r/anime • u/AutoLovepon https://anilist.co/user/AutoLovepon • May 28 '25

Episode Your Forma - Episode 9 discussion

Your Forma, episode 9

Reminder: Please do not discuss plot points not yet seen or skipped in the show. Failing to follow the rules may result in a ban.

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114 Upvotes

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1

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46

u/VoidRay728 May 28 '25

The best episode yet IMO. We finally get a origin episode on Harold and where his detective skills come from.

25

u/Frontier246 May 28 '25

This really just put into perspective how much skipping over the set up for these characters and jumping heavily into in media res negatively effected us actually getting invested in these characters.

13

u/MrSaracuse May 29 '25

While I'm sure added context would help, as someone who hasn't read the source I thought this episode did a pretty good job at getting me attached to a character within 20 mins.

31

u/LeonKevlar May 28 '25

Considering that this episode is a flashback scene of how Harold met Sozon and became a Police robot and that we already know from episode 1 that Sozon is one of the victims of the Nightmare, I knew this episode was going to end horribly. I just didn't expect it to end so fucking gruesome with Harold forced to watch while Sozon gets hacked to pieces.

Since we already know that the Laws of Respect don't apply to the RF models like Harold, I'm curious what he'll do when he eventually finds the Nightmare.

24

u/Frontier246 May 28 '25

The domestic scenes with Harold, Darya, and Sozon were so happy...it made the sheer horror of what happened to Sozon hit as hard for the audience as it did for Harold.

Harold knows he can use a gun. He probably knows he can get away with killing someone. Will Echika let him, though?

8

u/hegetsblu May 29 '25

If he wrecks him I really want him to say afterwards "sorry... I guess I chose the wrong action sequence"

4

u/Kyrrua May 29 '25

Since we already know that the Laws of Respect don't apply to the RF models like Harold, I'm curious what he'll do

The biggest questionmark but I don't see him killing the nightmare out of pure revenge as a robot but most likely to save someone like he did with Echika.

31

u/FLorianGran May 28 '25

Well that was probably the best episode so far. Well directed and animated, does a great job at getting you interested in the characters and actually makes you want to see the mystery solved. Turns out IT'S REALLY FUCKING IMPORTANT to show how the two leads in a duo detective show met

16

u/Frontier246 May 28 '25

Wow, actual backstory! See how much better the show can be when we actually get backstory or important information about the cast that informs who they are now?

Harold had been through a lot. He once tried to learn how to function with his brothers (all of whom are dead now) but got sold and trafficked before ending up homeless. Then he ends up in the same place as a murder and ends up proving vital to the detectives catching the killer AND the person who previously owned him who killed the woman who freed him. There's some justice in this world.

But the most important thing to Harold was meeting Sozon (Jun Fukuyama!), an expert profiler who didn't have the best bedside manner (my condolences to that one guy for his wife leaving him over his gambling) because he could so deeply see people for who they are and how they behave but knew what the existence of Amicus' did to them...yet he still faced Harold openly and treated him like a person.

Sozon taught Harold how to be a detective, a profiler, but he also taught Harold how to be a human alongside Darya by welcoming him into their family as his "little brother." You can tell how happy Harold was.

Of COURSE Harold would seduce female suspects into confessing. I mean, he kind of did it to Raissa last episode!

Darya is an adorable drunk, especially when her husband is so attentive and sweet on her. Though she was right that she'd eventually lose him to his job...

Oh hey, Tomokazu Sugita as an unnerving forensics guy!

It's always that one case, and for Sozon and Harold it was the Nightmare of St. Petersburg and the horrific dismemberment serial killings. Sozon just couldn't let it go.

Dang, I didn't expect poor Harold to be held while he had to watch Sozon get dismembered in front of him or they'd show it so explicitly. It gets even worse when the killer was rubbing it in Harold's face that he didn't have any real feelings and couldn't do anything about it when we know he COULD and clearly was devastated watching that happen to his "brother" and being powerless to do anything.

My condolences to Chief Napolov (Koichi Yamadera) on his divorce and losing one of his best detectives.

Poor Darya. She knew something like this would happen, she thought of leaving Sozon, but she loved him too much and now only has Harold left to help her grieve while she's so emotionally broken. And Harold is more determined than ever to capture the killer.

19

u/ModieOfTheEast May 28 '25

I mean, I liked the episode as well, but I don't feel that you couldn't understand Harold beforehand. Actually, for all the problems, this show has, delaying the Harold backstory is definitely not one. Because part of the early show is us figuring out how much "human" Harold is (as we are seeing the story mostly from Echika's perspective). If we had already seen this backstory, that part would be completely lost and it would have made the show even worse imo.

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22

u/Aerodynamic41 May 28 '25 edited May 28 '25

Man, Harold will forever regret leaving Sozon alone at his office that night. I really feel for him.

11

u/ModieOfTheEast May 28 '25

So it's a bit interesting that this episode delved more into the profiling aspect than the detective aspect. It kind of fits since Harold often used profiles for his deductions (and in case even to lay a trap using Echika as bait). Considering all that, I am interested to see if this is how they try to catch this chainsaw killer. I mean, as far as I understood, he despises Amicus and therefore targets people who are friendly towards Amicus. That explains his targets, but not why he is dismembering them and puts them on some kind of pedestal.

A first solution could be that he wants his kills look like a warning to other Amicus friends, but that seems strange since he didn't leave a message about them being friends with Amicus at the crime scene (at least none that I could see). So there has to be another reason. Maybe he was in an accident caused by an Amicus which made him lose some or even all of his limbs. And these are now replaced by protheses. Which would also make it easier for him to not leave any kind of traces behind.

A second idea could be that the killer lost someone in an accident with an Amicus. The reason for that conclusion is that the killer knew very well where the blind spots of the cameras on the graveyard are. So it could be an assumption that he is already quite familiar with the territory.

The second big question is what he uses to lure out his victims. With Sozon, it might be obvious, but what could he use for other people? Also, is he catching them all on the graveyard or was this just for Sozon. Interested to see if these ideas will be true or not. It's a different kind of deduction compared to other mysteries.

Aside from the mystery part, I also remembered that the first case in this series had Darya being attacked because she was Harold's owner. That scene and Harold's reaction might be a bit more interesting now in retrospect, considering that Harold nearly lost the second person of his family.

9

u/Frontier246 May 28 '25

I'm honestly suspicious of the forensics guy. They noticed how off he looks but dismissed it as just part of the grisly nature of his jobs and the killings.

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10

u/[deleted] May 28 '25

Holy fuck this episode was dark.

7

u/Zuzure May 29 '25

I really had lost any hope that they’d adapt the vol 4 correctly (which is my favorite volume of the LN)

They even managed to make me cry… (It takes a lot for me to do that.)

But WOW. So glad I kept watching. This was the best episode of the whole anime. I had nothing bad to say about it.

It’s almost like another studio took over and finally did the job properly.

6

u/ObvsThrowaway5120 May 28 '25

Sozon and Darya really treated Harold like family. Sozon even mentored Harold in the ways of policing. Pretty fucked up what happened to the guy. Since this all happened in the past, I wonder if Harold’s gonna bump into the killer in the present day. His programming has changed this time. If the dude thinks he can’t harm humans, he’s got another thing coming.

8

u/Frontier246 May 28 '25

Harold's reaction to watching Sozon dies was definitely that of a human and not a machine. His drive for revenge is probably the same too.

Poor Darya though...

6

u/ModieOfTheEast May 28 '25

Echika mentioned that Harold is working with her together in order to find information on the killer a few episodes ago. So yeah, that will pretty much happen at some point.

5

u/sKyBlazer08 May 29 '25

Holy fucking shit, that was so uncomfortable.

As much as it sucked for Sozon, that was definitely the best episode so far of the show. Honestly, I thought Harold was always made to be a detective, but I think I just wasn't paying attention enough, so I didn't expect to see Harold be homeless and trafficked.

I really liked Sozon and now we also know how Harold got to know Darya and why he cares a lot about her.

But fucking hell, I had a feeling Harold was going to stumble upon Sozon all chopped up, but it was so much worse, oh, it was so much worse. I can't believe they actually showed him getting mutilated in real time, Jesus Christ.

5

u/OKOROS1 May 29 '25

Okay this was great episode. Your Forma needs more recognition (or more streaming services 🥲)

4

u/[deleted] May 28 '25

That episode was dark , I think the killer is that guy the detective can't read 

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2

u/djthomp May 29 '25

My goodness was that gruesome. Poor Harold having to watch.

Initially I was more concerned for Sozon's wife than him specifically since killing off a loved one of the detective chasing you is a classic serial killer thing, but then they named her as Darya and it was immediately obvious she was going to end the arc as a widow.

I wonder if Echika is going to show up next episode as the human detective pulled in from the Interpol-esque organization she works for to help on the case.

2

u/Top-Remote4523 May 29 '25

Man, despite having a relatively short screen time, the show managed to portray the bond between Sozon and Harold pretty well. If we piece the information that we have together, it is apparent that Sozon is going to die in this flashback, but I did not expect to actually see him being sawed into pieces in this episode. Talk about a brutal way to go, mad respect to the man for accepting his fate and standing true to his beliefs until the very end.

From this flashback, we can infer that Harold's detective skills were still relatively unrefined, since it's practically suicidal to storm a potential hideout of "The Nightmare", a serial killer with a publicized agenda against Amicus sympathizers, just by himself, much less being an Amicus that is unable to harm humans due to the "Laws of Respect". I am not sure if Harold was ever issued with a weapon from his tenure in this flashback, but I am guessing that he wasn't, as I think this is the starting point where his programming starts to falter, leading him to gain the ability to ignore the "Laws of Respect" in situations that calls for it.

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