Yes, we skipped this anime last week, but it’s okay: last week’s offering was nothing more than yet another recap episode. I don’t know why Beatless feels the need to give us two recaps in a single cour, but here we are.

— We immediately open with chibi Ryo waking up in a hospital bed. He was apparently involved in some sort of explosive incident. This was also when he first met Arato, who we literally see crying in this room of flaming hot inferno. Kids, if you’re that close to fire in real life, you’d already be dead.

— Aw, look at the cute doggy.

— Afterwards, chibi Arato asked chibi Ryo to be his friend, which made the latter start crying.

— Now we fast forward to the present, and Ryo is still crying.

— But that’s not all! If you zoom out of the anime, you will see me crying because I have to blog this anime! It’s multi-dimensional tearjerking!

— Okay, enough fun. If you remember where we last left off, Arato had to save Shiori from a burning car. Ryo got mad at Arato when he found out about his sister’s condition. But he’s also mad at himself, y’see! After all, he hasn’t been a proper oniichan to Shiori. He asks about the hIE, and I assume he means Methode. Hm, I’m not sure what he thought his buddy should’ve done. It’s not like the android would’ve just surrendered peacefully. Things go from bad to worse when Ryo also gets a message from Ginga.

— Arato’s just getting it from all angles. He comes home to get a beating from his imouto. Like c’mon, I don’t like Arato but how was that incident with Methode even his fault?

— I understand him being suspended from school, though. Even the car rental guy is mad at our hero. Hertz, doesn’t it?

— Being lectured by a doofus like Yuka must suck. I mean, just look at her. You’re getting yelled at by someone prancing around in their OshKosh B’gosh.

— She’s mad because they have to pay 2 million yen in damages. 2 million yen that could’ve gone to “snacks and clothes.”

— Apparently, Arato’s dad is willing to pay for everything, and all he’s got to do is pay his dad a visit. Not only that, Ryo is tagging along (at Ginga’s request, I’m sure). A vacation away from his annoying imouto and a hot steamy trip with his best friend? Looks like everything’s working out to me!

— Whoops, spoke too soon. Yuka is coming too.

— On the train, Arato pervs on Lacia’s chest, but there’s really nothing to look at. Apparently, he can’t get her body out of his mind, since he walked in on her shirtless. I thought she had sick tattoos on her arm or something, but they were actually wounds she had incurred from the most recent incident. She was literally replacing her damaged skin with a spray bottle.

— Also, the whole thing with Marina is completely resolved.

— The OshKosh B’gosh wants to know if you’ve been lewding.

— Oh right, Arato’s dad is involved in some huge incident in which the entire city is populated by hIEs. Half of the units think that they’re human, and this simulation is supposed to help us understand how actual humans might react to living with hIEs. You also don’t throw hIEs away. If they can help it, unwanted androids end up here.

— Darn those millennials!

— On their way to the laboratory, the group comes across an old woman hIE dropping all her apples on the ground. Luckily, a child hIE is there to help her pick up all the fruit! Arato is relieved to see this! Ryo, however, is mad that Arato is relieved! Why? ‘Cause hIEs aren’t human arrgggh. This is so stupid.

— Ryo: “The hIEs assigned to human roles are driven by desire and pain, just like in the real world.” Um, I think we’re a little more complicated than that.

— Oh hey, Mikoto “survived” after all. Thank god for the behavior management cloud! If there is ever a cloud for human personalities, I suppose one could argue that immortality has been achieved. But then others would argue that the “you” on the cloud is nothing more than a copy. Soon enough, we’ll find ourselves slipping into the metaphysical rabbit hole. We’ll emerged 12 hours later with absolutely no conclusion in hand other than the painful realization that the study of metaphysics is absolutely pointless. As a former philosophy major, I’m just kidding… kinda.

— Arato warns Ryo not to step on an apple, which pisses the latter off even more. Argh, they’re not humans, so we can just treat them like shit! This is so insanely stupid.

— Your girl is just using you, man!

— Ah, you took the forbidden fruit! It’s what the evil, manipulative hIE wanted you to do! Preach, Brother Ryo!

— Look at Arato immediately switch teams just because his buddy got a little mad at him. Way to stand your ground and believe in your convictions. If he’s being manipulated, it’s not because Lacia is manipulative. It’s because he’s just easily manipulable.

— Kozo can’t quite see Arato right away, because there’s a major experiment coming up: they’re going to simulate a terrorist attack. Oooh. They’re going to see if their human-imitating hIEs will panic or work together. They’ll probably panic if they’re copying humans correctly.

— The server room looks so evil and ominous.

— Arato and his gang retire to his father’s apartment to find the place completely strewn with dirty clothes and trash. You’d think a guy experimenting on hIEs every day would actually have one to help him out at home. Then again, do you think Mark Zuckerberg really uses his own product? Anyways, Yuka even brings up the fact that they’ve never owned hIEs until Arato acquired Lacia.

— Suddenly, the lights go out. Arato’s dad returns home at the same time, but he says that this happens often. After all, hIEs use up a lot of power. Elsewhere, we see Snowdrop doing… something to the power grid.

— Kozo doesn’t scold his son at all. Much to Yuka’s chagrin, her old man’s just like, “Yo, I trust you.”

— He also tells the kids that they’re maintaining a low ratio of hIEs to humans in their experiment. If you increase the number, this will tick off the anti-hIE faction, i.e. Kengo and his boys.

— Arato’s dad: “It’s human nature to outsource our work.” I don’t know about that. What would we do with our free time, then? We’d feel listless and despondent. I suppose you could argue that whatever humanity ends up doing with their free time becomes their actual work, but then they can’t go and outsource that as well.

— He goes on to basically say that hIEs are nothing more than simply tools, which of course gets his son’s ire. So what does Arato truly believe? On the one hand, hIEs aren’t just tools to him. On the other hand, he got mad at Yuka for thinking that the old woman hIE from earlier had resembled a human. Dude, make up your fucking mind.

— Elsewhere, we see Ryo on the phone with someone who wants Lacia. Ryo will assist them only if they can assure the safety of Arato and his family. I can only imagine that Ryo is talking to Ginga. Either way… Ryo is not being much of a bro.

— The next morning, Arato goes on a walk alone, and he finds himself being entranced by a schoolgirl hIE’s bouncing breasts. Anime’s gotta anime.

— All of a sudden, an hIE falls from a great height and dies in front of Arato. This triggers all sorts of questions about the limits of their behavior. That’s when Arato bumps into Ginga, who proceeds to just stand there and spew exposition at us. This is such lazy storytelling. Let’s just filter out the important stuff. First, there’s nothing on the behavior management cloud that would tell hIEs to commit suicide. Second, Kozo was responsible for allowing Higgins, the super advanced AI, to create something on its own. Lastly, hIEs aren’t individuals in Ginga’s eyes. They’re just an interface between us and the cloud. He adds something about how the network doesn’t really understand any of the data it sees, but that doesn’t matter. With enough data, emergent behavior arises.

— All of a sudden, hIEs start committing suicide all over the place. Ginga then reveals himself to be Methode’s owner. An explosion goes off in his father’s apartment complex, and Lacia immediately calls Arato up to tell him that his sister has been kidnapped by Methode. When Arato turns to glare at Ginga, the man has already disappeared from sight. What? Does he have super speed now? The call was literally less than five seconds.

— All across the city, hIEs are behaving like zombies. The show wants us take it seriously, but this is how the episode ends.

— Also, this is apparently the tenth episode. Amazon, however, has it listed as the twelfth. Great!