MEBIUS DUST — Episode 1

What’s it about? Araki, Stella, and Olga are everyday high schoolers living in a city and world shaped by the Meibius Dust, a strange, otherworldly element in their lives. But their peaceful days are steadily being disrupted when strange technology and rising unrest start to affect them directly…

Forty minutes into the future, there exists the Meibus Dust, a strange particulate from a large crystal that hovers high above in the sky. Yet for high schoolers Araki, Stella, and Olga, that doesn’t disrupt their city-wide game of capture the flag, nor does it interrupt their everyday lives outside of mundane use for their powers.

So when given the chance to see those powers without limits by mad scientist Dr. Yuda, Araki and his fellow LAMS ability users jump at the chance, letting them see what the effects of their lives beneath an otherworldly crystal can actually be like…

Original anime that are building their worlds not from previous source material but all on their own are always interesting to me, even if they flop. Thankfully, MEBIUS DUST is not egregiously a flop, but it’s also not the strongest storytelling this season, or even this year. Loaded with characters that I immediately forgot, pacing that felt too ahead of its own worldbuilding, and a lot of neat details that don’t feel cohesive, I felt… underwhelmed during my entire watch. It took a lot of time to watch this episode, in fact, because there’s a simultaneous glut of details and in-world terms that don’t necessarily feel distinguished from say, superhero anime or other action anime where the characters have pseudo-magic powers. But then some powers feel less like powers and more like machinery. Like, how are mechanical legs a scientific power and not just a super sick disability aid? MEBIUS DUST never really clarifies any gray area and just kind of expects you to roll with it.

What results is a middling story set on a version of our Earth—a version affected by meteorites that gave children powers but locks them into a protected range within Tokyo. At base, that’s interesting enough, but in execution… it leaves a lot to be desired. I kept having to pause and rewind because new characters would flood the screen, distracting from actually taking in the story. Plus, the characters we meet aren’t really interesting at all, and while you could say that’s because it’s just the beginning, I think of a show like Kaiju No. 8 and beg to differ. This could have been more than the sum of its part, and instead… it’s mostly just games of superpowered capture-the-flag. I kept waiting for it to be anything else, but no: it’s mostly capture-the-flag, and MEBIUS DUST is worse off for that.

I wish that MEBIUS DUST was more of the sum of its parts, especially since it was a winner in a significant contest held in 2019. It’s also being procured by notable studio Doga Kobo, who’s known for big hitters like Oshi no Ko. But this story feels… amatuer in a lot of ways. Not bad, but just very fresh and like a newborn colt with no footing. It feels like somewhere along the line, someone—or maybe a bunch of someones—failed to shape this show into something that didn’t feel like too many elements all at once. And really, it’s multiple failures because the writing, too-huge cast, and lack of explanation or initial worldbuilding past “big meteor cause powers through dust” really hinders this premiere.

Sadly, I’m not going to stick around even though I have often found original anime extremely interesting. MEBIUS DUST ultimately understands the rule of cool more than executes on it, leaving very little space for viewers to actually like the character they’re supposed to be invested in getting to know.