English Dub Review: Vivy -Fluorite Eye’s Song- “Elegy Dedicated With Love – My One and Only Beloved Partner”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

Diva and Matsumoto discuss how to stop Ophelia’s suicide, but argue on their method. Matsumoto plans to stop her at the last minute. Diva opts to talk to Ophelia to get to the root of the problem. Diva and Ophelia talk as Ophelia visits a memorial for her support AI, Antonio, who ceased to function a few years ago for unknown reasons. After Ophelia prepares for her part in the festival Diva and Matsumoto discuss Vivy’s partnership with Matsumoto.

After Ophelia’s song Diva goes to talk to her again. She spots the young Kakitani and goes after him, but he uses a bullet and knocks her out. Meanwhile, Matsumoto realizes that someone else hacked the system and rushes to the rooftop. He tries to stop Ophelia from committing suicide when she laughs and reveals herself to be Antonio, her support AI.

 

Our Take:

After a brief clip on Ophelia’s suicide in the original timeline, we get to Diva and Matsumoto planning to stop it. As usual, their approaches are different: Matumoto goes for the immediate response of physically stopping her while Diva tries to get down to the root of Ophelia’s problem.

The episode revolving around AI partnerships was good. Antonio (Daman Mills) and Ophelia’s partnership was a nice contrast against Diva and Matsumoto’s rocky partnership. Speaking of Matsumoto and Diva’s partnership the episode does hint at Matsumoto’s reason for saving Diva. It’s been brought up that he could have let her continue on as a rising songstress. When Matsumoto panics with Ophelia’s disappearance and Diva running off it was amusing to watch. The logical AI hesitates for a few seconds, he does still prioritize the mission while his main body isn’t present. Surprisingly enough Matsumoto when reaching Ophelia attempt to understand her plight on singing with Antonio no longer being a part of her mission. He even links Vivy’s freeze to the assumed plight of Ophelia.

Furthermore, there’s also Diva understanding Vivy’s agonizing thoughts on singing from her heart while Matsumoto fails to comprehend it. The two have different perspectives on their tasks. It makes for an interesting dialogue on humans and AIs to an extent with their behavior. I do enjoy Diva’s personality and how she can grasp human subtleties better than Matsumoto. He was the AI in their partnership that’s more human in terms of his dialogue and personality.

That reveal of Antonio in Ophelia’s body is truly a great twist. The episode made it appear that he was truly gone with Matsumoto’s information on his shutdown. Additionally, Ophelia’s determination to sing even though her partner was no longer there leads us to believe that he’s gone. The hijacking does emphasize the lengths Antonio went through to make sure Ophelia could sing to the audience that would appreciate her.

Overall the episode was great with the AIs and their partnerships. I do look forward to how the show will explain Antonio’s appearance. The young Kakitani being around Diva also brings up a concern on his hatred towards AIs that don’t follow orders.