I Don’t Like Vivy

Vivy ~Flourite Eye’s Song~ was a lot of things to other people. To some, it was this ground breaking piece of science fiction work for some reason. What reason? I don’t know, I just keep asking myself whether or not these people have seen any science fiction stories at all before? To others, it was just a good science fiction story that explored some interesting things. Well, there were some interesting ideas there. To me, I saw some reasons that people could enjoy it but it wasn’t good. It felt like all flash and no substance. While Moriarty was a bigger disappointment, it hurts me more when a show from a genre I love turns out to suck. For all the fantastic concepts and set up behind it, the writing behind Vivy did nothing with the potential that it had at all to me. I felt left out in the cold.

Vivy is a show about a Robot with Artificial Intelligence named Vivy going on a 100-year journey to stop AI from obliterating humanity. Vivy is meant for singing, because her official name is Diva, and she wants to sing to people on the main stage, but somehow gets roped into saving humanity itself by changing the important points in on the time line into a different conclusion where AI and Humanity can live together as ordered by the AI from the future, Matsumoto. Also, there is a tower that grows over the course of the season that is pointed out as the time limit for the show, but it’s completely ignored for 100 years as it becomes the big villain for the conclusion of the show. Surprise, surprise. So, lots of cool concepts and time lines to think about. AI Rights, classic science fiction human vs AI with an AI fighting for humanity, and singing. Combining all of these is interesting.

So, what are some good points behind Vivy? The feelings sometimes? It looks nice? The production behind Vivy was more then solid. The character designs were incredible. Vivy’s design is great and her wearing different clothing and costumes every episode is wonderful by design. Same thing for all the different waifus Vivy has met on her journey. Oh, Matsumoto and general humans look great as well. The settings Vivy is placed in on her missions on every time line are extensive, very interesting to consider, and very beautiful to look at. One could be lost looking at them for hours. The animation is fantastic. Not just hand to hand fighting, but science fiction action with ships flying over the place and such. I have no down sides towards the visuals at all. Or the time concept. It’s just the execution that makes me mad.

I really with Vivy was more creatively written then it was. I saw some talk on how the first half was better then the second, but the first half wasn’t everything artistic or fancy either. For instance, each arc came in two episode sets like Darker Then Black, but each arc was almost the same one. Vivy goes on a mission, saves that one TOAK, the terrorist agency against AI, agent all the time, and somehow change the event that happened. That does go somewhere eventually, but it’s such a boring thing considering everything that is going on. I also think that everything is so hyper focused because there is only two episodes for an entire timeline that you can barely tell if anything has changed at all. The world building is kind of questionable to me because of that. One moment was supposed to lead to change in a time line, but since we didn’t get a feel for what the whole timeline besides the end, it all feels flat.

Second, Vivy doesn’t understand AI or technology at all. To me, humanity has already reached the singularity or something. Vivy always has felt like a human being in the beginning of this show and never a robot or AI. Why? AI don’t usually doubt themselves, have confidence in themselves, or have any ambitions. Artificial Intelligence need to learn how to think and feel before accomplishing anything. It’s obvious that humanities technology has gone to the point where robots can think for themselves, so the obvious nature of why humanity is making movements for and against AI rights. After all that, what value does that one AI have for questioning another AI about why the have a personality? Besides some obvious things, nothing about this is well thought out. Also, why are their brilliant people who make all of these AI forgetting they can copy a robot’s artificial intelligence on a computer, considering that they are 1’s and 0’s, and not suffer any losses? It took until the finale for that to happen so its obvious that the writer of this show doesn’t get that fact. If this happened, wouldn’t it have been nice for the guy who married an AI to remember this considering that he was supposed to be a brilliant scientist? What a dumb ass.

Third, all those arcs meant nothing. Maybe the futility of the end of the world happening regardless was supposed to be something meaningful and powerful at some point, but the very fact that the tower for the AI was pointed out as being an opposing force and how it growing in height was bad for the entire show puts that in a bad spot. The writer obviously forgot or was trying to be clever when it wasn’t possible for them to be clever if the viewer remembered this. Especially since for one hundred years of time, that tower was ignored. The tower and solution were there for all of that time and no one did anything and it’s just…why did you bother? Do you not believe in surprises at all or do you think the audience is stupid enough to not remember any of that? For sci fi, a genre that is usually about details that matter even in the lighter version of it, that’s awful. I hate this and it ruined all the goodwill that I had for the show.

Lastly, I really time travel shows are things that I have a massive struggle in liking. They feel like an ambitious thing or an open canvas to so many things because its possible to do literally everything with time travel. Some are minimal time travel with people from the future showing up to stop something and that’s it. Those are my most preferred time travel thing. Others are so convoluted and messy like Doctor Who, which basically use time travel as a means to solve everything and anything, considering the nature of the show. If you need an anime example, Noein is where three versions of a character in one spot. It’s incredible. I suppose Doctor Who did that, but its nowhere near as cool. It’s really annoying how Vivy has the first one, which I like, and could have the characters go back in time to just solve the tower itself after they discovered what truly happened. I still think that no one can think in this show at all. Or at least clearly or something.

So yeah, there just isn’t a lot of thinking besides big picture for Vivy ~Flourite Eye’s Song~. It’s very good conceptually with no thinking about how to go beyond anything besides concepts happening trying to get the maximum emotional impact out of the viewr. There also isn’t enough time for the show to flesh out what it wanted to. I think Vivy would be better as a video game then an anime series. If you enjoyed this series, then I am happy for you. It’s pretty obvious that it didn’t work for me. I didn’t want to say you can’t enjoy something that I don’t because that’s wrong. I just don’t see how this show is well like regarded because it really is one of the basic sorts of AI stories I’ve ever seen with barely any innovative execution towards them. Sometimes, being a fan of a certain genre of a show can hurt after you’ve seen or read tons of it and want to see something great.