Texhnolyze S1E6: “Repetition”

With a title like that, I predict that this episode will be about bad things happening to Ichise. Hopefully not in its entirety. Let's see.


Open on a slow zoom-out look at a big, complicated machine. As the camera slowly retracts out of the machineworks, an unfamiliar, elderly-sounding speaker starts talking about that time when the eyes of every resident of Lukuss changed color.

In conjunction with what we already know about the place's history, I can't help but think of Dune. Raffia might have more in common with Melange than just being valuable enough to fight over.

...wait a second, and we have a creepy native-born kid with precognitive abilities.

Huh.

Yeah, I hadn't even realized the extent of the parallels until just now, but this really is like Dune writ small. If it turns out that prenatal raffia exposure caused Ran's abilities to develop, then that would just cinch it.

The old man goes on to tell about how the people up here in the mountain facility of Gabe had no idea anything had gone wrong until the city-dwellers' eyes had all changed, and panic seized the populace. Proof that the work that they do up here in the mountain is important, no matter how unreasonable that seems.

As he says this, he does something with one of the huge machines, and the "sunrise" begins in Lukkus. Seems to be pretty strongly implying that this facility houses the environmental controls for the underground habitat Lukuss is built in.

Earlier on, it was mentioned that the original government of Lukuss was based out of this facility. Their head honcho was called the "Chief of Gabe" or something like that. So, the political authority was also sitting on the environmental control system. Makes sense.

Of course, with the current state of things in Lukuss, I wonder who's running and maintaining that facility? Everything in the city seems to be slowly falling apart, but I feel like the artificial sunlight and air circulation are probably going to be higher maintenance devices. And of course, someone has to be incentivizing the technicians to keep doing their work. Is the Organo paying them, or is someone else?

These are all questions that I'm pretty sure the story wants the audience to be asking. Which means answers will probably be coming sooner rather than later, though perhaps not in this very episode.

Also, the most haunting, hypnotic bell theme plays over the synthetic urban sunrise. It's my favorite track in the show so far, including the OP.

This eerie, hypnotic scenery ends with the old guy repeating that the cityfolk's eyes changed...and adding that it wasn't the first time, or the last.

Not sure if he means that literally, anymore. If he does, I'm not sure what the implications are meant to be. But anyway, that's where the episode title card drops, ending the teaser. The episode proper picks up with Onishi waking up in his penthouse residence and finding...hmm. There's another bed in the room, already empty. Hmm. Onishi goes into the living room, and finds brunette driver lady talking on the phone. It is now revealed that she's his wife.

Huh. That's weird. Their interactions until now didn't really feel marital. And...they sleep in the same room, but on different beds? Odd. Wonder what the story is here.

Things don't get any easier to parse when she ends her call, and explains that she was listening to "the city."

Onishi had been under the impression that he, alone, received this privilege. Apparently not.

"The city." Secret informant network? The old man still running the Mt. Gabe environmental facility? A supernatural being that literally embodies the city? All possible from what's been shown until now.

Brief look at Ichise retracing his bloody steps from the night he was maimed. Not sure why. I'm also not sure HOW, given the state he was in when we last saw him, but he seems to be walking around healthy-ish now. Then at Yoshii - who may or may not have murdered that prostitute - riding the train back out toward the Sage's compound. Then back to Ichise, who starts tossing and juggling some debris to get the hang of his new HUD and hopefully learn to coordinate his limbs properly.

For his own part, meanwhile, Yoshii recognizes one of his fellow passengers on the train as...hmm. I had to go back and look to make sure, and yeah, it's one of the Organo enforcers who's been brutalizing Ichise. I don't recall Yoshii ever seeing him before, but maybe he's one of the persons of interest he had a mugshot of before being sent down here. Anyway, Yoshii gets off the train out in the wilderness and then boards a car.

...or no, sorry, the way it was cut made it look like that was Yoshii driving away from the train stop. I was just about to ask where he got that shiny minivan from, but it's not him. It's the Doc driving through the rocky desert, leaving her lab empty behind her. That makes more sense.

She's mumbling to herself about how she needs to prove something. Or to prove she's not something. "Incompetent?" "A thirstmistress?" "Someone who really, really needs to learn the value of restraining prisoners or at least not antagonizing them if you won't do that?" Something probably related to Ichise's escape, at any rate.

We briefly cut back to Onishi's office, where he's asking who they have in charge of searching for Ichise. Three squad leaders are named. Upon hearing one of those names, Onishi asks for him to be summoned.

Cut back to Doc rigging her car to fall off the highway into a canyon.

Then Onishi in his office, grilling...ah, that's who he asked for before. The team leader is also the underboss who maimed Ichise in the first place, and threw him into the sewers more recently instead of turning him in. Onishi seems to suspect shenanigans. I thought his name was Aida? He called him something different this time. First and last name, I guess.

He grills him just enough to make him sweat before letting him go, reminding him again that the target is not to be killed. Speaking of sweat, Ichise is trying to climb another staircase. Fortunately, he's taking it slow this time, and seemingly trying to learn how to work with his cybernetics instead of against them.

Return to Doc, who I just now realized broke one of her shoes trying to kick her car the rest of the way over the edge. Not sure why that was necessary, but okay. She walks to a mountaintop facility (possibly the same one we saw the inside of in the teaser) and is met there by Yoshii. Was he down here looking for her, this whole time? If so, the familiarity is one sided, because she has no idea who he is.

...

Okay, am I forgetting a scene where he summoned her here? How was this meeting arranged?

It feels like something is missing, and I don't know if that's my own fault or not. The omicron strain does a number on your head. :/

...

She asks who he is. He just tells her his name, and then deflects further questions by accusing her of having come from "the far side of the gates." Hmm? The conversation here gets confusing, as he starts grilling her for her opinions on the raffia, its discovery underground, and how it prevented human extinction by turning the majority of humanity into something different.

Also, this is cut with some shots of Ichise waking up from unconsciousness where we saw him at the end of the previous episode. And with a lot of visual emphasis on the flowers Ran left him, and apparently laid more of on top of him when he passed out. And, raffia is now said to be a "type of moss."

Again, not sure if this ambiguity is down at least partly to bad translation. Putting it all together as best I can though, what I THINK is being said is basically:

• Raffia, again much like Melange, is extracted from some weird organism that was discovered deep underground. The flowers that Ran sells are implied to be related to it, and may be connected to Ichise's recovery after he escaped the sewers (assuming that wasn't just down to whatever mysterious force also makes him immune to brain damage).

• Surface humanity was nearly destroyed by some kind of environmental or epidemiological crisis. It survived by using raffia to turn itself into a transhuman form of life that could withstand the crisis. The people of the Lukuss cave system might be some of the only baseline or near-baseline humans left.

• Doc and Yoshii are both trans/posthuman entities that donned superficially baseline bodies to blend into Lukuss in recent-ish times. Doc did this in order to pursue an alternative line of artificial evolution from the human baseline that mainstream transhumanity disapproves of. Yoshii's mission is still unknown.

Again, I *think* that this is what's being said, but I'm not even close to 100% on most of it.

Brief return to the Lukuss marketplace, where Ichise has managed to return after climbing one of the city's countless handicapped-unfriendly staircases. The Organo hunter teams are prowling in cars, keeping their eyes peeled for him. The one who Onishi just bitched out is still butthurt over being bitched out by Onishi.

Um...your boss? Easy question is easy.

Back on the mountaintop facility, Yoshii and Doc continue their borderline-incomprehensible conversation. Yoshii seems to like something about the near-baselines inhabiting the crumbling ruin of Lukuss. In his own words, well:

Doc feels differently, seeing them merely as means to an end. They're inferior beings to her, even if they might be the key to creating something greater than any of them. That's...definitely consistent with the way she treated Ichise.

Yoshii claims to be impressed by the Doc's attitude and ideals, but it sounds like he might be facetious, not sure. She doesn't seem sure about this either.

Back over in the market, some rando robs a shopkeeper and runs into Ichise as he flees, cackling, from the scene of the crime. He rudely demands that Ichise get out of his way as he barrels toward him. Ichise has had more than enough of this, and throws a punch.

It's not clear if he INTENDED to stop his synthetic fist just millimeters shy of the guy's nose, or if he was actually trying to punch him for real and just hasn't quite figured out the tewfwsdtgf arm controls yet. Either way, the thief drops the loot and runs away.

From back up the market street near the robbed stall, Ran watches from behind her kitty mask.

This incident turned out to be Ichise's first lucky turn in a while, in a way that makes me wonder if perhaps Ran had a hand in setting up that robbery incident. The merchant gets his goods back, and lets Ichise sit under his awning and gives him a proper meal. He also asks him if he'd like to stick around in the market; the Racan hoodlums are getting bolder in their robberies recently, and the protection that everyone pays to the Organo doesn't seem to be helping much. The local merchants could use some security of their own, and an experienced fighter with a good-quality cyberarm should do the trick.

Ichise doesn't answer. Just wolfs down the meal he's been given, knowing that his current status with the Organo would preclude him from doing anything of the sort.

Speaking of which, Onishi has just gotten a tip that Ichise was sighted at the market. He relays that information to the hunters, and reminds them once again that Ichise is to be brought in alive.

And, despite being apparently survival-focused for now, Ichise happens to spot the car containing...oh, what's his name? Aida? I can never remember if that was the guy who ordered Ichise maimed, or the guy who actually carried out the sentence. Anywat, it's the sword guy. He sees the sword guy (also the guy who threw him in the sewers...I think? Maybe it was the same guy from the start? IDK) driving along with his buddies. Instead of hiding, Ichise chases the car down, jumps onto it, and punches out the window. Unfortunately, the car hitting the brakes causes him to go skidding on passed it and fall over, allowing whatsisname to get out and stand over him with his sword drawn.

Aida(?) says something about how he hates people who try to defy the Organo over and over again like Ichise, because they remind him of his younger self. Uh huh. He also, upon being reminded that Ichise isn't supposed to be killed, says that he'll just lop off the rest of his limbs before bringing him in.

He steps up, brings his sword down, and has it promptly grabbed and pulled out of his hand.

It turns out that Ichise was feinting. Just pretending to have lost control of his leg and fallen down from the inertia of the car.

He also conclusively proves that he was being very deliberate when he didn't punch the Racan thief earlier. He's gotten enough practice with his texdfwergwsrtwqyt HUD controls now that he can coordinate that arm perfectly when he wants to; he just doesn't like to use it due to the dysphoria and/or resentment. When Aida's backup guy draws his pistol, Ichise sees his reflection in the blade, makes some computer-assisted calculations, and then throws the sword into the guy's leg, bringing him down before he can fire a shot.

Then, after using his tqawesrwet arm for a feint, Ichise delivers a cathartic left-handed beatdown on Aida. Using his organic fist just because he prefers it. And because it has more feeling in it, presumably. The eerie, hypnotic sunrise theme plays over this.

Ran watches from the side, and for just the second or third time in the series she speaks aloud. Whispering the words "good boy...good boy" as Ichise brings Aida down and appears to break his neck.

The other wounded Organo man tries to shoot, but is too blinded by pain and shock to do so accurately. After leaving Aida bleeding and dying on the ground, Ichise stalks over to the other guy, who has ineffectively run himself out of bullets.

...and then one of the other hunter teams comes up behind Ichise and knock him out with a lead pipe.

Good thing he's still immune to concussions. Probably. This is REALLY starting to get old, though. Yeah, I get it, he needs someone to watch his back literally as well as metaphorically, you don't need to keep repeating it this damned many times.

Speaking of watchers, Ran melts back into the nearby crowd. It's unclear if she foresaw this outcome or not.

Episode ends with the mysterious environmental facility guy rambling about eye color some more.

It really felt like there were some scenes missing in this episode. Moreso than even in the pilot. At this point I'm not sure at all of what's supposed to have happened, entirely.

Did Doc just randomly, accidentally crash her car into the fence, rather than deliberately doing it? Maybe? It was a pretty open highway without any particularly treacherous curves. And she seemed to be trying to push it the rest of the way over the edge when she lost her shoe. But...where was she going? How did Yoshii call her there?

Again, I'm sick. Persistent headache. But I thiiink this is down to the show rather than me. Hopefully next episode will explain itself a bit better.