The “Back mostly with Natsume” episode. Last time, Kaburagi started a new game, and now he finds the situation in Deca-dence. It turns out that the peace of maintenance has ended, and the current “story” sees a massive hole in the armor of Deca-dence, a breach from which the Gadoll must be kept. In the early action sequence, a group of Gadoll get through the breach where more are being fought and begin to slaughter Tankers before Kaburagi (struggling with his new avatar) and Natsume (with friends) take them out and move to reinforce the breach.
Though the Gadoll incoming is defeated,
the price is high for the Tankers. The gears are amused, though,
which means the Powers That Be are clearly pleased. Kaburagi manages
to contact the commander, revealing his identity to his friend and
asking after the situation. He finds out that it’s an intentional
bit of theater and that the bitter losses that Natsume’s friends
suffer are a “merciful” way to cull the human population, which
had grown beyond what the game makers would find desirable. Kaburagi
isn’t happy about it, but resists lashing out at his friend and
protector.
On Natsume’s side, she has a bitter
fight before her, not against the Gadoll, but for the hearts and
minds of the Tankers. Natsume, and the other Tanker fighters, see
the writing on the wall that if they can’t seal the breach, their
fight is going to be a losing one. However, the resources aren’t
available to them to make the repairs, especially not in a timely
fashion, and there’s no one willing to be manpower when the Gadoll
could attack at any time. Gears are exalted. Tankers who fight?
They’re seen as crazy
All the same, Natsume points out that
house repair kits could substitute, and that if they can be convinced
to haul together, there are more than enough Tankers to patch the
hole. Thinking she’s on her own in this struggle, she goes to her
old friend at the butcher shop and tries to make inroads there, and
after that spends the day talking to everyone she possibly can,
attempting to gather at least supplies. Exhausted, she returns to
Kurenai… to find that they’ve been going around, gathering quite
the stockpile. Then, despite having blown her off, the Butcher Shop
leader appears with Natsume’s friends and a lot more extra hands and
extra repair kits, ready to do something for their lives other than
just wait for the Gears to save them. Repairs on the wall begin,
which are noticed but discounted by the authorities, who don’t think
Tankers can do things for themselves.
As the construction gets underway,
Kaburagi (introducing himself as a friend of Kaburagi, of course)
gets a chance to talk to Natsume. In that time, while the Tankers
have made great progress, she admits how lost she’s feeling, and
hopeless despite her determination to press forward. Witnessing
Natsume, trapped at the end of her rope, having seen the death and
destruction dealt to the Tankers as a matter of course, gives
Kaburagi new resolve: tear it all down.
This is what Kaburagi, when he logs
off, presents to his old compatriots. The inmate gang is going to
eliminate the Gadoll… by taking out the factory that’s right above
their heads. It’s a hell of a mission, but one that seems to amuse
the inmates, particularly Donatello.
I think this was, once again, a very
good episode that got across the themes we’re going to have to deal
with in the next act. The previous act was about personal growth,
Natsume understanding herself and what it really was she wanted while
also becoming a badass, and Kaburagi reclaiming his reason to live
thanks to Natsume’s earnest nature guiding him. The next arc, it’s
clear, is about the world and rebellion. The Tankers don’t know it
yet, but by working to protect their home, they’ve already become
part of a rebellion that their unseen masters currently discount.
Coming together to repair the breach, I feel, is a catalyst and setup
that will eventually pay off when the Tankers need to stand up for
themselves, potentially even against the Gears. Meanwhile,
Donatello’s prison gang now have a vision to strike back against the
system that mistreated, abused, and discarded them. It’s not clear
how they’ll accomplish this, but they are in a position where they
could strike.
In this, we have a two-pronged
resistance: Kaburagi’s, in the prison, and Natsume’s in Deca-dence.
Kaburagi’s is likely to fire first, setting the stage for a situation
in which the Tankers must rise up in one way or another; whether or
not the Commander and the Gears are with them, Kamina Shades Boss and
the System are absolutely not.
I’m eager for more. There are
absolutely ways in which they could botch this, like if the Tankers
don’t manage to claim any agency, but the writing up to this point
has been good enough that I trust it going forward.