Vivy is very confusing. Send help.
I will always remember the first two episodes of Vivy fondly. In fact, I liked it so much I even wrote an entire essay on it, which to my personal metric, means it's some good shit. But unfortunately, Vivy has been very confusing for me lately. Not to say that it is a bad show. Far from it. I still have fun just looking at its action set pieces, great ost and solid animation. However the initial thrill and expectations I had with the first two episodes are left somewhat unmet.
This won't just be a rant. Instead, I want to dissect step by step exactly where this confusion stem from, and to an extent even provide a possible benefit of the doubt to the show. It, after all, is still ongoing and my confusion may all be quelled with answers going forward. But I still want to write my thoughts as I feel like I can learn a little from this confusion I am feeling.
If you enjoyed the show and you still feel excitement waiting on its every episode. Then I will say read these criticisms at your own risk. I realize that all too often, I get heavily influenced by public opinion which causes me to lose the spark for a series. If you still want to read it, then you can come back when the series is finished and have already satisfied that initial rush of adrenaline. It is then that you can view everything from an objective lens and separate your initial love for the series from the actual quality of it.
With all that said, let me begin from the beginning.
Conflicting themes
I still stand by how great of a set-up the first two episode of Vivy is, and it is great because of how well it sets up its thematic arc. I explained this in my 86 essay as well, so to keep it simple, a thematic arc is another way of chopping up the episodes of a series not by its settings, events or characters but by its theme. For example, the question I crafted myself for the first thematic arc of 86 was: How do you form trust with someone you have never met or seen?
My answer being: You can't. There is too much stigma and distrust existing between the each of them for any meaningful bridge to be built. And even if both parties only have pure intentions, the physical distance between the each of them creates too much uncertainty and doubt for any trust to be formed.
For Vivy, however, I am struggling to find the unifying point. I just can't seem to find what the show is trying to tell me even when I've rewatched it twice. And believe me, I tried hard as I really wanted to love this show. (I don't even remember doing annotations for my other favourites)
And this isn't because the show doesn't have anything to say. This show is dense, like enough for me to fill an entire A4 paper kind of dense. The true reason lies behind the fact that its themes seem to all be conflicting.
The first two episodes of Vivy for example, placed a lot of focus on the mission vs the heart. The mission given by Matsumoto of stopping the AI's evolution is in contest with Vivy's desire to make people happy with her singing. How was this theme established? We can consider the entirety of the first episode where Vivy thought that Matsumoto distracts her from singing, or Vivy's uncooperativeness towards the downloading of the fighting program as it may deteriorate her singing. Another pivotal example is Vivy's big dispute with Matsumoto over the codes that define her.
Matsumoto mocks Vivy for both failing to gain success in singing and also of carrying out the mission of saving humanity. He tells Vivy that in the future she will turn obsolete, an AI so useless that she will just end up collecting dust in some forgotten corner. But despite that, Vivy is not deterred. What matters to her is the present -- To continue trying to make people happy. And even if no one listens to her, she will still never stop trying.
Then how about the ending of episode 2 where Matsumoto prevents Vivy from saving a crashing plane for "the mission"? Matsumoto even indirectly caused the death of one of Vivy's only friend. This laid so much groundwork for future conflicts: The heart vs the machine; Singing/protecting vs humanity/sacrifice; Vivy vs Matsumoto.
I was extremely excited about this thematic arc on my first viewing. I expected the rest of the series to be about how Matsumoto will keep forcing Vivy against her will into tough decisions where she will constantly have to choose between saving lives or ensuring mission success. I expected Vivy to continue facing existential crisis as she further detracts from her original goal of making people happy. I expected Matsumoto to be the villain to Vivy's tragedy. But that wasn't exactly what I got.
In fact, till episode 8, even though Vivy continues to play into the demands of Matsumoto, she somehow actually gets popular as a diva. What happened to the future of slowly rusting away by a museum. Why would it be that being distracted by saving humanity translate to actually becoming a pop sensation?
And what about the tough decisions? And the theme of the heart vs the machine? In fact, the more missions Matsumoto and Vivy carry out, the more Vivy becomes like Matsumoto with a good example being Vivy's quick agreement to dispose of Grace. (Which did bare some consequences on Vivy by the end but we will discuss that later)
This was initially why I was so deflated by episode 4 and 5 of Vivy as it didn't seem to answer these themes and expectations it seemingly wanted us to notice at first. I lost a lot of excitement for the series. But, even after all that, there is one thing I have always prided myself in and chanted like a mantra: "Never underestimate a series".
A thematic arc is extremely subjective. Many times people may misunderstand the point of a series and dismiss it even though that shouldn't be the point of it to begin with; Look no further than Koikimo from this season which I wrote an essay about too. So maybe my initial reading of the first two episodes was wrong. Let me step back and rework the entire thing again. Let me consider not just the first two episodes vs the next three arcs, but all 8 current episodes as a whole.
Saving humanity
So Matsumoto's ultimate goal is simple enough: Stop AI from assimilating into society. And thus far we have seen a couple of failings.
The first mission is about trying to stop the AI naming law from being passed. But due to Vivy's inadvertent mistake, she ends up inspiring the politician who passes the law anyway. The second mission is the same, the sunrise still crashed but Estella and Elizabeth ended up being role models for how all AIs should be. The third mission is even all about how Grace inspired the doctor to put humanity at jeopardy for his love for her. So the common theme seems to be that the AIs all possess incredibly admirable ideals that invite for humans to consider them to be increasingly human. So is the show telling us that the final goal of the series is that extremely-human AIs like Vivy and Estella are dangerous to society?
In fact if you think about it, they have caused more harm to Matsumoto's mission than they did good for. So are they the biggest folly to Matsumoto's plan? If that is so that how should I view the songs in the series?
We see in episode 7 of the fourth mission that divas have taken the country by storm. Vivy and Ophelia draw crowds of adoring fans who love them despite being AIs. Vivy's new cool girl personality is even seen attractive by a lot of the back stage crew and her new confidence is portrayed to be as admirable as Estella's hospitality. Now then, why doesn't Matsumoto stop this?
We have Matsumoto forming plans to stop AI influence but here are the divas who are actively inspiring hordes of people, with such a human-like activity like singing. I won't even be surprised that their fans love them more than they love humanity. Isn't having role models like the divas be contrary to Matsumoto's goals?
If I would give the show the benefit of the doubt, then maybe in the future it will subvert itself like such; Matsumoto maybe fails to consider the divas/sisters as a proper threat and they end up causing the downfall of humanity. If that is so, then I would expect some foreshadowing or hints to point us to such events. However thus far, the show has continually portrayed the singing as something admirable, powerful and meaningful. Just look at the end of episode 4 for example, am I supposed to read Estella and Elizabeth's song as a bad thing? If that is so, then shouldn't it be portrayed with some ominous tones instead of being so beautiful and poetic-like?
The core of an AI
The show has spared no little expenses in imbuing our AIs with humanity, so much so that they can be almost indistinguishable as humans. AIs like Estella and Elizabeth straight up shows familial love for each other and Grace even questionably shows romantic love to the doctor by saying that she only agreed to marrying him because of who he is. In fact, one of the most amazing lines said was when Estella was feeling sad that robots can't cry to which Elizabeth dropped a poetry bomb by saying: "If we can't cry then let us always be the one smiling".
Like holy hell, this piece of metal has more emotional intelligence than my depressive ass. I became curious as shows on AI always try to remind us of the difference between robots and humans. (Which this show does a little with the whole 'what is cuteness and what is putting your heart into something' talk, kinda weird considering AIs like Elizabeth already understand the concept of 'optimism' but okay).
Turns out, Vivy does have a clear difference that separates this two; The ability to reformat your personality. Three examples: One being Elizabeth having her entire memory wiped, Grace having her entire mission rewritten and also with Vivy's huge personality switch. The key concepts is that each of these memory wipes completely change the AIs' personality; Elizabeth straight up went from having jealous rage against her sister to loving her again; Grace lost control of herself and begun attacking humans; Vivy became almost irrecognizable with her new confident persona.
Okay, so now that the similarities are established, the next step is tackling its meaning: How am I supposed to feel or think about this?
The common reaction to such memory wipes is mostly negative. It is sad to see a character we have come to relate or understand lose the essence to who she is. This is the case with Grace who has a tragic portrayal where she was helpless against her creators and turned into an irrecognizable monster. The emotional catharsis was then beautiful delivered with the doctor being unable to stop Vivy from killing her and also killing himself at the end. But if we look at Elizabeth's case, when her memory was wiped, I felt sad as she had her entire personality deleted and she forgot the one man who gave her purpose just like Grace... But afterwards, she had a fairy-tale like reunion with her sister, which I am supposed to feel happy about? Where is the consequences of the memory wipe? Is it a tragedy or a fortunate event? The show seems to want me to be happy for her I guess, but I'm confused. Let's look at Vivy too. This time, the show must want us to feel sad. After all in episode 6's ending, Vivy literally couldn't handle the emotional consequences of her decision and loses her mind. Surely, episode 7 would be all about her finally facing her demons...
But she is fine? Not even fine, she completely disappeared. I thought she would be facing her demons but I guess we wouldn't even get that pleasure. Okay, benefit of the doubt, maybe it is a little bit like Kaneki from Tokyo Ghoul:re's situation; You get that emotional turmoil shit after she regains her memories. But then now that I look at her though, isn't Vivy doing even better than before? She has a lot more fans than she used to, she sings so much better now and she is even doing much better on the stress management. Am I supposed to feel sad that our old Vivy is gone? Should I want her back when she is in a much better place and is actively making people happy?
Okay, maybe I am trying too hard to try to feel. I need to understand and dissect the theme instead of caring about feelings, so let's dial it back a little. From what I gather then it seems that an AI's mission and personality is intrinsically linked; Change mission = change personality. So basically, the best thing that an AI can do is to stay true to one's personality. But if that is so then why does AIs understand concepts like familial love and even romantic love? Those things are so far removed from any possible missions a human could possibly give them. Wouldn't understanding the concept of love mess up an AI to begin with?
Is that the point then that the AIs' missions are extremely malleable and flexible? For example we do see how Vivy spun her mission of just singing and making people happy to somehow saving humanity. If that is the case then, I will go back to my initial confusion.
Is this emotional flexibility supposed to be the ultimate folly?
Emotional flexibility allows humans to see robots as humans. They even inspire. If almost all robots possess such emotional flexibility, down to even analog robots on Metal Float that understand concepts of 'satisfaction', then are all robots ultimately the downfall of humanity? Is the point such that AIs has simply evolved too much emotionally that there is nothing that Matsumoto can do anymore?
Possible. But is that how it is being portrayed by the anime? I don't see it... Every scene of emotional flexibility done like the two video examples I've shown above has given so much emotional gravitas and triumphant to them. It's like I am supposed to view them as heroic even though in the back of my mind, all I can think is: But erm, isn't the main point being that we want humans to not think of them as such?
Let's bring it back to the apocalypse
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