Texhnolyze E15: "Shapes"

Starting this month off with the last bit of last month's fast lane. Hopefully I can catch up by the end of April. Anyway, continuing from last time with tilapia!


Open on a funeral. There's a tense, oppressive atmosphere as the entire upper echelon of the Organo and their bodyguards climb out of a small fleet of vehicles to attend the ceremony. The graveyard looks kind of like a military cemetary. Honestly, I'm surprised they don't just throw all their dead in a pit and crush it under some heavy rocks to make raffia.

Not sure whose funeral this is supposed to be. A number of Organo people have killed each other (or been killed by yet another mysterious interloper) in recent times.

The various men present gossip about each other's recent changes in status, who has been made a vassal of whose branch within the Organo, etc. Typical obnoxious snakepit gossip and jockeying. The annoying chatter is suddenly ended when a wild-faced young man from among the crowd draws a gun and opens fire on the casket bearers, killing one before he can be shot in turn. His expression and body language, and the overall feeling of the scene, is strongly evocative of the early Salvation Union shootings near the series' start.

The shooter is quickly gunned down himself, claiming only one victim before falling. He's recognized as the underling of one of the underbosses present, but it's pretty unlikely that any of the bosses would try something so open and self-incriminating. Additionally, the shooter is missing his left arm; not tempura, just plain missing with no prosthesis. As last anyone can recall, this man still had both of his arms.

Something really weird is going on here.

As the Organo bigwigs try to figure out what the hell just happened, we shift over to what's left of the Raccan. Shinji and whatsisname with the poofy hair are sitting around in whatever dingy old basement currently serves as their headquarters. Yet another of their own men has fallen out of contact. Normally, silent goodbyes aren't out of the ordinary for the anarchistic Raccan, but so many in such a short period is concerning. Additionally, instead of just joining the Organo or finding a career like these ex-members usually do, some of these people have been seen in weird places doing weird things since they stopped reporting in. Including one guy who was seen walking along the city edge at night accompanied by a giant bloated white creature that looked like some kind of ghost or robot or ghost robot. Etc.

Sounds like the Class, or at least the part of it led by Doc's brother who has Onishi's legs, is recruiting ever more people for their big plan. Whatever it is.

Too stressed out to deal with these reports right now, Shinji steps out onto the street, ignoring the other Raccan members calling after him.

Cut over to some Organo people having similarly dark gossip about their own internal mysteries. The man who opened fire at the funeral had been out of contact for almost a week, and the last time anyone saw him he still had both arms.

Hmm. Are the class just chopping off abductee's limbs and putting control chips in their brains, or something? Or maybe it was a "we'll give you your arm back if you assassinate such and such person" type deal?

Apparently, that guy had been acting strangely even before he went missing. Claiming to see ghosts and suchlike. Hmm. This is starting to sound almost like UFO abduction myth type stuff.

Toyama, Ichise's kinda sorta boyfriend from a few episodes ago, reminds them all of the recent incident at Gabe. He thinks there's a connection.

Cut to that night. Shinji is still wandering the city, and happens to run into Onishi's secretary lady seemingly out by herself.

She isn't concerned about meeting with the leader of a rival gang without Onishi's presence. In fact, when he tries coming on to her, she seems receptive.

Hmm. Is she being controlled too? Or is she just really, really in need of a break from Organo politics right now? Could be either.

Cut to Onishi and Ichise having a weird conversation about neckties. Ichise has never worn one, and apparently doesn't even know what they are called. Lol. It's sort of reminiscent of the previous episode, with the Doc blabbering at Ichise about sophistication, but I'm not sure what it's getting at.

...actually, where the hell even is the Doc anyway? Last thing we knew, she and Ichise were together at her lab, with him protecting her from whoever was gunning for her and extracting information about the Class. Now he's just tailing around after Onishi again, and she's nowhere to be seen. It almost feels like I skipped an episode, but I'm quite sure that I didn't.

Necktie conversation ends. Thank you for that, show, I don't know what I'd have done without it. Then it's back to Shinji and Secretary at that crummy run-down bar. Shinji tries to ply her for information about the Organo's latest round of internal conflicts, and she tells him that she's here to get away from all that shit for a few precious hours. Heh, fair enough.

Eventually, they're joined by the poofy-haired Raccan guy whose name I can never remember and a date of his own. Secretary is creeped out by her oddly blank expression, and the fact that she seems to be watching them. Shinji either doesn't care, or pretends not to.

The evening wears on. Poofy starts getting the impression that his date isn't really paying attention to him, at which point she hastily pulls him into herself and starts sloppily making out with him to alleviate suspicion. She's still watching Shinji and Secretary out the corner of her eye, though. When Secretary decides to call it a night early and bid a dissapointed Shinji goodbye, the other lady suddenly detatches herself from Poofy as abruptly as she'd grabbed him and leaves after her.

Yeah, definitely not sus.

Secretary follows Shinji out onto the bridge. When he asks her why she needs to go so soon, she starts telling him that Onishi can sometimes hear the Voice of the City, and that there is no other man in Luckuss like him, and that Shinji wishes he could be Onishi. Ouch, lol.

She earlier said that Onishi wouldn't mind if she did stuff with other people, but now she seems to be saying that she personally wasn't interested in anything more than drinks and head games. Lol, sucks to be Shinji I guess. The other lady keeps watching this scene, until Poofy dazedly stumbles out to reclaim her.

As Luckuss' sky light starts turning on in the coming morning, a hungover Poofy is still trying to get the girl he hooked up with to say anything. She's like a zombie. Just as he's despairing at having picked up yet another braindead woman-drone (lol, this has happened more than once?), he spots something creepy on a nearby rooftop.

It's gone as fast as he can blink, but he knows that he saw it.

The day brightens up. Creepy techno music over panning city shots. More dragonflies perched on things; I know dragonflies symbolize something, but it's been too long for me to remember what and frankly I don't care that much. We go to some Organo mooks driving through the city, including Ichise, who has had a haircut and makeover and is wearing his first ever tie. They're apparently on their way to visit the old ex-boss guy, when suddenly another car cuts them off and people start shooting. Cue yet another brutal, frantic shootout. This one honestly more frantic and brutal than most in the series thus far, which is saying something. The reason for this fight is...something to do with inter-Organo drama that I haven't been able to follow due to this series already having too much going on. Whatever, Ichise is helping one bunch of Organo fight another bunch of Organo. With the latest upgrades Doc gave him, he's really kicking ass.

Speaking of Doc, we finally see her again. She's sitting in a chair in her ransacked lab. Why did he just leave her there, again? I don't know. She's sitting back limp in her seat, and as we watch a beaker falls out of her hand and onto the floor.

Is she dead? Either dead, or unconscious.

Guitar riffs get dramartic. We go to the Organo main office, where Onishi is looking through that stack of paperwork that he'd been putting off. Suddenly, his eye twitches, and then he collapses across the table, unconscious just like Doc.

Hmm. Some kind of cyberwarfare thing, targeting tintinaites people? Are all the other cyborgs in Luckuss dropping? Is Ichise about to fall as well?

We do see some prone bodies strewn around that don't *appear* to be connected to the gunfight-in-progress, so I think city-wide cyberattack might be right. That said, we don't see Shinji or the other Raccan cyborgs, who are our main go-to examples of telenovela outside the main cast, so it's weird not to show them if we're meant to infer that all cyborgs are being effected. Not sure.

Well, there's also a counterexample. Ichise is still up and kicking ass.

Either it's not a virus targeting all transcendentalists, or Ichise's special new upgrades are making him immune specifically.

Ichise finishes the battle, and then sees one of the last of the dudes on his side betray the other last dude on his side. Um...or maybe the one who did the betraying was the one who was loyal to their faction? IDK. Also, IDC. Meanwhile, the unconscious Onishi gets a nonsensical villain speech about chaos and order and true egotism technopathically delivered to him by Doc's supervillain brother.

I guess he just knocked out Onishi and Doc specifically, not all the cyborgs in town.

One of the few coherent statements I'm able to discern from the speech is that after Yoshii demonstrated how just one person can disrupt Onishi's precarious brand of order and harmony, it's clear that a new paradigm is needed. Also, he says that Onishi is still "a valuable resource" even after this, which might be referring to how he once gave him his legs. Maybe he wants his nose now too, idk.

After the incoherent villain speech is over, Onishi wakes up and sees the statue that Evil Class Guy had been fondling in the footage he sent to his brain sitting on the table in his office in front of him. Which means that Evil Class Guy either a) can send objects through time and space, b) had a minion planted nearby to drop off an identical statue just to fuck with Onishi's head, or c) he's actually right here in the building, and was talking to the semiconscious Onishi directly rather than through remote technopathy.

Onishi asks if he's trying to turn him into a soldier of the Class or something. No response, the dude has already withdrawn his physical and/or virtual presence.

Is his sister also getting a villain speech? Maybe he'd rather just send another robot to finish vaporizing her instead of monologuing at her, idk.

What a great family. Real winners, all around.

Back to Ichise. There's an incoherent conversation about how the Organo functions and whether or not Ichise has truly become a tie-wearing member of it like he looks. He says that he is. Therefore, he is told to go kill the old guy that Onishi sent them to visit. Was that "visit" always intended to be a lethal one? Who's calling the shots here, and why is Ichise listening? I don't know. Like I said, I just could not bring myself to care about the Organo politics subplot or remember the names of the (mostly similar-looking and similar-acting) minor characters within it, there's too much else going on.

Anyway, he kills the guy.

The last scene has Shinji's last few Raccan loyalists quit on him. This time they're at least doing it to his face. Poofy tells him that the next time Shinji sees him, he'll have changed.

Shinji is left with just his girlfriend. I...guess the others have all been convinced to go join up with Evil Class Guy and get more (recycled) cyberlimbs? Or maybe they're being mind controlled into doing so, idk. There were lots of weird random actions throughout the series that seemed like mind control, and Evil Class Guy might have been the one doing the controlling all along, I don't know.

End episode.


It's getting hard to follow again. All these moving parts, some of them seemingly forgotten (when was the last time the Salvation Union existed as far as the plot is concerned? etc). I also am not really sold on this new eleventh hour BBEG showing up virtually out of nowhere. There WAS foreshadowing, but still, this is already feeling like a different story with a different villain that has little to do with the previous one.

Also...triceratops was always a bleak show, but I feel like it's been slowly crossing the line into grimderp territory. I feel like it's trying to say something dark and unsettling about the human condition, but it's hard for me to take that seriously when all the characters are being gigantic assholes for literally no reason.

Well. Hopefully this gets more comprehensible when I resume it in the queue.