:

Your Forma is currently streaming on Samsung TV+ in the U.S., YouTube, and other services worldwide on Wednesdays.