Texhnolyze S1E5: “Loiter”

I tried watching the dub of episode 4 to see if the explanations were any clearer. There wasn't much difference, so I guess I've just got to make do with what I have. Anyway, hiatus over, let's keep going!

Also, I forgot how pumped the techno beat sections of the OP get me. Just vibing here until the episode starts.~


The episode's title card is stylistically different from the others. Graffiti-like font against a black background. I guess that's fitting for the word in question.

Anyway, we're in a club type place, flashing lights and loud music. The underboss with the eye-stabby girlfriend, Aida, is sitting in a back corner next to the girlfriend in question. She still has her head bandaged; Ichise must have really socked her good. Offscreen. Anyway, the two whisper conspiratorially for a while, and then Stabby strides off with a purposeful haste.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the club, Yoshii and his new friend Shinji are having a whispered conversation of their own over drinks at the bar. This is cut short when another Racan member hurries over and whispers something in Shinji's ear that calls his attention away, leaving Yoshii to shrug and step outside while they take care of whatever needs taking care of.

He heads out onto a balcony. Apparently the club is on an upper floor of a tall building, so he has quite a view of the crumbling underground city under its mysteriously hazy night sky. After sitting there alone for a minute, he's rejoined by Shinji, and the two resume chatting. Apparently, this used to be Shinji's "VIP seat." I guess either the Racan used to be a much more powerful gang than it is now, or Shinji was once an important figure in either the Organo or the legitimate government that preceded it. As they talk, Yoshii notices a young couple necking on one of the empty apartment building balconies across the street. When he informs Shinji that he's pretty sure the woman is his girlfriend, Shinji just shrugs and says that she's free to do whatever she wants. That's the core philosophy of the Racan. Everyone is in it by choice, and leaves it by choice. As members, they can do whatever they want as long as it doesn't aggress another member. The basic libertarian gospel, as much as it can be practiced in an environment like Lukuss.

Yoshii seems unconvinced. Either he gets the sense that Shinji doesn't actually believe what he's saying, or he just has biases of his own against anarchism and/or polyamory.

Seeming to pick up on this, Shinji asks Yoshii what the surface world is like. Yoshii just asks him why he doesn't go up there and find out for himself.

Shinji accuses him of being pretentious. Yoshii just snorts, and tells him that his insistence that he and his people are free and unbound obviously isn't true. Lukuss has bound them to itself, somehow or other. They could leave. Like most of the people who live down here, they probably *should* leave. It's evident that most of the citizens in fact DID leave a long time ago. So, why are Shinji the free spirit and his fellow libertarians still down here? They belong to it.

Yoshii finishes his drink, picks up his bag, and asks Shinji if he knows where he can find quieter music and women closer to his own age. And then...there's a brief cut to Onishi in his office, asking over the phone if there's been any progress on locating "him." No telling who that "him" is. Process of elimination says that either he's been informed about Yoshii's possibly hostile mission, or Aida is in the process of doing something extremely stupid on his girlfriend's behalf. Supporting the latter possibility, we then cut to Ichise and Doc in the lab.

...oh. No, nevermind. It's just Doc in there, not Ichise. Ichise has escaped, and is most likely the "him" who is now being looked for. Doc sounds really panicked about this, as if she has any right to be surprised after the third fucking time she should have realized that that cot needed restraints.

I guess fourth time's the charm for some people. :/

Anyway, she reports to Onishi that Ichise's teqrfdavbdsf limbs are still missing their cosmetic outer layers, so he should be easy to identify, and he also hasn't had proper physical therapy yet, so he shouldn't be too mobile with his new arm and leg. And, we see that this is indeed true, as the escaped Ichise takes yet another tumble down a staircase due to not knowing how to navigate his HUD's sensory input.

Sooner or later he's going to end up breaking his spine with those stairway mishaps.

Meanwhile, Aida and Stabby are sitting in his office, being butthurt at Ichise being alive. They may or may not be aware that their boss' personal cyberneticist is responsible for this, or that the bossman himself okay'd it after not euthanizing Ichise in the first place. My heart goes out to them.

Back to Ichise sprawled out on the pavement. He has another bout of dysphoria/phantom limb syndrome/whatever he has going on that leads to him banging his tdwrgrdqw arm against the ground and then punching it until his organic knuckles bleed. Once again, his voice actor is disturbingly convincing in this sort of scene. As he screams and thrashes, Ran approaches from above the stairs and watches him silently, kitty mask removed to expose her glassy Danny Torrance stare.

She doesn't reveal herself. Just watches. Finally, as "dawn" starts to light up the sky, Ichise snaps out of it and manages to pull himself to his feet and stagger on along his way. To wherever he's going.

I will say, I like that this show is acknowledging transhumanism complications like dysphoria, phantom limb issues, and the probable need for extensive physical therapy or training that cybernetics might come with. These things usually get handwaved even in scifi works that try to be gritty or realistic. Texfsdkwdsj isn't realistic, of course, but it most definitely is gritty.

Cut to Yoshii entering a brothel. The pimp is sleptical that Yoshii has money, but Yoshii insists that he can pay. He also tells him that he can't bring his own "toy" inside, and that if he wants to engage in that kind of play he'll have to go to the other place across the neighborhood. Erm...what sort of "toy" was Yoshii brandishing, exactly? Are they talking about his actual gun? No...the pimp says that the other guy can only really get him one girl for this, which implies something that a single prostitute can perform more than once, so at least it's not that.

There's a bit of an argument. Then a quick shot of Ichise breaking into somewhere to steal food, and being spotted by a local woman. Same building that Yoshii is in, or that he's about to go to? Maybe. Then we see the pimp demanding that Yoshii leave his establishment, and Yoshii warning him not to touch him as he gets more aggressive about it. Yoshii leaves, and goes over to the other pimp who can supposedly get him what he's looking for.

Meanwhile, Ichise gets caught by the occupants of the (different, after all) house he broke into and unceremoniously thrown out into the alley again on his face. Because of course. Once again, Ran is watching him from the shadows. Or more likely given the timeframe, she's just been tailing him ever since her first sighting. Likely guided either by her grandfather's instructions, some precognitive cue, or a mixture of both.

Back to Yoshii. He's allowed the pimp to bring him to a bedroom containing a woman around his own age or slightly younger, who he's been told will be willing and able to indulge whatever weird fucking thing the other brothel refused to provide. He seems approving. Once the two of them are left alone together, Yoshii asks her her age, and she responds in exaggerated outrage with yelling and physical aggression.

I guess this is what he paid for? Or at least, the lead-in to what he paid for. Plain old "angry femdom" is something most hookers would be fine with, and there's no usage of whatever weird "toy" he brought yet, so things are going to be getting stranger from here. She escalates to slapping, but then he throws a punch, which surprises and frightens her...only for him to stop his fist an inch away from her face.

Uh...huh?

He then tells her to end the scene; he's not actually here to play, just to talk. Huh. Okay then. Is this a specific woman he was trying to identify through secret signs or something? She appears to be totally bewildered, so if so she wasn't in on it. Wonder why he picked her, then, and why go through the trouble of talking to her this way rather than just approaching her on the street or the like? Curious indeed.

Back to Ichise. As he picks through some dumpsters, a car full of Organo goons spots him. And, naturally, it's not just any Organo goons, but Aida's group; the very same men who maimed him in the first place. No sign of Stabby this time, but that doesn't really help all that much I don't think.

At a guess, Aida is planning to kill Ichise and then tell the big boss that he never found him. Or something along those lines. Anyway, Ran is still watching, and has put her cat mask on. Low key confirmation that she wears it to escape identification as a wanted person by the Organo.

Ichise sees them, and recognizes them. He manages to throw a punch, and his new arm is strong enough to actually crater the stone wall of a building...but his coordination is still a mess, so he can't connect blow to enemy. For the umpteenth time, he's beaten down while making a lunge at one of his tormentors. How many head traumas has this guy suffered in the last three days, seriously. Maybe I'll have to take back what I said about grittiness, because there's no way you could take that many knocks (including several that knocked him unconscious or close to it) and not have at least a concussion by now. Anyway, they kick him while he's down, and then drag him to a manhole and throw him in.

Aida cackles that the sewers are labyrinthine enough for him to easily die a horrible death in them before finding his way out, but there's still a chance that some other Organo man will find him and bring him to Onishi - alive or dead - without his predicament looking suspicious. Wonderful.

After the Organo men leave, Ran comes out of hiding and approaches the manhole. Ah, I see. This is the future moment she was waiting for.

Back in the brothel, Yoshii interviews the woman at length about Lukuss' gang politics, taking written notes. He's asked several people about this already, but I guess he's trying to get multiple perspectives from people in different positions to account for the inevitable biases. The Racan controls a small amount of territory, but the way she describes it makes it sound like the other factions just don't think crushing them is worth the trouble. The Salvation Union controls a much more respectable amount of turf, though it's still dwarfed by the Organo's dominion. The extra shitty neighborhood they're in right now is at the intersection of these three, and considered neutral ground, though with the Organo's strong advantage and the rising tensions between them and the Union it might not stay that way for long. She doesn't know any of the gang higher ups, being beneath their notice or interest.

After answering his questions, she asks him if he's from the surface. He apparently never said as much, but a local obviously wouldn't have been asking those questions. Reading her tone, he asks her if she'd like to go to the surface herself, and if so why she hasn't yet. She replies that she'd be killed for attempting it, and then removes her clothes to reveal a body spotted with...burnscars? I think those are burnscars, but I'm not sure. She explains that...okay, the translation here is definitely wonky, and unfortunately I can't seem to find a dubbed version of this episode even though I could for previous ones. Still, from what I can piece together, her pimp used to be a member of one of the big gangs until *something* went wrong, and he scarred her body for some reason. I think so that rival pimps wouldn't try to take her from him, and he could still scrape by with one disfigured prostitute by charging next to nothing? Something like that? Like I said, it's not very well translated, but the gist of it seems to be that she's a slave and her pimp is extremely abusive. She'd definitely love to get to the surface if she could, somehow, some way.

Yoshii embraces her, and calls her beautiful. Seemingly in earnest, although "being a good liar" is right at the top of the secret agent skillset so he might just be telling her what she wants to hear. Either way, I don't think the pimp is going to be outliving this episode.

The camera cuts to a train outside. When it returns to Yoshii and the woman, she's gasping in shock as he exposes himself. Apparently, his style of tdasfdsaytfda is sufficiently different and more extensive than what she's used to seeing that she's frightened of it.

Maybe this is the "toy" that the other brothel didn't want him using? I guess? I don't know if that really fits.

Down in the sewers, Ichise drags himself out of a neck-deep pool of...well, it looks like it's more water than actual sewage, but still, can't be good for all those open cuts and freshly grafted cybernetics. Not to mention the living organic components within those cybernetics. As he pulls himself out, a rat/beaver hybrid scuttles away.

I legitimately thought it was a miniature beaver at first, before it turned and showed its tail. Weird critter. Regardless, I want one.​

Ichise staggers through the sewers, struggling to keep himself out of the deeper channels. I'm not sure if it's actually supposed to be so bright down here, or if the show is just doing that for our benefit while Ichise is meant to be feeling his way through the dark. We do see him appearing to notice things from a distance away, so I guess it's bright enough for him to see. Granted, that might be a side-benefit of the HUD built into his eyes, I actually forgot about that until it showed a POV shot just now.

He eventually finds his way into a temple-like hub chamber full of long-dead pumping machinery. Attempts to navigate from here just lead him circling back into its many entrances, in Tarterian fashion.

Some desperate, depressing, claustrophobic music plays. It's...just a real first person shooter-y vibe to it, honestly. Could def hear it in a Metro or Half Life game's soundtrack. After going in circles, Ichise roars in frustration and despair and punches another crater into the nearest stone wall. Damn, that arm of his is powerful. I hope he isn't overworking it though. He limps on until eventually finding a waterfall coming down from an intake pipe high above his head; signifying that he's even deeper below Lukuss' "ground" level than he'd feared.

The torture porn with Ichise is starting to just be too much. Wasn't Ran going to help him or something? Hell, does he really not have a single friend from his previous life who he can turn to? I guess with him being wanted by the Organo he might not be willing to inflict that danger on them even if they were willing to stick their necks out like that, but like...at this point he should just be dead from one thing or another.

There's a brief cut to the brothel, where Yoshii puts the woman to bed and promises her that he'll set her free as she falls asleep.

Back in the sewers, the music picks up in intensity as Ichise finally crumples in a corner and cries. It's extremely impressive that it took him this long. One of the beaverats comes close, and his HUD highlights something unusually bright-looking in its mouth. Pulling himself out of his despair, he sees that it's got a flower. A moment later, he spots other pristine white blossoms floating down the waterways.

Ran's merchandise, I assume. Making a trail for him to follow toward an exit point. Likely using her precognition to choose a manhole that her flowers will be sure to find there way to him from. So that's what she was waiting to do.

Meanwhile, Yoshii exits the bedroom and plants an excessive four bullets in the pimp's brain, timing his attack with the passing of a train to mask the noise as best he can.

I suppose that was predictable.

Ichise follows the flowers until he reaches a staircase that leads up to an exit. Not what I expected! I guess Ran must have descended those stairs and just stood there at the bottom dropping flowers for a while until he got close?

Yeah, the logistics of what she did there is confusing me. The music just gave way to a crazy intense rattle piece though, and it's hard to concentrate on anything besides what's literally onscreen with it playing.

Back to Yoshii. He muses on how full of life and determination to survive this city is, despite its grim state. However, he couldn't leave the job half done. There's a quick flash back to the prostitute, who is...dead?

I can't tell if she's dead, or just drooling in her sleep. His words are ominous about that, but...she also doesn't have a bullethole in her. I guess he could have strangled her or something? Maybe? I'm not sure. Granted, I'm also not sure *why* he'd have murdered her anyway, so...maybe he just didn't. I don't know. She sure LOOKS dead, but I don't know.

Ichise gets to the entrance, but finds it barred. With a roar of frustration and defiance, he attacks the bars with his synth limbs. Based on what he did with them earlier, they should be easily strong enough to bend these bars. However, Ichise is exhausted and dehydrated, and the body powering those limbs might not be up to the task. Still, when Ran comes back in the morning(?) light, he's managed to break his way through before falling unconscious just outside the gate.

Also, this shot of Ran is really obviously the creator doing a thing, because seriously this image is just so damned Lain:

"Ran" and "Lain" are also just one consonant apart, now that I think of it. Maybe not even that, given how often R and L sounds get mixed up when translated between English and Japanese.

Ran strokes Ichise's unconscious head, and leaves a flower on the pavement in front of his face before leaving. Letting him know he has a friend when he wakes up. Erm. IF he wakes up. Some potable water might have been a better gift for him, Ran. Or a blanket to hide him from the bounty hunters that are still prowling for him. I don't buy that her precognition has accounted for those issues, because she explicitly only sees POSSIBLE futures, so she has no way of knowing what the odds are of him surviving this bout of unconsciousness actually are even if she's foreseen it. End episode.


I'm not really sure what to make of this one. It was...something, alright. There were thematic threads running through it, but I'm not sure what they actually were. I might be better able to understand in retrospect. I hope.

I'm starting to dislike Ran's role in the story, though. A precognitive character who doesn't work under *very* strict rules about what they can see, when, and why is really hard to include in your story without ruining it. Call it the Contessa problem. Anyway, Ran is kind of creating that problem for me.

Still, I was entertained throughout, and the show retains my investment. This episode wasn't bad, just sort of confusing and opaque. The music was exceptionally good, also.