「Sing My Pleasure -あなたを笑顔に-」 (Shingu Mai Purejā -Anata o Egao ni-)
“Sing My Pleasure – To Make You Smile”

Matsumoto returns when another singularity point presents itself 5 years after the events of the Sunrise incident. In this timeline, Estella’s actions are perceived as being exemplary of how all AI should be.

In this timeline, Vivy, as Diva of Nialand, is stealing human hearts with her performances. She’s yet to make it to the main stage but it seems the events that happened only 5 years past and meeting her Sister inspired her determination to succeed in her mission but in the mission of the greater good as well. But in the same way that she’s finding success so are the fellow AI. With their popularity on the rise amongst people, their technology has advanced drastically, way ahead of its time in comparison to the original timeline Mastumoto is from.

This episode was pretty straightforward, introducing the next arc of the 100-year journey. Vivy’s new mission is to infiltrate the unmanned island Metal Float run solely by AI to effectively shut it down, putting it to sleep until human civilization can catch up to its technology. Unfortunately, Vivy doesn’t succeed in her mission. If anything, she comes face to face with Toak member Yugo again, after rescuing him from the battle.

It’s unclear what effect this confrontation between Toak and the AI will have on the timeline. It’s also quite unclear to me why Toak would go ahead and attack the island before storming into Dr. Saeki Tatsuya’s house to get the virus after having failed to overtake him on the road. Likewise, if they chose to take over this island, they could have equally taken over NiaLand to confront Diva who has thwarted their efforts on multiple occasions. Toak’s actions seem sporadic at best, loosely tied to any real strategy. I’d say the mere mention and presence of their organization in the series serves only to bring Yugo, the AI hater, together with Vivy.

On another note, this episode introduced two key themes. That of AI working together as one collective, one hive, one self-serving ‘society’. Secondly, that all AI, regardless of their build have the capacity to ‘dream’, to ‘imagine’ as in the case of M0205. This little droid was able to piece together bits of information he took in from his reality to imagine a future where he is loved by human children and cares for them in return. And, on another note, if you haven’t played Nier: Automata, please do. This island is that world.

All that to say I’m looking forward to the next episode and being introduced to the powerful AI who bypassed Vivy’s viral shut down forcing her worker bees into powerful soldiers.

 

ED2 Sequence

11 Comments

  1. Nier Automata was also the first thing that came to my mind.
    Toak are acting like loose canons, trying to cause as much destruction as possible. At least it looks like there might finally be some talk between Vivy and Yugo the tsundere next episode.
    Loved how they once again made the opening part of the episode. Same goes for the close up shots of Vivy and her “Sisters” with”Mother Computer” looking to be another one. She might even be related to Grace…

    boingman
  2. MissSimplice, I don’t remember Toak storming into Saeki Tatsuya’s house to get the shutdown program for Metal Float. As we saw in the episode, Tatsuya brought Diva and Matsumoto into his home, where he showed them the shutdown program in that particular storage device. There was no attempt from Toak to break into his house.

    In any case, I believe that in Funimation translated a particular part of this fifth episode properly that it lends credence to the theory I threw out after the first 2 episodes that the events of Vivy: Fluorite Eye’s Song are stuck on a loop that is continued by the professor from the future. If anybody who knows Japanese can confirm what I talk about later, that’d be great.

    I indicated in Episode 1 (not on this subreddit though) that the events of Vivy are likely to be on a loop given that the professor said, “But please, just one more time, for who I was that day… Diva… The future. Humankind. They’re in your hands now!”

    While I was initially completely skeptical of the Matsumoto is evil angle, I have to admit that what it did was somewhat suspicious this episode. Whatever program it ran on Yuzuka’s computer seemed very sketchy whatever it intends to run it for, and then there was the shutdown program not working on the Metal Float since the AIs booted back up. Either Matsumoto modified the shutdown programming so that the shutdown would be followed by a reboot, or the Mother Computer has failsafe measures in case of unanticipated shutdowns.

    However, there is one big thing that keeps me skeptical of Matsumoto being evil which apparently nobody on the Internet caught aside from me assuming that Funimation correctly translated this episode, and that is that Matsumoto indicated it and Diva had interfered in the events of a previous timeline, not just this current one, confirming my belief that Episode 1 indicated that they are on a time loop. Matsumoto said, “Meaning that our objective at the time served to hinder their romance” in reference to the Sunrise Hotel crash in a previous timeline, and assuming the subs are accurate, this indicated that Matsumoto was directly involved in the crash in the previous timeline instead of Toak, killing thousands of people just to halt the evolution of AIs, and that Matsumoto is being updated with new information from the previous timeline every time the professor restarts the loop, which reduces the likelihood of Matsumoto being some rogue AI if it has history with Diva across timelines. Of course, I don’t rule out that Funimation botched the translation, which would kill my speculation on this particular line of argument. Having said that though, Matsumoto has never struck me as being very humane, so it would not surprise me if it tried to slaughter thousands of humans in a previous loop because it believed that that would further its cause to stop the AI war. Matsumoto being an AI that has journeyed across multiple timelines also shows how it would know that the evolution of AIs and the growth of the anti-AI movement, Toak, are the main drivers of the war in the future.

    Vance
    1. you’re misunderstanding the flow of the conversation… Matsumoto said in the original timeline, the two got married as if to vindicate the situation after the relationship between AI and humans soured. so their objective of stopping the Sunrise from falling ended up serving the purpose of hindering the romance (as it was now no longer as important to advance it)

      there’s also no reason for Matsumoto to slip that he has experienced multiple loops even if he were… that’d be a silly and massive slip and it would purely be on his own initiative, not even something that he accidentally lets out because of a question from Vivy

      GoXDS
      1. Except stopping the Sunrise from falling would not have hindered their romance at all since there would be no blowback to AIs. What actually hindered their romance before was the crash of the Sunrise.

        Vance
        1. you’re still not quite understanding what Matsumoto was implying then. “as if to vindicate”. ie. they advanced their romance more quickly *because* of the increased tensions and doing so and having it public served to ease tensions. now that there are no tensions between AI and humans, the two can now advance their relationship more casually and slowly. at least, this is Matsumoto’s interpretation and implication

          GoXDS
          1. It’s a very strange choice in words to use ‘hinder’ in this scenario if you’re correct. Maybe Funimation laid an egg with its translation and should have used some other word as I don’t see how them taking it slow is the same as their romance being hindered. Maybe ‘slowed down’ would be more appropriate. If Funimation had used “slowed down”, I probably would have come to the same conclusion you did, but that difference caused us to come to completely different conclusions.

            Vance
          2. is “to slow” not the definition of “to hinder”? Lol
            you don’t have to insert obstacles in order to slow to hinder something. removing something in order to slow is also hindering something. or is a lack of rain or water not hindering the growth of a plant?

            and there’s other issues with your theory either way if you want me to break those down

            GoXDS
  3. So, this Metal Island was born from the Wreck of the Space Station impact and they salvage it what was left of the Station.

    – So Beth somehow survived the Crash and is now Mother Computer. Because Beth had this Hair color and Long Hairs of Estella

    – In Shutting down the Metal Island they somehow gave birth to SHODAN (Insider). But when Mother Computer recognize Diva something reactivate back. because we saw her Red Light turn back into Blue and the Hair color fits with Beth’s Hair color. Perhaps Beth’s old “Anti Human” Programming kicked back in (Red Light) and now Beth’s/Estella AI reactivated. Remember Beth has a copy AI of Estella

    – or Matsumoto’s Virus to stop Beth did more then just Shut her down

    – the Space Station surly had maintain Robots for Repairing and looks like their AI survived and building this Island from the Wreck. Perhaps their Space Station Hotel Plan is now this Metal Island. Sunrise’s AI is still alive. Just that perhaps Beth could connect with the surviving AI Core and began to rebuild one step after other.. You guys know of PS1 Xenogear’s Intro? That also is also in the same League as SHODAN

    – So some Repair Robots or AI’s survived the Crash and connected the Head or Torso of Beth (I go with it, because of the Hair color) to a Energy Source and AI Data Core and adapted to Earth Gravity (Flying Drones)

    – So in a way, this Episode is saying the Sunrise Crash is still ongoing and will turn out like some sort of Cancer cell for the AI’s.

    – If my hunch is correct, then how helped these Anti-AI Faction with hacking of Beth? Hmm? This could be our real starting point of our real Anti-Human War. Perhaps Beth was no failure at all, they just done it on Purpose to get rid of her and steal her Secrets. So how is acting in the Anti-AI Faction Shadow? Someone of these Scientists. Like i said, is this Anti-Human War a result of someone try to Steal it and SHODAN war born? (Jurassic Park would also fit here)

    – Perhaps it was Diva’s original Creator. So that all other “copies” of Her (Sisters) are inferior of his Masterpiece.. What i am writing? Well, you know of some Evangelion Episode, where EVA sabotage an other AI Driven Combat Robot, so that EVA do not get cost/Money cuts? i have feeling we have here the same. Perhaps the Company stole Diva from the Creator and he/she done it of revenge and opened the Box of Pandora

    Worldwidedepp
  4. Each “divergence” event seems to end up even worse than OTL.
    Matsumoto is getting even more sus.
    Or it is just law of unforeseen consequences in its full potential.
    (I have been watching For all Mankind recently, and what one botched surgery – or succesful one- can make a difference to world history…)
    Toak are, like much of the terrorist groups, just driven by hatred and wish to kill perceived enemies en masse.
    Maybe they had no location of the scientist house or it was under police protection? Hence their roadside ambush.
    Anyway it would be interesting to see Yugo being forced to acknowledge being saved by Vivy third time… and maybe even being told about her and Matsumoto mission.

    ewok40k

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