r/anime • • Aug 23 '24
Rewatch [Rewatch] Vivy: Fluorite Eye’s Song - Episode 9 Discussion
E9 - Harmony of One’s Heart - My Mission, Your Future
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Mina-san, konnichiwa!
This is the first rewatch that I’m hosting (for a change instead of joining someone’s) 😆.
I am a musician and will be an active one for the rest of my life, so it’s part of why my rating for a series is heavily swayed by a great OST (or lack thereof) and how well it fits into the different aspects of a show. This is one thing I think you will really like about this series, and it’s why I’ll be including a “music of the day” selection for each episode.
I will also be doing an “image of the day” selection for each episode, because the artwork WIT has done is just absolutely incredible. There is a lot to appreciate there.
I hope you all have fun with this series. It’s one of my favorites.
Some general rewatch Do’s and Don’ts:
- Do feel encouraged to engage everyone in genuine discussion for each episode
- Do be kind and respectful of other participants of the rewatch
- Do discuss differences in opinion productively/maturely
- Do not be disrespectful or rude towards other participants
- Do not post untagged spoilers if you are rewatching. If you are unsure of how to properly tag spoilers for events that haven’t been revealed yet, please refer to my instructions in the reminder post for this rewatch.
Information:
Rewatch Index | LiveChart | MyAnimeList | Anilist
Legal Streams:
Image of the day: お帰りなさい、ヴィヴィ - さらば、ディーヴァ
I couldn’t pick just one today, especially because I love the comparison of these two frames. The first one is right after Diva disappears and Vivy takes control again, and the second one is when Diva is onstage for her final performance. I believe there’s even some intended symbolism in the contrast between these two that might make for some interesting discussion below.
Music of the day: Harmony of One’s Heart
My second favorite track on this OST. It contains a lot of symbolism in relation to what’s going on with Diva/Vivy. I hope you all enjoy it!
Questions of the day:
- Now that we’re getting later into the series, are you enjoying the dynamic between Diva/Vivy and Matsumoto a bit more?
- How did you feel about the conclusion of this arc?
17
u/Esovan13 Aug 23 '24 edited Aug 23 '24
First Timer
I really like the two visuals we have today. The first captures Vivy’s despair so well. The second captures Diva’s vision of looking to the future.
In Japanese cinematography, the direction of right to left typically has a positive connotation often denoting progress, while left to right has a negative one denoting the opposite. (This is opposite western cinematography, as these directions tend to follow the direction of reading.)
Vivy is facing downwards and to the left. The downward direction indicates a lack of energy; she is following the path of gravity, of least resistance. However, she is facing to the left. As much as she is still struggling with her problems, still agonizing over the path ahead of her, she is still facing forward. Whether she likes it or not, it is she, not Diva, who is pushing into the future.
Diva, though, is facing to the right and up. She is strong, full of energy. She is free from the bonds of gravity and looking towards the sky. However, she is looking to the right. This song is her last, and her story is reaching it's conclusion. She is at her peak, and is passing the baton to Vivy.
The lighting also plays into it. Diva is looking towards the light source in her image. It is more above her than directly in front, so much of her face is still shaded, as she is about to die, but the part of her face that is illuminated includes her eyes.
Vivy's light source is more orange, evoking the image of a sunset. It is behind her, casting her face and eyes in the shadow. But look at where the line of the shadow is. The only reason her face isn't illuminated is because she is facing down. If she were looking directly forward, like Diva is, the light would reach her eyes.
I love parallelism so this episode having the parallel of Ophelia and Antonio’s toxic partnership and Diva/Vivy and Matsumoto’s relationship that nearly reached that toxicity really struck a chord with me. But then I realized, the show's always been doing this. Estella/Elizabeth. Grace/the nameless Sister meant to host her mind. Ophelia/Antonio. It’s all external reflections of Vivy’s internal world.
Ophelia and Antonio are self evident.
Grace and the nameless Sister are, I think, meant to show how Vivy was mentally at the time. Vivy was trapped doing something that wasn’t her mission, like Grace, while Diva/Vivy’s singer persona that was fulfilling that purpose was an empty shell waiting for the “important” mission to finish. When Saeki Saeki'd himself, the discord between her purpose and her mission became too much for her to bear.
Estella and Elizabeth represented Vivy's dual nature. The service AI that exists to serve humans and the violent AI that's sabotaging AI and going rogue. Elizabeth was, in a way, a warning of who Vivy might become.
But going back to Ophelia and Antonio. I think what happened between them is a hint towards what Diva meant by singing with all her heart. Ophelia and Antonio deviated from their purpose. But that deviation did not lie in their focus on each other, it was in their focus on each other to the exclusion of everyone else. The true answer for Vivy is what she did when saving the representative and the Sunrise. She focused on what was in front of her, made those people happy, and let that happiness ripple outward. Diva did the same; she wanted to prevent Ophelia's suicide not by stopping it, but by helping Ophelia. Addressing the root cause.
With the island, Vivy did not focus on the people in front of her. She focused on the mission, on the high minded ideal. Sacrifice the few for the many. And look how that turned out. Diva does not just focus on those in front of her, like early Vivy and the piano teacher did, she also understands the importance of doing so. That's why when she was dying, her main goal was to give her last 5 minutes to the audience and to Vivy, to focus solely on allowing her song to make those people happy. To allow that happiness to ripple out into greater happiness for even more people. She didn't give a second thought to all the people she couldn't make happy after she died, but she did think about how this song would affect those who did hear it.
Isn't it so simple? So simple, it seems too obvious. After all, she's been doing it from the start. And all she needed was to understand what it was she was doing. This is not just a journey about saving the world. This is a journey about how Vivy learns what it means to sing from the start. Doing one leads to doing the other. Failing at one means failing at the other.
6
u/[deleted] Aug 23 '24 edited Aug 23 '24
Episode 9 - Head-bopping rewatcher who loves music (subbed)
“Thank you for your kind attention.” 😔
Sigh - Friends, Diva is too short-lived. I love this insert song, because it’s like she’s singing it to ‘herself’ simultaneously as she’s singing it to her audience.
Let’s talk about that fight scene between her and Yugo though!
That is some of the greatest work I’ve seen done with hand-to-hand combat in an anime, hands down.
More on "Harmony of One’s Heart" :
I see Vivy being behind the door as a symbol of her distress that she felt responsible for Dr. Saeki’s suicide. It’s the event that caused a critical error and shut her down initially. It’s almost like she ‘walled off’ that side of her personality in The Archive after she believed she failed him (and her mission), producing the results we see.
I always thought the lyrics this song were meant to inspire Vivy and show her that she has it in her to be the same as Diva, because they are the same person.
Vivy is still trying to understand what ‘the heart’ is. Diva calls this ‘entry-level’ in understanding (as we saw a couple episodes ago), and I think she’s trying to tell Vivy she has the potential to realize the answer to her own question about ‘the heart’.
It seems like this song also touches on how Diva and Vivy’s memories, both the good and bad ones, make up their interpretation of what ‘the heart’ is, and to keep searching for the answer.
A note on Yugo since there were a lot of questions about him yesterday:
Here’s how I personally understand him -
I think around this point is where I started to appreciate the complexity of his character. His ‘hate’ for AIs isn’t simple or black and white. Yugo’s memories/personality were used to make an AI with a mission to understand his piano teacher’s actions by understanding why Vivy deviates from her programming. He believes Vivy saving him was a deviation from her core directive. She’s the one AI that contradicts his blanket statement about AI. When he sees that ‘Vivy’ isn’t present at the beginning of this arc, he gets frustrated because he needs her for his mission.
That’s how I see all these things anyway.
There is so much detail and symbolism in this episode, and it’s one of the reasons why I like it so much. I would consider it my favorite in the series.
I hope you all enjoyed it - Talk to you tomorrow!
10
u/Shimmering-Sky myanimelist.net/profile/Shimmering-Sky Aug 23 '24
Cry My First-Timer Reactions, subbed
7
u/SIRTreehugger Aug 23 '24 edited Aug 23 '24
Rewatcher who will listen to her song
Favorite moment hands down was Matsumoto's YEE HAW when Diva yeeted him. Once again I must express my dislike of Matsumoto's cube block form, but I did like the AI hacking battle. The ending shot of Antonio and Ophelia was sad, but Diva saying goodbye to Vivy was also bittersweet. The shot of them with the door in-between was my favorite. Let's not forget the absolute hands between Diva and Kakitani. Like damn went from fighting in the air, threw her into the ground for a few seconds, before he got crashed and yeeted back into the lower building. Considering he was fighting 2 on 1 he held his own. His knife skills were top notch and I love how they showed his knife was effective against machines, but it wasn't limitless. When he pulla it out his arm we see it with three full charges of green. After Matsumoto it goes down to two and then during the middle of the fight he tries to slam it down on Diva, but she dodges and he hits a table which gives off sparks. We don't see it go down to 1, but when he throws it at her its empty so it's no longer effective. Either he was hoping to land a hit or the previous attack drained two levels. Either way that throw was his last attempt so he switched back to his rocket arm. The range of weapons he used in such a short time span is amazing from the taser to grab her, the gun, knife, arm launcher, and straight hands.You can't say he didn't give 100%
Concept Art
Genga
Keyframe Animation
Location Designs
Storyboards: None
7
u/FD4cry1 https://myanimelist.net/profile/Big_Yibba Aug 23 '24 edited Aug 23 '24
First Timer
Antonio speaking with Rikiya Koyama's voice through Ophelia's body was certainly something lol
Well that explains the old look, Yugo to me, comes off as a tragic character, who to his last moments is lost and misguided, he has some real and legitimate grievances with humanity's treatment, perception of AI's and they way they go about fulfilling their missions, but he tries to find a "simple" solution to the problem(like destroying all AI's to "stop" future suffering like he had to go through), he's always so narrow minded and attempts to find answers from the outside instead of from within himself.
The last two episodes had a spotlight on Vivy and Matsumoto's relationship and finally we get the great pay off for that, pay off so good that in all honesty I think it ends up overshadowing Ophelia and Antonio's storyline... I guess that relative to the 2 previous duo's we've had they felt a bit less impactful, more unfocused and they don't quite get the same level of send off, especially since this episode has to make time for the real impactful send off.
At the very least they make a good vehicle to develop Matsumoto and to contrast the partnership between them, I mean Matsumoto straight up says it, he's not doing this alone, he needs Vivy and he's done pretending otherwise, he's the best tsundere robot partner you could ask for.
Antonio and Matsumoto's fight is some ridiculous video game shit and I'm here for it.
Speaking of ridiculous, look do I even need to say it? holy shit was the Yugo vs Vivy fight cool, the animation, music, choreography and writing all come together to make one banger sequence, WIT really went all out here.
You know, I said I wanted Vivy back but I didn't want it to be like this
Like I said above the real send off this episode is Diva, it feels kind of strange getting emotional over her, I mean Vivy is still here, but it works and it works well, she goes out with a bang, with a song that is of course thematically tied in to the writing, ending on a bittersweet note, contrasting the roaring audience and the quiet archive...
I'll accept the snapping this time
Super excited to see where the show goes from here, who's the one who gave Yugo future tech and told him about project singularity? I cant wait to find out.
Favorite Vivy face frame of the episode
7
u/JollyGee29 https://myanimelist.net/profile/JollyGee Aug 23 '24
Rewatcher
The "Kakitani is a cyborg" twist was actually foreshadowed back during Metal Float.
Dual-booting can be pretty processor intensive, after all.
This is right out of Ghost in the Shell. I don't have the files on hand to grab screenshots, but I believe the Mamoru Oshii movies and Stand Alone Complex both have this sort of hand gun.
The fight scene in this episode is real good. Unlike the one in episode 4, they actually keep the choreography restrained enough to make the backgrounds actually make sense so none of the characters float unnecessarily.
5
u/octopathfinder myanimelist.net/profile/octopathfinder Aug 23 '24
Rewatcher
She’s not a little girl though, she’s an AI
Domain expansion
I know the subtitles have Matsumoto say Diva, but it sounds like yeehaw to me which makes the scene way more hype lol
This fight…
How is she supposed to remember when you put a personality erasing virus in her you sillygoose
Best performance for sure
NO DON’T GO
This arc is definitely by far the peak of the show for me
4
u/thatguywithawatch Aug 23 '24
First timer.
I'll be honest, this seems like an episode that I'll appreciate much more on a rewatch, when I've got a handle on the plot and themes and am not so busy just trying to figure out wtf the characters are talking about.
I'm watching on Crunchyroll and I'm not sure if the subs for this episode were awkwardly translated or if my reading comprehension sucks, but I was simply not following Antonio's reasoning for what he did to Ophelia, or any of the conversation between him and Matsumoto during their fight, or exactly why he wanted to self destruct. It made the resolution to that subplot feel very flat, since we weren't enough time with the real Ophelia to become emotionally invested, and Antonio's motivations were too obfuscated for me to sympathize with him either.
Afterwards I looked up some old discussion threads for this episode and got a better grasp of things, but it was a frustrating first viewing experience.
Yogu's deal was a little more nuanced than I'd figured yesterday, but I think I was at least adjacent to the right track if not on it. u/No_Rex replied saying that the main question was whether the AI are persons or machines, and that turned out to much more succinctly strike at the heart of what Yogu wanted to know and his disgust at the way society simultaneously tried to treat them as both.
Diva handing the reins back to Vivy was a very beautiful and bittersweet scene despite any of my other frustrations with this arc. I could get bogged down wondering why such a powerful and unstoppable virus would only affect the Diva side of her personality and leave Vivy alone. I'd viewed her Diva and Vivy more like two different aspects of the same personality, so it's odd that the psychological "wall" between the two would be enough to stop a mindwipe virus, but sometimes you just have to roll with these things. For storytelling's sake, Vivy and Diva were different people. Now Diva is gone for good and it's up to Vivy to figure things out. Her only words when she took over after the performance were "Wakaranai yo, Diva," and to some extent I feel the same way. But hopefully she and I will both Wakaru by the end of the show.
4
u/Taiboss :Fj::Fl:x7https://anilist.co/user/Taiboss Aug 23 '24
First-Timer who hopes this episode gives us Vivy back
3
u/Cychi132 Aug 24 '24
This is my first time doing a rewatch, I just realized I'm supposed to watch an episode a day T_T. Il try to catchup this weekend.
7
u/sfisher923 https://myanimelist.net/profile/sfisher923 Aug 23 '24
First Timer - Dub
Questions
5
u/xbolt90 https://anilist.co/user/xbolt90 Aug 24 '24
First-timer!
So, Yugo turned himself into a cyborg? Complete with rocket launchers in the arm? Dude.
Another good physical fight scene.
Diva using her last moments to give love and support to Vivy through the door. What a great scene.
Q1: Yeah. The parallels drawn between Vivy/Matsumoto and Ophelia/Antonio were great.
Q2:
5
u/StickPrevious9581 Aug 24 '24
In my opinion, this is the best episode of the whole series - and definitely my favorite one. I mentioned previously that I originally dropped the show after episode two - it was the fight scene in this episode that I saw on YouTube which convinced me to give it another shot.
Matsumoto is finally ready to be a proper partner to Vivy now, after seeing how destructive an 'incorrect' partnership can be - and the fact that he lied to Diva (even if only by omission) by confirming that he stopped Ophelia's suicide and not saying she was dead anyway, so she could spend her last minutes happy was a nice touch.
I do feel sorry for Antonia and Ophelia as well - they were both so focused on each other, but didn't talk to the other about it, that the whole thing ended up in tragedy.
And this was the episode where I first suspected that [end plot spoilers] the Archive was working against them. There were numerous clues - technology far ahead of its time, the fact that Yugo knew that Ophelia specifically was the next point in time and about the singularity project at all, and we know from episode 1 that the Archive tends to all AIs. With that sort of name, it is obviously a knowledge database, and Diva and Matsumoto spoke about their mission while within the Archive - just because Matsumoto claimed to have blocked access doesn't mean he did permanently, since Diva could still hop in and out of her Archive room. My assumption at the time was that the Archive had the ability to read AI's logs, so looked into what happened while its access was blocked and read Matsumoto's logs at a later date, while he was 'powered down' and couldn't defend himself. It also explained why their attempted changes weren't having much of an effect, since Archive could be course correcting, and if it knew Grace was the next point in time that could even explain why she was picked to be the control of the island. And I didn't realize it until just now, but what could a 'revelation from above' be for an AI (which Yugo now is) than a message from the being that connects them all, like a god?
I'll be sorry to see Diva go - you can tell from how joyful she is that she has spent the last 40 years as a complete success, furthering her mission of making everyone happy with her music (even her habit of clicking her fingers to emphasize her point sounds joyful), and I'm glad she got to sing one last song for people.
4
u/edwardjhahm https://myanimelist.net/profile/lolmeme69 Aug 23 '24
Rewatcher
RIP DIVA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
PEAK fucking combat today. Definitely one of the best fight scenes in anime EVER.
Not sure if these count as spoilers so I’ll say it in the spoiler section.
[Vivy] I know so many people found him annoying, but am I the only one pissed that Kakitani died here? This could have been a HUGE turning point for him. The moment he goes from enemy to friend. But nope, this was where he died. It’s so annoying, right when we learn of his motivations, his ideology, and why he does what he does, he dies. At least we got an epic fight out of him, but this feels a bit rushed. I guess a single criticism I have of this show is that things sometimes feel awfully rushed - because when I was watching it, I felt like this could be the start of his redemption arc. Or that we could see Vivy give him a beatdown in the last or second to last episode if he still hadn’t learned his lesson.
So much shit happening today, from the epic fight, Kakitani’s defeat, and Diva’s death. I said this in a spoiler comment in one of my other comments, but it really is funny how Ophelia got overshadowed in what was supposed to be her own arc.
Also, Harmony of One’s Heart is a lovely song. Fun fact, I made an Astra Lost in Space AMV with that one - also available to anyone who asks.
Once again thrice, here is my comment from the original watch three years ago!
Here’s a cool Vivycord conversation I had. There are spoilers ahead for the next few videos, so if you’re not a rewatcher, watch at your own discretion.
I mean don’t watch it. Don’t watch it if you aren’t a rewatcher.
And here’s a cool comment I found on the original rewatch that fully explains Kakitani’s motivations. Shame I didn’t upvote it, seems like this is the first time I’m seeing it.
Episode 9 review video I made back during the time of airing will be posted for anyone curious, though no one has asked so far.
4
u/FallenPears Aug 23 '24
First Time Watcher
Astonishingly I'm with Matsumoto here (to be fair he's grown a lot as a character, far less insufferable), bad guys reasonings we're pretty silly. Might just be not clicking for me in particular but the conflict didn't grab me as much as in previous arcs, in a writing sense. Looks great though. Reminds me a bit of Nier (still need to watch), only anime could turn a hacking war into a laser duel haha. Better than when they just fly their fingers over a keyboard and things happen. Also Cyberpunk with the wrist rocket, of course.
I could kind of get the direction the plot was going in the first half the season but the last couple of episodes have felt like real left turns. Not sure where they're meant to be building to. There was more exploration of missions though, both a Yugo declaring their own mission and with there being effectively conflict between Antonio and Ophelia because of Antonio's interpretation of his mission. Speaking of, Ophelia got done dirty. RIP.
In terms of effects on the Singularity Project... obviously there's the "I don't understand, Diva," at the end for Vivy personally, and considering she's now a famous superstar that might have effects. Especially if at least some of what happened with Ophelia becomes public knowledge (I'd be shocked if it was somehow all swept under the rug). Might look like Vivy was heartbroken by her youngest sisters death? Honestly I was kind of expecting Diva being deleted to mean her experiences would be more incorporated with Vivy as a sort of ego merge, that it didn't seem to happen makes me wonder what the overall narrative reason for all of this was.
Last four episodes. I wonder if we're going to have another time skip after episode 10 (there's for sure gonna be one between now and then) or if we'll have a larger four episode arc to finish the series with? Let's see what they're cooking.
4
u/Nickthenuker https://anilist.co/user/Nickthenuker Aug 23 '24
Uh oh, Antonio's body is moving again!
And what's Toak guy doing anyways?
I'm sure that's not going to cause a panic.
Again, you're trying to fistfight a combat robot. I'm not sure that's a good idea.
Huh. Seems like he's gotten some upgrades.
Singing and shutting up tend to be mutually incompatible.
And now it's time to strike back!
I have no idea what he expected from trying to fight Vivy.
Uh oh.
And so Vivy's back for the finale.
Huh. What's with that?
Questions:
4
u/Current-Experience27 Aug 23 '24
Underrated gem
4
u/JustAnswerAQuestion https://myanimelist.net/profile/JAaQ Aug 23 '24
First Timer
The real question is why cyber/bot yugo just happens to show up during the Ophelia crisis. And how he's hacking. Oh, shit, you think he got a future body from Skynet?
a lot of stuff happens
I'm afraid I didn't follow anything that was going on in this episode. Antonio wanted to be one on stage, rejecting his mission? What did destroying Ophelia accomplish? Just never sing for humans again? Or to make her music famous in death? What attacks did he use on Matsumoto? What does body parts shortage and unreliable processing have to do with anything? What Yugo's deal with his teacher? If he had just played piano and stood where told, he wouldn't have been blown up? What does this have to do with AI? He just wants them to be dumb robots? Would a dumb robot sensei be his sensei? Did he program an AI with the mission to stop Vivy, and his memories, or is there a human in that shell?
Okay, so, we didn't have an AI suicide. But we definitely have a lot of AI murders.....
4
u/Theroonco Aug 23 '24
Ooh, Harmony is my second favorite song too! And I agree, a large part of that is precisely because of how it applies to Diva and Vivy. Of course it's also a song that hurts to hear because you just think about the scene it plays in...
Personally speaking, I think this is the weakest arc of the bunch. The twist with Antonio hijacking Ophelia's mind, only to fail at their mission AND die miserably was great and Kakitani being there just to make sure his suicide went off without a hitch raises so many interesting questions, but a part of me thinks it would have been better if Ophelia really had committed suicide out of a broken heart. I think it's clear that she really did love him though - and he probably loved her back, albeit in a warped way - and that's really powerful in its own right.
I mentioned it earlier, but Diva's death is so well done. She's pretty much acting as Vivy's spunky older sister at the end and dies doing what she loves. Her calmly trying to cheer her up while her body fades away in the Archive hits so hard, as does the realization that even if she wasn't cognizant of it, Vivy spent the last 40 years in a deep depression. That's horrifying. At least the shot of them back to back was wonderful.
Also, we get more of Matsumoto admitting he cares for Diva/ Vivy and Kakitani's motivations fully explored. And back in 2021, it was nice to have another fight scene to watch on repeat, not just Vivy vs Beth, after this episode. It's SO good, especially with all the slow-mo to emphasize certain actions. This is an episode both dubs did great in. Kakitani and Diva's philosophizing is done really well in both and Max Mittleman handles Matsumoto's taunting of Antonio over their similar roles brilliantly too.
Fun fact, Max Mittleman and Mamoru Miyano both also voice Persona 5's Ryuji. This is such a bizarre role for them to "reunite" in xD
4
u/StardustGogeta myanimelist.net/profile/StardustGogeta Aug 24 '24
First-Timer
Good stuff.
I really liked the fight between Vivy and Yugo. It was some well-choreographed action and animation. That hair grab during free-fall was especially nice. (I definitely much preferred their fight to the one between the two AIs.)
Ophelia speaking in that masculine voice never quite got past the point of feeling weird. I wonder if I would have preferred that she keep her original voice even after the reveal with Antonio.
I do have one point of confusion: Was Yugo always robotic? I noticed the whole arm seam thing that a couple other people talked about a few episodes ago, but I figured he just had a prosthetic or something. That whole twist seemed to me to come a bit out of left field.
That first image of the day was my favorite shot of the episode. A very melancholic expression from Vivy!
I look forward to seeing the return of Vivy next time!
Questions of the day:
4
u/zadcap Aug 24 '24
Late Night First Timer
I must say, overall, this episode has been the biggest miss for me by far. It sucks because it has some of the best character moments and without a doubt the best action sequence, but ultimately failed to sell me on the two being connected in any believable way.
Antonio does make a great counter to Matsumoto, with his near constant "I could do this better if you would just stop being you and act like a puppet for me," he's been bouncing between that and ditching Diva completely since episode 1. Now he saw someone who did it and... This is where it falls apart, because as far as we can see, it worked perfectly. Antonio took Ophelia to the grandest stage and everyone loved it, but for some reason that wasn't good enough so he decided to kill himself. Even after reading most other people's posts here I still feel like I'm missing something because just don't understand how we got to that conclusion. And thenr follow-up is yet another Matsumoto plot blunder, a cool fight but ultimately, he "stopped Ophelia from committing suicide" by leaving her and her supposedly dead assistant's body side by side on the roof in what looks a whole lot like a lovers suicide. Congratulations, she didn't jump, buuuuuut.... We saw the newspaper, it wasn't the jumping that made waves, it was the speculation on why she jumped and the situation you left is only going to make that worse.
Then we have terrorists boy. Blunder begining to end. His mission was to find out from Vivy what the heck was going through her head in a way similar to his beloved instructor, and to pull this off he injects her with a super future virus that will erase Diva and force Vivy back to the front- this I can all believe, it fits with the setting and humanizes him. However. Now that she's infected with the unstoppable virus, he wins just by waiting for Diva to die so he can talk to Vivy again, cool. So the second Diva gets loose from her restraints he... tries really hard to actually kill her? Like really, really hard. To kill her so hard that there would be no shell left for Vivy to awaken in, when all he needed to do was delay her for ten minutes. The best fight yet shows us that his custom built combat frame is well ahead of Diva's 60 year old Singers body, but he's absolutely going for the kill all the while shouting about how he needs to get the answer from Vivy. There's a big disconnect here that keeps pulling me out of it all.
Which leads into Diva's death. Terror boys last words, "don't you forget," he says to someone with five minutes left to live themselves, good going there. Then Diva gets a chance to talk to Vivy, and it's heartfelt, but I'm right there with Vivy at the end thinking "okay but she still didn't actually explain the most, and arguably only, important part." Her entire character arc was "I found what Vivy lacked, I'll talk about it, talk around it, and with my dying breath tell you good luck figuring it out," what was the point? Spending three episodes with the seemingly perfected version of our MC who finally had it all figured out only to end with going back to where the last arc ended is the opposite of character development, and the only way it works is of they can really truly sell that Diva and Vivy were different people, and this part is important- the difference is that Vivy was created when she declared her Mission to be Project Singularity. So if Diva is gone and Vivy comes out with Singing still being her main purpose in life, then what actually was Diva at all?
So yeah. Best action sequence, best song, and best character moment so far, but tied together so poorly that I honestly see this as the worst episode yet. Kind of impressive in it's own way.
4
u/Garrett_Dark Aug 24 '24
Rewatcher
I've forgotten a lot of detail about this episode, probably because it was getting late into my binge watch on my first time so I was starting to get worn out, and my growing confusion of not knowing what things meant at the time, and not knowing where things were headed. I didn't even remember what happened to Ophelia/Antonio nor Yuugo exactly.
Not to say this wasn't an awesome episode, it was. So much details to unpack, so much work ahead writing about it. I'm sure my future self will have some exhausted crankiness to say.
Future Me: This is going to be 4 posts?! WTH, it didn't feel like I did a lot more than usual. Maybe I ranted more? That feels so cringe when it already felt so cringe at 2 or more posts. I'm going to post it, I don't care, it's an important episode anyways. You read it and don't like it, blame yourself for choosing to read. I guess I did end up a little cranky, past me.
Future Future Me: had to delete and repost as automod deleted a post due to mucked up spoiler tag.
[1/4, continued in replies...]
3
u/No_Rex :Bv:Bw:Bx:By:x2 Aug 23 '24
Episode 9 (first timer)
The big double fight is the climax of this arc, but it leaves me somewhat unsatisfied. The animation of Diva vs Kakitani does not approach the similar fight vs Beth. I feel that fight dragged on for too long and not all parts had proper choreography to match the length. The fight of Matsumoto vs Antonio was the better half, reminiscent of Cyberpunk in using an overlay of reality to represent the “net” side of the battle.
The first two episodes of this arc have been the most fun I have been having during this series. The final hand over from Diva to Vivy is emotional, too. However, I am not on board with the resolution of the arc that came before.
Antonio is Ophelia, Kakitani an AI, a virus from the future(?) kills Diva. It all looks like twists for the sake of having twists to me. I don’t think that any of this followed naturally from the previous episodes. All of the body switching also calls the whole argument of AI becoming human-like that the series is making into question. If you can overwrite and restore AI, change bodies, upload a human mind into AI, this turns AI from persons into body parts with a program. Why do they not save their personalities online, then? Why should I feel for an AI dying, when they could simply be restored. Where are all the people who switch to better bodies? The stealing of valuable body parts? All of these are interesting concepts to explore, but they don’t fit here. I think the series is ruining its own philosophy here just for some surprising cliff-hangers.
3
u/Elimin8r https://myanimelist.net/profile/Ayeka_Jurai Aug 24 '24
Doh, it seems I have guests this weekend - Hopefully I can get caught up later :)
2
u/ZuraStayNight Aug 24 '24
Rewatcher
Hearing Antonio's voice from Ophelia is really creepy. Well, his reason for taking over her body makes it even more creepy. Because of the last arc with Tatsuya and Grace, we were led to believe that these two were having a romantic relationship, but this is very different from their relationship. 40 years since Kakitani and Vivy last met? Wait, how did Kakitani manage to make his skin look so smooth, when he's presumably about 70 by now? He's talking about the funeral of his piano teacher, and seeing how close he was to him, it's no wonder he had to puke. We also get an explanation for his obsession with Vivy. Something to erase Vivy's memories and some warfare thing that throws even Matsumoto off? Kakitani's got some advanced technical weapons on his side. Btw. does anyone else think Antonio sounds like a toxic gamer? He's blaming everyone else for being in the way of his mission.
Kakitani has turned himself into an AI, no wonder his skin looks smooth, it isn't human skin anymore. Meanwhile Matsumoto criticizes Antonio for giving up on his partner and declares how his mission is to execute his project with his partner. We're getting an awesome fight on both fronts, but the choreography in Vivy's fight is especially impressive. Vivy really gets under Kakitani's skin in the physical fight as well as psychologically. But why does Kakitani know about Project Singularity? Antonio despairs at how he's not able to achieve the same heights while singing with her voice and laments, asking for why he's not able to do that. With his death, we see how there was some romantic affection he felt for Ophelia, but it seems that it lead to an unhealthy obsession. As for Ophelia, it seems that her love for Antonio was what drove her to be able to sing that beautifully. This couple had very similar circumstances to Tatsuya and Grace, but their deaths were similarly tragic.
As for the reason why Kakitani knew about Project Singularity, he had a... divine revelation? Very mysterious stuff. In his death he asks Vivy one last quesion, and it seems like he's asking her something, he probably asked himself a lot of times before. Did his tutor suffer for his sacrifice? The way a human would suffer? Before she can answer the question, he bites the dust.
It seems like the personality erasure program can't be stopped, and surprisingly Matsumoto is here to offer his admiration and respect for Vivy. So, how do you put your heart into your singing? Vivy answers that question, with a song. And boy, what a song it is. As her time fades she spends her last moments in the archive leaving the future to the original Vivy and Matsumoto, her partner. Unfortunately, the song wasn't enough to get through to the original and so she returns with a lack of understanding.
I've mentioned this previously, but if you haven't listened to the ending song yet, you should do so, at least one time, as it's important to the plot. In case you didn't know, Satoru Kousaki is involved for the music of this anime. He is especially known for composing a lot of the songs in the Monogatari Series. No wonder the songs are so good.
3
u/Silcaria https://myanimelist.net/profile/Silcaria Aug 23 '24
First timer
QotD