Texhnolyze S1E8: "Crucible"

That last episode was certainly a harrowing one, and this sequel is well-named. To rub in the point, the title card shows Yoshii's paraffin stove burning away in the darkness, under an empty frame, before suddenly going out.

Let's see how Lukuss survives this. Or, if it doesn't, at least how Ichise and Ran survive this.


Open on a big battle scene. It's too chaotic to see what's going on, except that at least one side appears to be using firehoses hooked up to blackwater sewage against the other. Or maybe that's supposed to be the Union trying to douse their burning headquarters while fighting goes on elsewhere, it's hard to tell. The Racan, meanwhile, are still celebrating at the burning building a few blocks away from where they've withdrawn to.

Okay, that "battle" was actually just Salvation Union members pushing each other out of the way to escape the blaze. Got it. No telling how many of them made it; that building looked pretty packed the last time we saw inside of it.

Whether the Union actually antagonized these people or if it's just random cruelty making them delight in this, the Racan sure seem to enjoy their work here.

Though if I were them, I'd get a little further away before celebrating. If someone sees them, well, you know, this whole operation is a failure and they're all dead.

Yoshii emerges from the shadows and hails Shinji. Shinji is moderately surprised to see that Yoshii survived his part of the operation, but pleased. They share a quick congratulations and a sip of beer, and then Yoshii leaves again. When Shinji asks him where he's going, he just smiles and says "Wherever I want."

Okay, I think we're building up toward a final cyborg duel between Yoshii and Ichise. Unfortunately, Ichise is still getting the hang of coordinating his new limbs. And has a penchant for getting injured.

Cut to the Organo meeting room. The others are getting increasingly frustrated at Onishi for not wanting to retaliate. Even though, from their perspective, it seems like the truth should be obvious at this point. And, by the same token, they should probably realize that they can't call off their own minions at this point. The Organo rank-and-file have probably already assumed that some of their own people did the firebombing in retaliation for the recent attack, and are marching off to a predicted further clash. Pulling them back might be impossible, because they never sent them forward in the first place.

Still, Onishi at least seems to understand what's going on and to be trying to work against it.

Suddenly, they recieve word that some party that Onishi sent out a while ago has returned. Huh? Didn't Yoshii kill all those guys? Either some of them actually survived (even though it didn't look like it at the time), or this is somebody else who he sent out at some other time.

Cut to Racan HQ. Ran stirs in her sleep, and sees something in her spidey sense. After putting on her Kitty Mask of Precognition for a moment to process it and then taking it off, she wakes Ichise up and leads him out of the building.

Shinji, who has just returned with some of the others, asks them if they're going to see the mysterious fire that just started burning across the city (what do you mean "why do I smell like gasoline" what are you even getting at you little punk)? Ran says that no, they're not, because she already saw the fire.

Shinji is baffled at that pronouncement, but Ran doesn't feel like explaining kitty precognition powers to him right now. Instead, she just leaves the building and takes Ichise with her, while the ticking of the time bomb continues unnoticed by anyone without psychic kitty powers. While, Ran and Ichise are safe from the bomb I guess, but I don't think many of the Racan are surviving this.

Return to the Salvation Union, who have managed to put out the burning building with their sewage hoses. Unclear how many people they lost, but the property damage alone has to be crippling. Cult leader Kimata leads his followers in a kind of war-chant, accusing the Organo of doing this, recounting their many crimes against the city and people of Lukuss, appealing to the human spirit to guide them forward, and repeating their mantra over and over.

Pretty much what I'd have expected. It appears that Onishi isn't going to have any help from the other side in foiling Yoshii's plan, if it ever would have helped.

Onishi is coming across as surprisingly sympathetic at this point. Pretty much every action he's taken has been to minimize harm as best he can from within as brutal an organization as the Organo. Granted, how he GOT into his position raises some uncomfortable questions, but so far he's been using it pretty much entirely to reign in the thugs as best he can without getting himself overthrown.

I'm predicting that he DOES get overthrown, and ends up having to team up with an understandably reluctant Ichise to survive and/or escape.

Speaking of Ichise, he and Ran walk up one of Lukuss' many dark, gloomy streets and run into Yoshii. Yoshii is still smiling. The fact that it's not a psychotic slasher smile, but instead just his normal one, kind of makes him creepier. He asks Ran if this is that "friend of hers" that he heard about. In response to that, Ichise tries to punch him. He dodges it, and grins more evilly while telling Ichise to um...join the dark side?

I'm not sure why Ichise attacked him. Did he meet him at some point before now? I don't think he did. Does he remember him from sometime before? Did Ran tell him to do this? I have no idea.

There's a flashback of...a vault being locked? I thiiink it's the same vault that Ichise was locked in by the Organo, and there's some focus on the people throwing him in there. I don't think Yoshii is one of them though, so...yeah, I have no idea what the relevance of this is. Or why he's reacting to Yoshii this way.

After dodging his attack, Yoshii just shrugs, says that if he doesn't want to talk to him then that's fine, and walks away. Ichise doesn't try to stop him. Ran tells Yoshii Ichise's name, and he just repeats it to himself with a smile and a shrug before leaving.

Yeah, I really have no idea.

There's a brief shot of Doc looking over a holodisplay of some sort of process for grafting rodent limbs onto other rodents, and human limbs onto other humans. That seems a little unambitious for her, but okay. Then we return to the Racan headquarters, which explodes with most of the gang asleep in it.

One guy, who happened to be out on the street when the bomb went off, slowly gets over his shock and starts poking around through the smoking bombed-out shell of the building, calling out names and shuttering away from the sight of body parts laid out around the floor among the inorganic debris.

Another Racan member stumbled, whimpering, out of the wreckage, bleeding from the stump of an arm.

From down the street, Ichise watches this all, stunned, from a safe distance. Ran just sits quietly behind him. Like the "guardian angel" described in the one voiceover bit of the show's OP.

As the psychedelic techno piece that I guess is Yoshii's villain theme keeps playing, the uninjured Racan survivor explores deeper into the ruined base, and finds a few other survivors, including a wounded - but conscious - Shinji. Shinji, leaning on another Racan member for support, says that it looks like they've been invited to join the war along with the big boys.

I'm not sure how much of a "they" there even is left to participate in that war, of course. How many Racan were there to begin with, assuming that it wasn't the entire gang that just got blown up in that building? I also don't know which side he suspects of doing this, assuming he hasn't already figured out it was Yoshii.

Well, the next morning we see the Racan gathering weapons and vehicles, and it looks like it's more than just six guys with twenty limbs between them, so I guess there were, in fact, a lot more of them who were not in the building.

At the same time, the Salvation Union have all piled into some big trucks and are driving across the city with stern expressions. Presumably to attack the Organo. Onishi will no longer have the option of not fighting them.

Cut to Organo meeting room. Onishi isn't there, and his lieutenants are all gossiping about him. Most of them think he's cracked and become a religious lunatic with his "will of the city" schtick, or else just gone soft. One guy seems to be vouching for him, but just one. Onishi's secretary/chauffeur lady comes in with blood on her face, and we cut away.

There's some depressing imagery of the city. Ichise walking somewhere and Ran following him. More depressing city panning shots. Then a car accident involving someone who we only see for a split second and I'm not sure if I recognize. More depressing city panoramas. Then, finally, Kimata and some of his Salvation Union followers ambushing Onishi as he gets out of his car someplace.

Onishi tries to talk them down. Kimata tells him that talking him and his bodyguards down isn't going to matter at this point; the Salvation Union is on the warpath, and if Kimata doesn't kill Onishi now someone else will soon enough. Then, suddenly, the Racan arrive in a bunch of jeeps and motorcycles and point their guns at everyone.

Onishi and Kimata both ask Shinji what the hell he wants, now. When he accuses (someone? one of them? he's not really clear about who) of blowing up his headquarters and killing a bunch of his dudes. Onishi, realizing that all of these events happened in a sequence in the same night, puts it together that the mysterious man on the phone (or his faction) must have set all this up and executed it in one big excursion. He tells the other gang leaders that someone is playing all three of them for fools, and murdering their people on top of it.

Onishi's got a hell of a charisma check he needs to pass. But if he passes it, maybe something can still be done about at least SOME of the chaos to come?

We see Ichise and Ran descending a staircase toward this scene. Ichise is handling stairs well now, so that's cool. Then, as Onishi seems like he miiiight be starting to make diplomatic progress, an army of Union cultists arrive on the scene chanting their "mind, body, soul, justice, vengeance" mantra, drowning him out. Yoshii watches from afar, smirking.

Then, something that I really have trouble parsing happens.

Ichise comes down the steps toward the assembled people and walks up to the center, where the three gang leaders are staring each other down. The three of them look at him curiously. We see from Ichise's POV, and it looks like his HUD is going crazy, sort of like how the Organo lady's did before she put her fingernail against his eye back in the pilot. Then, there's a *brief* flash of Doc doing something with a mass of flesh and cybernetics in her lab. Then Ichise charges Shinji and finally lands a punch on someone.

Did Doc assume direct control of him, or something?

I thiiiiink that's what happened? He looked kinda zombielike? I think?

He punches Shinji. One of the other Racan tries to shoot him, but misses, and accidentally hits a Unionist. And, with that, it's an all out three-way brawl. Too chaotic to see what's going on, except that people are getting shot, beaten, and chopped to death left and right. Ichise also starts attacking...everyone. With a maniacal grin on his face. Is Doc still puppetting him? Was she puppeting him in the first place, even, and if not wtf did he do any of this for? No idea. Onishi tries to remove himself from the melee, but has to cut quite a few attackers down in order to manage that. Shinji manages to locate and attack him at the end, and Onishi stabs him in the stomach with the handle of his katana, knocking the Racan leader down for a while without injuring him.

Eventually, everyone has either died, been incapacitated, or fled, except for Onishi and Ichise. Ichise looks at the carnage, and then turns his head skyward and screams. I...really don't know what's going on with him.

Onishi's driver lady (was she named at some point? I forget) arrives in a car, and Onishi grabs Ichise and pulls him into the car with him before telling her to get them out of here. Shinji tries to chase after them, but isn't able to board or disable the car before it escapes. Yoshii keeps watching through his binoculars.

Then, finally, we cut to someone...I think it's that Tatsuya guy who Yoshii interviewed last ep? I think? Watching in horror from the window of a building. He senses someone watching him from near the door, and turns to see Ran there.

End episode.


This is starting to lose me in the same way that Serial Experiments Lain started losing me. I'm not really sure what I can say about most of what I just saw until I see more, which is pretty much how I felt about the middle-series Lain episodes.

Still, Taco Bell at least has a plot I can follow the literal events of, mostly. So, it isn't frustrating me as much yet.