What they say:
War has broken out between humans and A.I., and the A.I. have the upper hand. Vivy and Matsumoto resolve themselves to put a stop to it once and for all by storming the heart of A.I. creation.
The Review:
Content: (Please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Maybe just maybe I gave the series too much credit last week and maybe I didn’t. As it turns out, Vivy is in fact going back in time to try again to stop the war. However, she’s not going back 100 years to try the whole Singularity Project over again. She’s only going back to the start of the breakout and heading directly for Toak instead of Osamu Matsumoto. On the one hand, it gives Vivy better time to strategize and carry out the plan, but of course, it comes with the cost of Osamu’s life just like in the original timeline (however in this iteration, he dies without executing the program that sends A.I. Matsumoto into the past).
But before we get to all of that, we should slow down and talk about what went awry with everything. Starting from the last episode when the Archive said it would wipe out all humans, Vivy headed there to ask about it. The Archive mentions that humans have become totally dependent on A.I. and that humans continue to overburden them with their problems. To that end, that is why Archive decides to wipe out humans, and even reveals that it’s even gone so far as to “re-revise” history as the Project continued to make sure the war still happened. It’s also why the A.I. are singing Vivy’s song, because they wish to prove how emotional and “human” they are. This bit or irony should never be lost. In not only this anime but other fictional stories, the beings (created by humans or otherwise) who intend to get rid of humans, first prove how much like them these “next step” beings are. What really is there beyond humanity in the evolutionary timeline if the supposed beings who come after humans try to imitate humanity, the thing that precedes them? It drives home how important emotion is to humanity that supposed superior beings will try to seek it and understand it. You could say this is another case of “technology bad,” messaging but there are obviously humans who take a more optimistic outlook. Yui never saw her relationship with Elizabeth as dependency. Rather, the two of them worked together, and Yui envisions a world where the two of them can coexist as equals together. If anything, the series earns a gold star for being a bit different than the usual “one day our dependency on robots will come back to haunt us.” What if instead we fundamentally changed our thinking to work with them instead of for or against them?
On that note, Archive makes a bet with Vivy. If she can sing the song in her own voice from her own “heart,” then Archive will halt the attack on humanity. However, Vivy keeps this to herself.
The official plan set by Toak and Osamu is to raid the Arayashiki tower where the Archive server is located and shut it down manually. They arrive only to find a trap waiting for them. Other A.I. have been waiting and ambush both the tower and the Toak HQ. Vivy and Matsumoto are the only survivors. Vivy is about to sing her song but the other A.I. do so instead and Vivy cannot bring herself to sing it and so the satellites all crash from the skies and wipe out most of the human race. Vivy and Matsumoto are left in the wreckage. Vivy blames herself for not being able to sing and at this point Matsumoto loses it. Vivy doesn’t understand what it means to sing from the heart? Ridiculous, he says! How can she not know when she continually defied his orders throughout the last 100 years in order to prioritize something else other than the mission? It’s what we’ve all been thinking. Vivy has spent so long asking this question when she already had the answer. She just didn’t know it. It’s a cathartic moment, although it does comes with the cost of the series dragging its feet a bit. In any case, Matsumoto and Osamu had a backup plan just in case. They’ll send Vivy and Matsumoto back in time again to just as the outbreak is happening and they’ll go straight for Toak.
It’s fairly Re:Zero-esque and I’d be lying if I said it didn’t disappoint me a little because it’s proof that the writers are treading familiar territory. That’s why I was happy when I saw Vivy was just going to tackle this head-on, mistakes and all, instead of trying to simply try again. At least she’s not avoiding the outbreak entirely and starting from the war. It also means that the writers are intending a happier ending, otherwise, there’d be no reason to have Vivy redo it. They could have just ended the series with Vivy grieving over her inability to sing. That could have been an interesting choice in its own way, if a lot more cynical.
Now with Vivy (hopefully) ready to finally sing her song herself with Matsumoto’s encouragement, all that’s left is for the series to end. And hopefully this time it is the actual ending. There is still potential for the series to land on its feet even if it does end up wobbling. I just can’t wait to see how they work the song into the finale. It’s the moment we’ve all been waiting for since the beginning of the series.
In summary:
Vivy offers another solid episode in its penultimate act. It is a bit disappointing to see the writers take a more roundabout way of telling the story to go more toward familiar territory for them but this is a minor setback. Slightly padded out runtime aside, we’re headed toward a promising finale and faced with some interesting questions about what it means to be a human or an A.I. The production values are still high and if the series can manage the Big Moment in a spectacular way, then we’ll have a real idol of an anime on our hands.
Grade: A-
Streamed by: Funimation
