Texhnolyze S1E4: “Synapse”

Time to get back on the Texxelg;awzsd train. The previous episode ended with Ichise being forced to submit to a different branch of the same criminal organization that crippled him, now implanted with cybernetics (made using an heirloom cell culture of his mother, for reasons that I don't understand). Meanwhile, Yoshii is creeping around the city being all secretive and spy-ey, with Ran having parted ways with him at least for now. In the backdrop of all this, there looks to be an all-out turf war brewing between the Organo and the Salvation Union that will probably catalyze the next several plot beats.

So, let's see what happens next.

Yoshii is staring at these weird, waving brown strands.

Ichise is staring at his new cyberhand.

Biomedical machinery moves around. It looks like Ichise might be in some sort of bacta tank while having his texnoraptor parts attached. Then, amid some spaghetti western guitar riffs, there's the title card, accompanied by Yoshii staring in the window of a broken, abandoned old clothing store. There are still some faded old dressing dummies in the window. I guess those flying brown strands were cobwebs or something. Disappointingly mundane, I guess.

After staring at the hollowed out shop for a while, Yoshii walks through the streets of Lukuss. Lots of despondent looking people sitting out on the sidewalks and stairways with their faces in their hands, or staring warily at him from behind papered-over windows. I'd say that this looks like the bad part of town, but I'm not sure that Lukuss has a "good" part. This is definitely not the least impoverished neighborhood, that's for sure.

For a moment, he stares after a one-armed woman with a little cart she's pushing in front of her. I suspect she's another victim of the Organo's dismemberment-of-people-who-annoy-us policy, but she could have also lost her arm another way. Yoshii stares at her missing arm, and then suddenly flashes back to Ran in her kitty mask. Then he's staring after the old woman again, and looking thoughtful.

I thiiiiink he's surmising that Ran wears that mask in the city in order to avoid losing a limb herself? She's a fugitive from the Organo, or at least from a branch of the Organo, despite her grandfather seeming to have a decent working relationship with the overboss? Either that, or Yoshii is wondering if this old lady is Ran in disguise or something, which would be a hell of a lot more of a stretch. Probably the former. Either the Organo doesn't know that their Sage has been hiding and/or is related to Ran, or some of them do but not all of the bosses are on the same page about her status with the organization.

Or, alternatively, the Organo aren't the only people who show their displeasure by hacking off limbs around this place, and Ran is trying to avoid being ID'd by another group.

Back to Doc's lab. She voiceovers about how tesfdsadeasw2 is a maturing technology, currently on its fourth generation of functional limb prosthetics. She goes on to say that when she first came to Lukuss, most of the research being done on the subject was devoted to user comfort and ease. Making the artificial limbs less uncomfortable, more tactilely sensitive, a closer match to the old organic limbs' capabilities and feedbacks. She quickly grew frustrated with these research goals, however. Tesdt;kjwehrte limbs would never be able to *perfectly* duplicate the originals, so why not just try to make them really strong and fast and heavily armed and other supervillain shit instead?

So, classic mad scientist backstory for her. Wild inspiration for unethical and weaponizable research that she refused to give up on, leading her to turn her back on the mainstream engineering community and find underworld backers. Literal underworld backers, in her case, being as Lukuss is deep underground.

Hmm. The translation (or perhaps just the original phrasing itself) makes something unclear. Did she come to Lukuss in order to do her unethical research in a lawless environment? Or, did she come down here doing aboveboard cybernetics research before going mad scientist? If it's the second one, that would mean that Lukuss was a major research hub in the recent past, so it must have fallen on hard times very rapidly and very recently. Everything looks like it's been falling apart for longer than she's been alive, but anime characters looking much younger than they're supposed to be is hardly unheard of. So, her story could be either of those.

There's a brief shot of the bossman interrogating someone (a Union cultist? Maybe?) and then we return to Yoshii. As Yoshii walks through the street, he recounts some history for the audience's benefit. The underground city of Lukuss was once governed by a loose authority called "the Chief of Gabe," aka "the Chief of the Mountain," as an autonomous city state from any of the surface world's governments. The Organo took over using its superior organization and great willingness to kill people.

I guess the generally run-down state of the city is either a consequence of the new kleptocracy, or symptomatic of the same economic downturn that allowed the coup to happen. I suspect the latter. Mobsters taking over isn't something that happens when your city-state is doing well in the first place.

There's some confusing technological imagery. What looks like it might be someone staring at a ceiling light fixture through a cyborg HUD. Then the underboss and his eye-stabbing gal pal plotting something vague, whispering about how they need to avoid creating a spectacle that the city can ill afford right now. Then, back to the lab!

The Doc explains that texsafwasgljkew always comes with some invasive neural cybernetics, including a corneal implant that relays sensory information from the synth limbs. That's to make sure that you know how much pressure the limb is under, how much strength you're using, etc. Annoying, she says, but necessary. So that's what's up with the HUD's.

She continues going over the neural integration process, and makes it clear that she's talking to Ichise, who at least appears to be awake and listening. Eventually, she gets to what she calls the "black magic phase" of the operation, and from her tone of voice that's not a euphemism or technical jargon. Also, she explains that this is the stage of the operation that calls for raffia.

And, apparently raffia - which prevents rejection issues with tissue grafts and cybernetics, sort of like meld from Xcom - is mined deep underground. Which is now implied to be why the city of Lukuss exists.

Well, that answers a few questions. Not only why the place was built, but also why cutting edge cybernetics research was being done there of all places. What led to the decline, then? Maybe they found other, more easily accessible, raffia sites around the world? Maybe the Lukuss deposit is just mostly tapped out, turning it into a post-goldrush ghost town?

She then randomly segues into his father having been involved in novel raffia applications research. Huh. So he was a scientist before everything in Lukuss went to shit. And presumably was executed (by the Organo or whoever was executing people at the time) immediately after the going-to-shit took place.

...hmm. If he was a raffia researcher, maybe it was the Salvation Union or their precursors who killed him and his peers? They seem to be an anti-transhumanist sect, so it would make sense that they might execute scientists who were studying raffia.

Also, Doc says this while he's laying on the cot and she's leaning over him with her face right in his crotch. And, as she moves on from the subject of his dead father and back onto the prosthetics she's giving him, she says that she's telling him all this because, while she's mostly ditched the Hippocratic oath, the "informed consent" part is a hard habit to kick. At the word "consent," she squats over him and starts taking off her shirt.

He asks her why she's doing this for him. Her response is wordless, and makes it pretty clear that it's not "for" him at all. Ichise just kind of rolls with it.

Fucking hell this guy gets raped a lot.

And dismembered a lot.

And orphaned a lot.

The story still does a good job of keeping his story convincing enough to evoke pity rather than mirth, but...god, it's close. Ichise is so totally the Bad Luck Brian of Lukuss. Well, I can only assume he'll eventually use his cyberlimbs to get revenge on the multitude of people who have beaten, maimed, raped, emotionally abused, and robbed him. At least, I hope.

Also, I still don't entirely grasp the connection between raffia and his mother's tissue sample. Was raffia being used to preserve it? Is raffia a rare commodity in Lukuss now that the mine is tapped out or whatever? Not sure at all.

From there, we jump back to Yoshii. It looks like the following morning, but once again I'm not at all sure how the lighting works in Lukuss. It's probably artificial, and may or may not correlate at all to what's going on aboveground overhead, but the light levels look like early morning so I'm just going to call it that until further clarification. He consults a map, determines he's in the right place, and sits down to wait. Soon, a car pulls up. He looks at a photo to confirm the identity of the passenger as Organo overboss Onishi. As he gets out of the car, Onishi looks suspiciously at the lone man sitting by the side of the road. Yoshii just gives the mafia king of Lukuss a respectful head bow.

Pushing your luck there, Yoshii. But, fortunately for him, Onishi decides that this is just another of the city's many homeless or vagabonds, and walks into the nearby building to go about his business.

Upon entering the dark, factory-like structure, Onishi is approached by two men who hold him at gunpoint. He calmly raises his hands and lets them search him for weapons And even hands them a pistol that they missed after they think they're finished, just as a power move. Maybe that's his pistol full of blanks that he uses to not execute people, idk. Anyway, he's evidently making a white flag visit to the headquarters of a less-than-friendly faction, either the Union or somebody else who hasn't been mentioned yet. After yielding his weapons, he walks on in to his meeting.

Back in Doc's lab, Ichise has been given full body anesthetic, but is still conscious. Doc instructs him to watch her work as she goes about it, because she's Doc that's why. Then, we return to Onishi as he reaches a room deep in the old factory or whatever it is and walks in on a sermon in progress. Most of the immense room is shrouded in darkness, but some shots make it clear that it is packed with attendants. The only light source in the room is pointed at the ornate stage, upon which a preacher stands - surrounded by attendants - giving a fire and brimstone oratory.  The part Onishi walks in on doean't make it clear what he's preaching against, exactly, but there's a big repetitive focus on commitment, diligence, and total faith. The crowd responds with the Redemption Union mantra "Mind, body, truth!" in response to several of his exclamations. I guess this preacher is Kimata, the (secret?) cyborg who leads the Salvation Union.

For the first time in the show, Onishi looks a little nervous. The fervor, charisma, and postapocalyptic grandeur of Kimata and his sanctum seem to be having an effect on even a stone cold crimelord like himself. However, when Kimata and his flock notice the intruder, Onishi quickly puts his mask of nonchalant confidence back on and requests an audience.

Kimata praises his courage in coming alone and unguarded; fitting for the man who clawed his way into Organo leadership at such a young age. Onishi tells him that he's just here to talk, and that he knows Kimata is an honorable enough man to respect that. When he asks to speak in private, Kimata tells him that anything Onishi wants to tell him, his faithful can hear as well. All members of the Salvation Union are of one mind and one flesh; there is no keeping secrets from some members but not others.

Onishi has very little patience for this rhetoric, and asks if the "we are of one mind" claim extends to the dumb fucks who incompetently tried to assassinate him the other day. Kimata harrumphs at this, and looks like he's about to respond with some sort of threat or posturing before an attendant hurries up and whispers something in his ear. Whatever he was just told, it causes Kimata to change his tune quickly.

Those are some whacky shades Kimata's got, also. Maybe they're meant to hide something? Could be.

Anyway, the two bigwigs walk off to their private meeting, which may just be their last shot to prevent an all-out war between the Organo and the Salvation Union.

Halfway point of the episode, over 2K words, and more than halfway to hitting SV's image limit. I think I'll call this one a two-parter. So far, it's been another very informative episode in terms of context and worldbuilding, but neither of the main characters have really done anything so far, so there's not much to comment on character wise at this point in the ep.