Again we have two cases this week, and no progression on the teased meta-plot. Which is fine, really. They promised an omnibus and they’re giving us an omnibus.
This one barely includes Sudo at all, in part because it’s not about humanoids and integrated society but about robots, and specifically robots that learn and how their learning results in interactions with humans.
The first is a robot being used to gather and record traditional crafts being introduced to a classical smithy and learning the master’s ways. He actually bonds, in his own grouchy way, with the robot apprentice and seems revitalized on seeing its work rather than being despairing as one might think.
The second case involves a robot being trained for caregiving living as the classmate of some students. They treat the robot pretty well (though other, networked instances don’t fare as well) and they make some good memories for the robot, which since it is in a human-facing role will presumably benefit from that.
Honestly, there’s not much else to this episode. I wish there were, so in lieu of that I’ll give some tentative thoughts on the series as a whole.
This is very much an omnibus, and in being that it makes some choices: the characters are weak, compared to the characters in shows with a more normal structure, but the world building is stronger for it, so that this really feels like a living, breathing future. On the other hand, since this is a more slice of life affair than something like Mushi-shi and often does multiple mini-episodes in one go, it has a harder time holding investment. Every story is extremely bite-sized, and over before it feels like it’s gotten much done.
In that sense, I might like Gene of AI, but I don’t think I’ll ever love it, and in fact I feel like I’ll probably forget it pretty quickly. It would have to do something really compelling in the second half to shake that in a good way.