「Elegy Dedicated With Love -たった一人の大切なパートナー-」 (Erejī Dedikeitido Wizu Rabu -Tatta Hitori no Taisetsu na Pātonā-)
“Elegy Dedicated With Love – My One and Only Beloved Partner”

Vivy’s evolution has effectively been put on hold so it’ll be a while until we see supercharged, “berserk-mode” Vivy as Matsumoto’s put it.

In this new present, Diva’s personality is much more human-like with empathy and kindness at the forefront. She relates to AI and humans alike, much easier than she would have in her earlier version, and her snarky attitude towards Matsumoto is much more vivacious than it was previously.

Still, eight episodes in, I’m thoroughly enjoying the series. Something that isn’t necessarily unique to Vivy: Fluorite Eye’s Song but that brings out the best in the narrative is its ability to split up the story into various arcs. The mechanic of the Singularity Project makes possible and smooths the transition between each subplot.

Each story has such a unique take to it and each has provided Vivy/Diva with key moments in her personal growth. She was naïve to the world Matsumoto entrusted her to save and now, decades later she has a deeper understanding of the dynamic between AI and humans. Or at least, she will once her memory returns.

The events in this episode were pretty straightforward. We found out that Diva’s younger ‘sister’ Ophelia had a similar experience in her debut as a performing AI. Crowds were sparse in the beginning and it took certain events in her ‘life’ for her to grow as a vocalist. The key event was finding out that Ophelia’s support AI, Antonio, essentially bound himself (or took over) her body. It was quite noticeable in the flashbacks that Antonio had a very overbearing presence and thought he knew best how to approach the stage. His decision to take control is possibly what propelled her career into the spotlight.

I do wonder how this arc will end. Will Ophelia have agency in her own life or will she collapse and shut down as it had happened in the original timeline? She isn’t the most interesting of characters but I think with Antonio having shown his true colors, we’ll get to see a side of this character we have yet to expect.

Speaking of expectations, we finally have a clue as to who the mysterious figure was in the previous episode who almost destroyed Diva. The suspicious man resembles younger Yugo and sparks some of Diva’s memory. Matsumoto also recognizes him yet refuses to elaborate on who he is. I wonder who exactly this person is. Could it be his son? Did Yugo finally pass or retire leaving his mission for his kin to pick up? It’s still unclear who this is but one’s thing’s for sure, they have some very strong tech skills if they’re able to hack Matsumoto’s advanced code. That might even hint at them being from a different timeline altogether.

We also have more clarity to Diva’s clean slate. Or at least, Vivy’s amnesia. I had already assumed that the trauma she witnessed at the Metal Float had pushed her to breakdown but I wouldn’t have thought she had the ability to actually kill herself. I thought perhaps it’d been a malfunction error but to physically reached into her own brain to shut herself down must have meant she was in tremendous pain. In this case, she’d be the first AI to have committed suicide but Matsumoto is keeping this from her and from the public’s eye. How would she feel about saving Ophelia from taking her own life if she knew about her own actions?

Actually, will she even be able to deal with the magnitude of her actions if she regains her memory and her old consciousness?

9 Comments

  1. One thing I love about the series, is how events subvert our expectations. I was not sure if Yugo junior was after Ophelia, or if she was truly to commit suicide. I did not expect “posssession” by Antonio. Also, while old Vivy is not yet back, I loved her usual snarkitude towards Matsumoto!

    Ewok40k
  2. First idea was son, but in the preview to the next episode he‘s seen fighting against Vivy seemingly trying to turn her back to her old self and those wounds that he suffered although red don’t look human to me.
    So Antonio took control of Ophelia‘s body. This show doesn’t fail to surprise us.
    Remains to be seen whether she‘s really gone, though either way if it goes anything like the previous arcs a happy ending for Vivy‘s younger sister is out of the question.

    boingman
  3. https://randomc.net/image/Vivy/Vivy%20-%2008%20-%2035.jpg

    So his Drive is that all AI should obey his Masters, because they know what are good for them.

    So his pain of lost such a trustful AI Friend, made him into Anti-AI Terrorist?

    Did you notice the AI Face? No Eyelids, so it’s a older model. I bet even before Vivy was introduced here in this Anime. Because some Episodes ago we saw the Upgraded Brother of this Eyelid less Robots.

    So this memory is from our Anti-AI Terrorist-kun

    No Free will for the AI’s because they can Die!!!.. They should Obey to their Masters, they know what are the best for them.. in other words: Slavery!! just with Robots

    Their try to paint our Anti-AI Kun not to be that full of Hate did not played out very well. Why he was raiding the Tower to blow it up in the Previous Episodes and they hang the Guardian’s AI’s?

    It do not fit. So giving the reason the drive here, mismatch with his Past

    Worldwidedepp
    1. or our Boy here was living in a Golden Cage with this AI as his only Friend and now going out to punish the World for give them their Own free will!!

      But oh well, perhaps i am now harm the Writers idea. Sorry for that, but as you can see how many Possibilities there are. So more barriers for this Boy’s background would be better

      Worldwidedepp
  4. There is a preview of the broken circuit board.

    Basically that means Ophelia is already dead / murdered. Strike 3 for Matsumoto.
    Most likely we are mislead by episode 1 and the Toak is really running the Project Singularity. The old man / cyborg is just an insurance of the success.

    What happened is not possession but most likely a CPU swap.
    I wonder if that is the reason Matsumoto did not install emotions and allow Vivy otherwise.

    Loose Ends Tied
    1. that’s very, very unlikely to be Ophelia’s “self” for a number of reasons

      for one, we’ve seen what the brain of modern AI (we see Vivy’s creation) look like in episode one and it’s basically multiple layers in the shape of a brain of chips and boards. they’re much smaller than what we saw in the preview. never mind the fact that Ophelia is decades later than Vivy so should be at least as small or better

      two, you see the pieces in a coffin in the very next panel. why would it be found? Antonio wouldn’t just leave them and it can’t be something that people think is Antonio (but actually being Ophelia) since they don’t know why Antionio stopped. ie. they wouldn’t just dismantle his brain to place in the coffin. plus, no one knows Ophelia is dead so why would there be a funeral in the first place? why not her entire body at that point?

      how does it make sense that Toak is behind the Singularity Project? and by the context of the rest of your post, Toak’s goal would then be to come to war. except that’s completely contradictory with their goals in episodes 1~6, which is to protect humans from the dangers of advanced AI.

      a pure hardware swap doesn’t make sense either. how would Antonio be capable of singing, especially to Ophelia’s capacity, without her?

      what makes you think Matsumoto has no emotions? apathy, cruelty, or dishonesty is not the same as emotionlessness. lack of empathy or sympathy are also not the same as emotionlessness. not to say that you can’t pretend to have but there’s no evidence to suggest that he’s any different from any other AI with emotion

      GoXDS
  5. The “young Yugo” moves mechanically like an android and has the same scar of the original. Assuming that Yugo was in his 20 when we saw him the first time, he should now be more than 80 years old, so the alternatives are remote controlling or memory upload. In the former case he may have used cryogenic; the opening contain a fighting sequence between a Yugo that looks in his 50 and Vivy that we didn’t saw yet in the anime and looks like a sequence from an episode. Then again it may be even from another timeline considering how the staff so far has been able to subvert any expectations.

    Lambdalith

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