When we last left off, an android who is a dead ringer for Towa comes to Akira’s rescue. She even wants to marry him. She’s not Towa, though. She’s Yugure. And although she might be able to shed some light on so many mysteries, according to her, it’s all classified. Why does she look like Towa? Why does she have the exact ring that Akira gave Towa over 200 years ago? What happened to Towa? Why does she want to marry him? Hell, what happened to this world? All reasonable questions to ask, but Yugure stays completely mum. Perhaps she’ll answer those questions after he marries her, but for our protagonist, his previous life still feels like it was just yesterday. He can’t just erase his feelings for Towa in so short of a time. He needs time to cope with her loss. Well, he doesn’t exactly get that luxury.

Akira gets his smartwatch back from Idhi, and it somehow still works. With it, he is able to check his inbox — a service that, again, somehow still works — and find one last voiced message from Towa. As it plays, he hears her express her deep regret for her actions, but of course she has to be annoyingly vague about what she’s done. She then ends the letter of sorts by warning Akira not to come find her. Seems familiar, doesn’t it? Yet another woman telling Akira to do something (or not do something), but fails to provide a compelling reason. Naturally, Akira is going to go do exactly what she’s told him not. He logically reasons that she must be dead. After all, it’s been over 200 years since the message was sent. But he still has to go, because at the very least, he needs that closure. But wait, we have a protagonist who receives a letter from his dead lover, which motivates him to return to their hometown. He also meets a temptress who looks exactly like her. Is this… is this Silent Hill 2?

Between Akira and Yugure, we’ve got this tension between idealism vs pragmatism. Obviously, Akira is the idealist of the two. He constantly wants to help and forgive others. In a way, he’s a time traveler from the past. He brings with him not just the morals of the 21st century, but its sentimentality as well. He hasn’t lived in this post-apocalyptic world where people are under the yolk of oppression and may have to do terrible things in order to survive. Unfortunately, idealism also goes hand-in-hand with naiveté, and Akira has plenty of the latter to go around. In fact, it’s almost infuriating how simple-minded he is.

When he has the opportunity to punish the snitch from last week’s episode, he forgives the man instead. That’s fine. Having mercy isn’t a bad thing. It’s his reasoning, however, that pisses me off: “You did what you thought was right.” Bro, our history is full of wrongdoings committed by the so-called righteous. Villains always think they’re right. How many people actually admit that they’re wrong but keep doing what they’re doing anyway? At the same time, however, you can’t reject Akira’s worldview completely. After all, there’s slavery in this post-apocalyptic Japan, and he’s the only one (that we know of) who’s bothered by it. I just wish he would, y’know, stand by his convictions. When the man doth protest, Yugure counters, “Except OWEL provides them with basic necessities such as food, clothing, and shelter so they aren’t at risk of death.” This is obviously not a good argument, and I don’t think I need to painstakingly explain why. But Akira backs down immediately: “I mean… I guess you’re right, but…” There’s no “I guess you’re right” about slavery, bro. I mean, is physical abuse part of those “basic necessities?”

Mentally, Akira isn’t really that mature. He was still a teenager when he got placed in that medical capsule, right? So in my eyes, he’s still a kid. Hell, even people in their early 20s are basically kids to me. Akira has a lot of growing up to do, and I understand giving him a pass every now and then for being naive. At the same time, however, he needs to do a better job at standing his ground in a world where morals and ethics have clearly been compromised. The first step is to stop cowing to flimsy arguments like Yugure’s moral relativism: “A society’s values and what’s considered ‘right’ changes over time.” Nah. Just nah. Values like how much you should obey your parents can certainly change over time. But values like “Hey, it’s peachy to own slaves!” does not. Society might find it acceptable in the distant future as it did in the distant past (and sadly, we do have forms of slavery now), and yet society would still be wrong.

So where do we go from here? Well, again, Akira is looking for Towa or any signs of her, and to do so, he has to travel to Tokyo. Since Yugure has a keen interest in marrying him, she’ll tag along for now. Already, they’ve met several new faces. For example, we have two androids hunting for Yugure. Seems like our friendly android defected from OWEL, but don’t expect her to tell you why or anything about her history. Anyways, like her, the other androids also resmeble Towa. Then we meet the flamboyant Marlum, who looks very much like the now deceased Caniss. What’s going on here? He claims that they’re cousins, but is it really that simple? Could he and his dead cousins also be androids? Eh, probably not. Caniss would’ve put up a better fight if he had been one. But it’s still weird how there are so many doppelgangers in this alternate future.

Moving along, we also meet Amoru, a slave girl who aspires to become a storybook author like her parents. Unfortunately, that sort of thing is contraband for whatever reason. This thus motivates her to betray our duo in a misguided attempt to get her parents’ banned books back. Karmic retribution has her watch as the over-the-top Marlum burns the last book in her possession. Obviously, he was never going to honor their deal, and she’s naive (again, this is a running theme in this narrative) to have believed him in the first place. How the book catches fire in the rain, I don’t know. Needless to say, Akira will go against Yugure’s practical advice and attempt to rescue Amoru from a bunch of armed soldiers. Bro, you don’t even have a weapon. What exactly is your plan? Again, I want to root for this kid and his ideals, but he’s so dumb about it. I guess his only genius is being able to understand Towa’s papers.

But there’s an interesting moment right before the episode ends: when Yugure again says she’ll help him if he marries her, he replies, “You’re an android, all right.” She’s sticking to her operating principles, and Akira is turned off by her lack of morals and compassion. A life like Amoru doesn’t mean anything to Yugure unless she can get something out of it, and that is pretty gross. More importantly, however, the insult somehow cuts Yugure to the core. What do we make of this reaction? Has she been yearning to be human all this time, so the rejection cuts deep? Is part of her Pinnochio-esque “I’m a real girl” journey with Akira going to involve learning to value life for its own sake? Well, it’s a bit trite, but if they can pull off the execution, I guess we can overlook that.

By the way, why did Towa insist on creating sexbots? Kinda fishy… Plus, Amoru is probably destined to join the duo as the lil’ sister archetype that Idhi was too young (and too “unorphaned”) to pull off, so I don’t know how I feel about her being so scantily dressed.