Vivy: Fluorite eye's song

A reverse terminator tale wrapped in musical garb about how singing makes even an alloy heart ring. The confusing, idol-show-esque poster belies a multi-arc space-time travel adventure with many good ideas behind it, albeit philosophical (challenge Asimov, human-robot relations, sentience), the subtle incorporation of an excellent OST into the plot, and the way the main duo meet, all backed up by great action when given the welcome opportunity. The first half is excellent, and I enjoyed the trips to the android ethical controversy madly. Even though we always stayed briefly, I never left the two-episode run without being lost in thought and gaping at the admittedly anticipated yet still epically served closers. Episode 4 was a heavenly anime symphony for me ("Ensemble for Polaris" is a beautiful song) that reached for the best of several different genres. The story even found time for a minor gag via Fukuyama's snarky but relatively unpredictable Matsumoto, Vivy's flip-flopping from initial naivety upwards to new semi-resets, and I thought nothing could go wrong. Unfortunately, the creative ideas dry up quickly in the 2nd half, and the work never even comes close to the previous bar of quality, set brutally high. It starts lacking basic answers, traveling through all the variables a lot worse than Steins;Gate, the role of the rival fizzles out like gauze in water, and it soon becomes apparent that the material, ironically, needed a lot more time to render satisfactorily. Where did all that thoughtful filler go? Why is the ending so flat, unoriginal, rushed, and stupidly (un)explained? We'll never know, and even that lovely singing and precise art don't make for a sufficient band-aid on this wound. As usual, the form from WIT STUDIO is first class: I'm not so much praising them for the static visuals with partial but solid use of CGI, but for the impeccable animation work, the OP, the music, and most importantly the amazing sound. Oh, yes! The sci-fi setting with the awesome soundtrack sets a new dimension of enjoyment for me and I have nothing to complain about in this area. Overall, it's rather disappointing that Vivy didn't strive for the highest standards; even so, this is an innovative, original, skillfully assembled and surprisingly powerful work in places. 4 stars (19.06.2021)

An artfully directed episode. The impossible-to-understand opening scene left me floundering (while in retrospect it's a pleasant philosophical lift to the reverse-terminator), but the gradual escalating flow through the sci-fi genre to the action finale was excellent; sort of a Nolan demo version. The exasperated android who would like to make calculators out of others had a pleasantly electrified voice, and I was almost inclined toward a perfect score by the fantastic and emotional audiovisual conclusion. The song "Ensemble for Polaris" was beautiful. Edit: And you know what, I'm giving it the 5 stars. An exemplary anime episode. (19.04.2021)

The final scenes reminded me of Trigger's best-offs (inspiration?) – if you can't do it anymore, step up, fuel up with a brutal injection of optimism, immortality, and let's go! (07.05.2021)

This arc didn't excite me enough to sing songs and odes like the 2 leads. The first time the robot AI problem didn't make sense to me and I didn't understand the solution, or what it was preventing in the first place. Compared to previous arcs, it was impersonal and Matsumoto's mission wasn't clear at all; instead it was abnormally confusing. A very tight 4 stars for an awesome fight scene. (23.05.2021)