Vivy: Choosing Humanity - an analysis of one of Vivy's most important themes; humanity and free will.

There are several arcs in Vivy’s story, but the question at the core of Vivy’s journey is “what does it mean to pour your heart into something”. She struggles and asks several AIs this question over the course of 100 years, but the answer turns out to be incredibly simple, which only makes it more poignant. This will be one of two overarching essays I have planned for Vivy: Fluorite Eye’s Song, which will be followed by a breakdown of each individual episode. Spoilers for the entirety of the anime will follow. This script is for a video thatcan be found HERE. A Japanese version of this script can be found HERE.

Episodes 1 + 2

Episode 1

When talking to Momoka in Episode 1, Vivy says she is trying to mimic human idols in her performances to garner applause and even that she is trying to act more like humans in general to understand how to sing like them as well. However, when Momoka tells her she already has a kind heart, she dismisses the compliment and fails to reciprocate Momoka’s hongi that she offered out of affection instead of to share data. It’s like she didn’t even realise that hongis can be shared for emotions too, and doesn’t realise it until Episode 4. Of course, it doesn’t help that Navi laughs at the thought of an AI having a heart as well, but it just serves to show how Vivy’s environment only enforces her lack of self-esteem. Seeing her mechanical eyes as she starts walking towards the crying child is a clever way of showing this confusion inside her: she wants to help the boy, but she and everyone else still see her as an AI!

However, I believe the flow of firing neurons when Matsumoto arrives indicates the start of Vivy’s journey to become human, and the firing neurons and wide eyes as she saves Aikawa from the bomb represents her taking her very first step along that journey after first denying it in favour of clinging to her mission she was programmed to follow.

Episode 1 + 2

At this point, Vivy does everything according to her inbuilt functions, even refusing herself the ability to emote unless she’s playing the role of NiaLand’s singer: the best example of this is when Aikawa asks if she’s okay after she saves him from the bomb blast; she misinterprets it as him asking about her as an employee, but when he clarifies that he’s asking about her personal health, she stops smiling. She’s also so literal-minded that she asks the Archive to remove Matsumoto when he first arrives, using his words against him even though he joked about how useless it would be to do exactly that. In fact, it’s not until the end of Episode 2 that she even allows herself to feel angry. She snaps at Matsumoto in Episode 1 when he taunts her for being unable to attract an audience, and we even see her take heavier steps than before (because of her anger) without even realising it, but it’s only when he mocks her mission that she allows herself to properly express her anger for the first time. It’s this moment that allows her to slowly display emotions in the future too, beginning with her using a softer tone to encourage Aikawa to stand and smiling properly when saying goodbye, a far cry from how they parted ways at NiaLand before.

In fact, Vivy’s “irrational” solution to saving Aikawa is another example of her making a conscious effort to be more like a human instead of just copying them without understanding what it is she’s doing, something Matsumoto even criticizes her for on their way back to NiaLand. However, the next time she performs some “personal calculations”, it’s in an attempt to save Momoka’s life, which Matsumoto stops her from doing while telling her she’s not allowed to act out of line in such a way. In other words, right when she begins to express herself, she has a catastrophic example of why she shouldn’t thrown at her, causing her to regress immediately.

Episodes 3 + 4

Episode 3

In Episode 3 she starts asking others what the heart is, and the first answer she gets is actually the correct one. The scientist, Keita, tells her that the heart is up to personal interpretation because it’s an abstract concept, but when he asks Vivy for her own answer, she still lacks the self-confidence to give it to him and decides to ask other AIs instead, hoping someone facing the issue from her own perspective will be able to give her a better answer. However, she receives the worst possible answer from Navi immediately afterwards, leaving her floundering. While her experiences expressing herself while saving Aikawa have helped her gather a larger audience than when we first saw her, she still acts incredibly robotic until meeting Estella, who teaches her to smile.

It’s possible Matsumoto’s joke that Vivy should smile even she isn’t interacting with guests helps her here too, but the other key moment is when she asks Estella what her heart is. Estella gives her a good answer, one Vivy even considers beautiful, but Vivy makes the mistake of trying to apply Estella’s exact definition to herself. Her expression speaks volumes about how she feels about it being incompatible with her and having to reject it; her AI eyes show that she’s still thinking like one too.

She is making some progress on her own though, as she no longer mimics idols while performing, instead doing what comes naturally to her. She sings heartfelt songs, but still lacks the self-confidence to believe so, despite her rising popularity and reviews saying she does exactly that. She also gets annoyed when Leclerc laughs at her and becomes fond of Estella as soon as they meet, simply because they are sisters, another human action. And while she can’t accept Estella’s heart for herself, she can tell Estella is singing with her heart to calm everyone down at the end, and chooses to believe she is innocent of both the death of her owner and the crash because of her earnestness. Matsumoto scolds her repeatedly for defending her so much.

Episode 4

But she still chooses to defy her objectives by choosing to be sentimental about Estella and wanting to prove her innocence despite all the damning evidence to the contrary. She gets even more opportunities to act for herself when she chooses to protect Yuzuka instead of following Matsumoto’s orders to meet him when things go wrong, and where she refused to accept the combat program at first out of fear of it affecting her singing ability, she herself requests it to protect Yuzuka – so not only is she willing to act against the Singularity Project, she’s willing to risk her original mission too! Remember that an AI’s mission is considered their soul: Vivy risking hers just to protect Yuzuka and redeem her failure to save Momoka is a huge act of “humanity”!

How she treats Yuzuka shows how far she’s come too. Her face is determined as she says she wants to send Yuzuka home, as she remembers Momoka: she still feels guilty about her death! She remembers Momoka pressing her forehead before offering a hongi, so gives one to Yuzuka. As I said before, this time she realises that it can be done to share emotions too, and she does this in Episode 13 as well. But before treating her like an AI, Vivy comforts her with a hug as a human would. She does it to make Yuzuka feel better, but it shows that she’s already thinking like a human! She also places an arm around her as they return to Earth on the shuttle. In other words, she sees herself as a person older than her, which may be part of the reason she fought for Yuzuka too. She asserts her independence in this way, instead of continuing to act like an AI or servant, something we see Grace fail to do in the flashback at the start of Episode 6!

And as a funny aside, Vivy tells Matsumoto in an annoyed voice to "Hurry up" when he calls her his sidekick, but she says it so quickly it's as if she doesn't realise she's annoyed, in the same way that she doesn't realise she's showing other emotions as well. Compare this to a similar moment in Episode 10 for example, when she tells him to "be quiet", but is much more aware of herself.

And this time all of her acts of humanity are rewarded and she is able to prevent the Sun-Crash Incident far better than if she’d remained a slave to raw logic and Matsumoto’s instructions. After all, Estella wouldn’t have been able to separate the Sunrise if Vivy had let Matsumoto kill her in her office!

At the very end of the story, when the twins die, Vivy says "she thinks she is jealous". She is jealous that Estella was able to operate with all of her heart, and that she died doing so. This is desirable for an AI, but I believe this ambiguity in her statement, as well as her jealousy itself, make her more human as well. And of course, she in turn dies serving her mission as well. In a way, her jealousy paid off in the end, and she died her ideal death.

Episodes 5 + 6

Episode 5

The Metal Float arc is when Vivy makes the greatest strides towards becoming her own person, but it’s also when she suffers the greatest setback. She is able to relate on a personal level with Saeki and wants him to be happy because of how much he values AIs. This is quite telling because of how much Vivy fights against her own kind; it’s a sign that deep down she wishes the best for AI-kind and feels sorry for what she’s had to do against them. She’s also amazed by his relationship with Grace and expresses concern over potentially having to split them up.

At the start of the episode, she even takes back what she said about not wanting to take part in the Project again because she is starting to realise the Project is making her a better singer and so she can honour Elizabeth and Estella. It takes her until Episode 12 to understand the former, but the latter is another sign that she’s willing to let herself feel for other people, and more importantly act on those feelings. Not only that, she researches the advancement of AI rights on her own, showing that she is becoming more proactive. She also risks calling M’s sculpture cute! She isn’t sure if she’s correct or not, but it shows that she’s willing to at least try and act more human if she needs to. But Vivy also apologizes to M for asking about the heart as well, admitting that it isn't important, just as she did in the past and just as she will in the future.

This is the first time we see Vivy's ending movie as well, and I think it depicts her perfectly. She's in a tropical paradise where everyone else is happy, but she remains neutral throughout as if she doesn't know how to act. And as the scenes continue, we see dominos continue to count down to her own end too, even turning blood red as it concludes. How tragic!

Episode 6

It’s a small thing in the greater scope of things, but I think Vivy’s conversation with Kakitani is worth mentioning too. Not only does Vivy demonstrate her humanity so succinctly by hoping Kakitani survives, she also defends Elizabeth from his insults. She does the former by claiming it’s for her mission. While I believe her, I also believe she truly wants to keep as many people alive as possible simply because she wants to. I think her defending Beth is important too: she had no reason to do so, considering she was talking to the leader of Toak, but I think it shows that she truly does respect her and wants the best for her kind and for there to be understanding between humans and AIs. Both of these are things she is too afraid to say again until Episode 13, so it speaks to how Vivy is slowly starting to assert herself as her own person since the end of the Sunrise arc.

But the biggest milestone comes when Vivy makes the conscious decision to destroy Grace. Until then she has been reacting to events around her, and hesitant to kill any AI. But after Matsumoto forces her to confront the futility of saving Grace, she walks away to do that without a word. She, who only fought to defend herself or those around her, also shows no hesitation in killing K5 with a single blow either, then declares herself to be Vivy.

In other words, at this moment Vivy rejects the nickname she was given by her co-workers at NiaLand and chooses a name of her own. Not only that, she takes on an entirely new identity as someone who will see the Singularity Project to completion over her original purpose of singing. It is an amazing moment of self-realization for her and such a large step towards becoming her own purpose that it stuns Saeki in choosing violence to stop her and Matsumoto, who until now has been dismissive of her, to respect her and also start calling her Vivy. This is also when he begins caring for her, as Diva forces him to admit in Episode 8.

But this time her act of independence is punished again, as Saeki kills himself out of grief after she kills Grace. Despite her progress towards humanity, that a human died as a direct consequence of her actions clashes with her AI programming and she crashes. This time she is set back even further than when she witnessed Momoka’s death in Episode 2, with her personality taking shelter within her Archive as a new personality – Diva – emerges to take her place. (She eventually realizes she treasures all of her memories, but she lost them all so she could be more human as she hoped she could be!)

Speaking of Momoka though, despite the determination Vivy showed in stopping Grace, we see here that her death, as well as Estella and Beth’s, still weighs heavily on her and that she still blames herself for what happened to them. But she had no hope of saving them; surely such irrationality is another sign of her humanity? This won’t be the last we see of irrational thoughts weighing her down where others operate by pure logic either, but again: it shows how human she is, even if she herself can’t see it yet! And in Vivy's final words to Saeki, we see that she values his love for Grace. This is another thing that makes her human, especially compared to Matsumoto, who joked that love was illogical for AIs instead.

(And as an aside, Vivy’s memories also show us that despite saying she’s willing to kill AIs, she values them as audience members just as she would humans, 40 years before Matsumoto suggests Ophelia does the same thing.)

Episodes 7, 8 + 9

Discussing this arc is different to talking about Vivy in the rest, because she is absent for almost all of it. In fact, this arc provides a truly fascinating perspective on the story I plan to discuss in other video essay. There are still some points of interest relating to Vivy’s growth though.

Episodes 7, 8 + 9

As we see in Episode 9, Vivy has retreated into the Archive after being broken by Saeki’s death. She refuses to talk to Diva when she calls out for her too, only looking up when Diva admits she’s only singing with all of her heart for the first time now. This shows again just how lowly she thinks of herself, but also that she’s torn about her inability to sing with her heart, which leads to her retiring in Episode 10. I think she has already come to see Diva as perfect and everything she could never be, so hearing even Diva was flawed caught her attention.

But Diva says she’s only able to sing at her best because she now knows about her past, which is a subtle hint that their shared memories will be what give Vivy her strength to sing as well. I wrote an analysis of Diva’s song in another video, but its lyrics are also about valuing your experiences and the world around you, which is another hint that Vivy is unable to understand. Diva passes away after giving Vivy a motivational speech, but Vivy still doesn’t understand what she was trying to say, even hesitating to step outside until she feels obligated to to avoid problems in the real world.

And of course, she can’t understand what Diva’s heart was – or perhaps she just doesn’t trust herself to understand, which is a theme that appears later as well. And yet she stands on her biggest stage yet, seeing people cry with joy and thanking her instead of Diva: no wonder she buckles under the pressure and refuses to sing for herself afterwards! It’s even more painful because right before this abstract definition of a heart, she received the simplest answer from Ophelia, who simply loves singing. Ophelia even tells her that all of her memories, even the small ones, are precious to her; a perspective Vivy also comes to share at the very end of her journey. Indeed, Diva even comments in Episode 8 that Vivy’s problem itself is incredibly simple too! But again, I believe Vivy would be too lacking in esteem to accept even that as an answer for herself. Unlike Antonio however, I believe she would at least respect it as Ophelia's answer.

And yet, we are shown what a “true AI” would do in Kakitani, who takes his philosophy that an AI should only do one thing and nothing more to the extreme and becomes insane as a result, a far cry from both Vivy and Diva who are able to look at the greater picture and do things simply because they’re the right thing to do. I’ll discuss this more in my second video essay, but as I’ve said several times already during this one: Vivy is human and does have a heart. She just can’t bring herself to admit she has one, or that she’s worthy of any amount of praise or respect.

Episodes 10 + 11

Episode 10

Episode 10 features Vivy at her most passive yet. Before she was willing to prioritize the Singularity Project over her singing, but now she has given up her singing altogether, even though it means being stuck in a museum for the rest of her life. As with all of Vivy’s other problems, the cause is simple: she’s intimidated. She’s seen what it truly means to “sing with your heart” by listening to Diva’s song and how beautiful and “beyond perfect” it is, as Diva said herself and by seeing how happy her audience was after she died as well. Diva fulfilled her mission to “make everyone smile by singing” far better than Vivy ever could, and faced with living up to the talent of the perfect songstress, someone who could truly act human as Vivy always wanted to, Vivy gives up and reverts to the same kind of AI she was in Episode 1, only following orders – only she can’t forget everything she’s seen and done since then and is stuck wallowing in her own lack of self worth. It speaks volumes that she’s so desperate to take part in the Project again instead of trying to sing, or even continue life as a museum exhibit, even going so far as to plead with Matsumoto to give her something to do. In Episode 4, Vivy felt jealous of Estella for dying an ideal death for an AI. Diva died an ideal death as well, as she disappeared while singing her best song on her biggest stage, which could be yet another reason she feels so inadequate compared to her.

It’s a marked change on Matsumoto’s part to try and help, but the problem is that he still can’t bring himself to be honest with her, instead trying to nudge her towards finding an answer for herself, but it’s fitting that he’s still able to convince her to take that first step. It doesn’t change the fact that Vivy needs someone to be her emotional support though, and without someone like that she suffers and goes around in circles without accomplishing anything for 20 years.

But during those 20 years, we see that she is functioning just as a human would, even though she can’t see it, through how she treats Osamu. She is incredibly kind to him, and even takes the initiative and echoes Matsumoto’s offer of a race to help him find friends. She’s even aware that he must be lonely to have stood alone during the school trip and to have come back alone to see her and badmouth them. Not only that, she’s genuinely happy to see him find friends and engages with him as he grows up, even through her private suffering. She wants to be human, not realizing she already is one!

Given Osamu is Matsumoto’s creator, it’s fitting that Osamu inspires Vivy to take her second step towards finding her heart, by instigating the accident that inspires her to write her own song. He’s also the one to help her finish her song, by introducing her Luna and telling her that the dead live on in those living, to explain why Nana was able to remain so happy even until her death (we saw Vivy being surprised by this when seeing a picture of Nana in the hospital earlier). He talks about humans, but Vivy thinks of Diva. She chooses to believe for herself that dead AI can also live on in those who remember. She also receives the same affection from Luna as a human would too, and for the first time since Episode 1 we see neurons firing. Neurons are a biological concept, and I believe this signifies that by making the decision to mourn Diva in a human way, she has finally crossed the gap to becoming human herself. It’s no coincidence that she’s able to write Fluorite Eye’s Song in one go after doing so, something that should have been impossible for an AI – and indeed impossible for herself for the past two decades. It was even confirmed by the writers that part of Vivy’s motivation was her sudden maternal feelings towards Luna, which is another first for AIs as they cannot have children of their own.

When she re-enters the Archive, she produces all of her memories, of both Diva and everyone else she has met and lost. Even though she’s still literal-minded enough that she only consciously believes Diva is with her, I believe this means she subconsciously mourns all of the people she’s encountered during her journey. She still feels intimidated by Diva in later episodes, but I also believe she is able to start processing her grief here, at least a little. By surrounding herself with memories though, she’s also already aware on a subconscious level that they are important to her. They help her write her song, after all! But even though she found her heart, she doesn’t realize it. Even after writing her song, she finds she is unable to sing it and gives up. She struggled for 25 years, achieved the impossible and – just as Matsumoto warned when she started – it proved fruitless; it’s more than understandable that she’d fall into a deep hibernation. But as I said: she became human in that moment and found her heart, but she just can’t bring herself to take credit for her accomplishments, or even think she’s worthy of praise! She reverts to a mere AI as she thinks she deserves to be, despite crossing the line she spent 85 years trying to pass.

While Matsumoto speaks kindly to her once she falls asleep, he’s still too uncomfortable with his feelings to give her the praise she needs to hear in this moment. He won’t be able to for another 15 years. And when that time comes, Vivy wakes up thinking her trying to be human and write a song is why the AIs started killing everyone. It’s the ultimate punishment for her 20 years of hard work!

Episode 11

This lack of self-worth follows Vivy into Episode 11 and beyond. She completely flounders in the face of the berserk AIs and can’t even talk to Matsumoto properly, but she still shows the kind heart Momoka said she had in Episode 1 when she saves Osamu. She struggles with telling him that she knew about him all along, and when he falls down and begs for forgiveness, she instead tells him she doesn’t need it and is just happy to see he’s well, even letting him cry until he’s able to move again. She gives him an encouraging smile throughout it all and shows tact, both things she was unable to do in the past. Despite rejecting the Project at first, she insists on taking part in it again, claiming she wants to continue protecting her audience. In a way it’s sad that she still says she’s acting for her audience and her mission, but having an abstract dream to fight for is human, isn’t it? Much like the heart she believes she still doesn’t have at this point.

But while she’s able to continue fighting, outside of battle her personal issues are still affecting her. Compared to how she carried herself in Episode 6, she is much more meek. She is unable to defend herself when Toak accuses her of starting the AI attack, and she doesn’t correct anyone when they call her Diva. She also struggles to talk to Elizabeth. When Beth asks if she served Kakitani well, instead of sharing her own thoughts, Vivy can only remember what Kakitani himself said and has to come up with an excuse to not have to tell her that she remembered Kakitani hating her. She fares a little better when Elizabeth asks her a simpler question about her fighting prowess, but rather than complimenting her own fighting ability, she tells Beth that she was a strong fighter instead. All of this shows that she is still struggling under Diva’s shadow and is unable to assert herself as a result.

Episodes 12 + 13

Episode 12

Things come to a head in Episode 12, where Vivy is left at her lowest possible point, despite physically being at the literal top of the world, on the level of the planet’s lower satellites. Faced with the prospect of being forced to sing, she tries asking an AI what it means to “pour your heart into something” again, but she makes the mistake of asking Elizabeth, who is her near-opposite in terms of personality. Beth gives her the worst response yet, tied with Navi’s in Episode 3: that she doesn’t care, because it’s not important. Vivy is forced to accept that it isn’t from a rational standpoint, but it’s also the worst possible thing she could have heard in that moment. She was already so scared to sing that she didn’t object to Toak’s plan to attack the Arayashiki, even once they were on the tower’s shores. Unable to sing and without anyone to support her, she is unable to sing even when she has a perfect opportunity to do so and thus has to watch as the world is destroyed around her. She feels all of those deaths on her shoulders, on top of the deaths of Yui, Beth and Toak. Even after the Archive itself called her the closest an AI has come to being human, she’s unable to cross that gap. This time she is punished for not being human, after suffering for trying to be human before. Even when she tries to sing, the sound gets caught in her throat just as it would for a human! She can't sing because Diva has scarred her so deeply. Fears like those are incredibly human too!

It's also sad that on top of no one taking Vivy's worries seriously, no one gave Vivy a chance to be honest with her own feelings. Vivy lets Estella be sentimental in Episode 3 for example, by telling her her words are beautiful when she says it's silly for AIs to discuss the heart, but no one ever does that for her. In fact, she only speaks honestly because the words are forced out of her by the pain of her failure in Episode 12!

This is when Matsumoto finally speaks to her with his honest feelings, without disguising his attempt to help under his usual snark. It’s exactly how Diva expected him to act in Episode 8. It’s telling that Vivy asked all of the AIs she spent time with how they defined their hearts, but never him. I believe it’s because she assumed he wouldn’t care, as that’s the aura he always gave off, with even his visits in Episode 10 possibly being seen as a taunt because of their bet. It also means she never expected him to take Diva’s final words to look after her properly, possibly because – again – she didn’t think she was worth it.

When she feels horrible about herself, he scolds her, but he also praises her and says he couldn’t have fulfilled his mission without her. Again, a mission is an AI’s soul, so this manages to lift Vivy’s spirits a little. After telling her this, he repeats the first ever answer she ever heard for her question: that the “heart” is an abstract concept and that everyone needs to find their own answer. He then pleads with Vivy to choose her own answer. With the weight of her failure on her, but also after hearing how Matsumoto feels about her and being told she isn’t pathetic as she thought she was, she finally chooses to think for herself. She thinks of everything she’s been through, all of the good and all of the bad, and at the end she’s amazed, as if she didn’t think it was possible for her to ever find her own answer. Her eyes are also “human” for the first time while discussing this topic, to show that she’s finally managed to take that small yet giant step. The answer she needed was the only one she didn’t ask for herself, which in itself is a much more natural process; what better fit for someone who wants to be more human and natural herself? She’s basked in sunlight as she reaches this apotheosis, and is rewarded for her progress towards humanity by Osamu giving her a chance to go back and set things right, one last time.

It’s fitting in a way that the correct answer came from a human, but it’s also interesting that Vivy also heard it from Matsumoto. He also lived for 100 years after all! He also has a lot of experiences to learn from, even if he was never interested in understanding himself as she did; he grew a little without even realizing it! And maybe part of the reason Vivy didn’t understand when Keita told her in the past was also because she was only 16 years old then, and hadn’t experienced enough by then to understand what a heart is to her? I feel bad saying this because Momoka’s death haunted for so long, but she’s seen so many more traumatizing things since then, and suffered so much more too!

Episode 13

This conscious decision to think for herself affects her in several ways. She’s kind but more forceful when saving the man at the start of Episode 13, but this ends up saving his life. She’s also firm when speaking to Toak, instead of remaining passive and letting Osamu and Matsumoto do all the talking as she did in the previous timeline. Not only that: instead of letting everyone call her Diva, she corrects Yui and finally takes back the name she claimed for herself in the past, then goes onto speak forcefully when making her case to Toak and talks Beth down when she confronts her, a far cry from her awkwardness when she confronted her in Episode 11. When the time comes for Vivy and Matsumoto’s plan to be put into effect, she also feels confident enough to speak her own opinions on Yui and Elizabeth. She tells Yui that she agrees with her hope that AIs and humans will coexist one day, even being able to be wistful as a human would. And instead of stating mere facts about Elizabeth’s past with Kakitani or her physical strength, Vivy gives her her own honest thoughts that Beth served him magnificently: she already admitted that she admired both her and Estella in Episode 5, but now she is finally able to tell her that, even earning their respect in the process – another reward for her choosing to do so and another contrast to Beth’s reaction to her attempt at telling her about Kakitani in Episode 11. In this way she’s also able to honour their previous deaths, by fulfilling Beth’s dying wish and encouraging Yui to push onward with the dreams she shared with them before she was killed. She calls Yui by her first name too. She also talks to Yui as if they were equals, instead of being meek as she was before, as if to show that she now considers herself a human too, just like her.

This isn’t to say that she’s entirely confident in herself though: she pauses when Matsumoto asks if she’s still able to sing on the docks and has to remind herself of her revelation, and even then she isn’t completely sure of herself. She isn’t as comfortable with herself as she lets on either, still thinking of Diva’s final performance as a golden standard she needs to meet before Matsumoto tells her that isn’t necessary. He immediately deflects it with a joke, but it’s fitting that even in this timeline, Matsumoto is the one to motivate Vivy as soon as she begins to doubt herself again: he’s her partner after all! It’s also fitting that Vivy finally allows herself to smile and embrace him, telling her first ever joke before thanking him: at last she’s allowing herself to be honest with him as well. Of course, she knows now how much Matsumoto values her as well, and his recent comment only cements that he feels that way about her now as well. Either way, this could be seen as her honouring her last interaction with him in the previous timeline as well. As for Matsumoto’s comment about waiting 100 years for her to tell a joke, you could also see it as indicator of how she has now chosen to fully understand and embrace her humanity after working so hard for it over the past 100 years. Remember, she didn’t even understand the concept of a joke back in Episode 2! But of course, all three of these interactions also take on a sadder meaning when you realize this is the last time Vivy sees any of them, and that they’re all aware of this fact, as she tells Navi.

It is worth speaking of Navi too. Navi was her original partner, but she rejects Vivy’s transformation and insists on her returning to her life as a “pure songstress AI”, in her own words. Navi is showing concern in her own way, and in a more genuine way than Matsumoto at that, but from the very beginning Vivy wanted to understand what it was to be human and despite her impassioned pleas, Navi shows she didn’t understand Vivy’s deepest desire. We even see the Main Stage the same way we did in Episode 1, when Vivy was so literal-minded she projected a “No Entry” sign over it, as if to indicate that’s the same Diva Navi wants to see again.

We see more of Vivy’s human side when Navi tries to replicate Momoka too, with her eyes going haywire and her falling against a wall – you would never expect such an utter lack of control from an AI after all. Her face even trembles as if she’s about to cry as she rejects Navi too, but we also see her hug Momoka and stroke her hair, all human gestures she never did with Momoka in the past – she didn’t even return Momoka’s hongi. I think this is the sort of affection she always wanted to show Momoka, but couldn’t find a way to because she didn’t think she would do it properly or she had the right to. And of course, Momoka died soon after that moment with her.

In the end though, she dedicates her inner monologue to Navi. She still considers herself an AI, but she believes her mission helped her grow into who she is here. She finally allows herself to accept all of her feelings from the past 100 years as valid, and gives herself permission to truly process them and declare that all of her experiences – and she herself – have meaning. And then she sings about herself. She hoped she would be able to sing something with all her heart if she wrote it herself, and 35 years later her hope came true! She sings on the Main Stage as she always wanted to, but to an empty audience as she did in Episode 1, but this time with a 100 years worth of growth behind her. It’s fitting once again that she was only able to do so after validating herself: you could argue that this is why she couldn’t sing her song in Episode 10. But now that she has accepted herself and made the choice to embrace her humanity instead of hoping someone can give it to her (in a way she could accept), she is able to sing and trade all of her memories and humanity for the well-being of her fellow humans, opening the door for a new Vivy to someday reach or even surpass that same peak, but hopefully over the course of a much happier, much longer life.

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Thank you for making it to the end of this essay. I hope you enjoyed it! Please let me know what you thought and share it with anyone you feel would like it too. Also please keep checking this document. I watched Vivy three times in a row to write it and each time I learned a million new things and I wouldn’t be surprised if I picked up a million more in the future too. Thank you all again for your time and as always, have a great day.