Short Synopsis: Our cast arrives at the place where Luna supposedly was born.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8,5/10 (Awesome)
Nothing short of an awesome episode. Not only does Leda finally get her development, turning her from a dull character into a great one, it also pushes the plot also gets pushed into an entirely new direction.
So, let me get this straight: Leda once was pregnant!? So Ouji’s research did succeed, apparently. If I understood things correctly, she entrusted her child to Luna, who would grow it in some sort of artificial womb (probably to guarantee the survival of the infant), but along the way something went wrong and her child died. It turns out that she was after some sort of secret that Luna left behind. I’m not yet sure for what kind of motive, but in this episode when she’s this close to attaining it, she simply loses control of herself. I’m beginning to think that Casshern and Leda’s emotional stability are inversely proportionate to each other: Casshern has calmed down a lot since the first few episodes (as noted by Luna and Ouji in this episode), while the only emotional support Leda received was from a power-hungry Dio.
In the end, this “secret” was hidden inside three child robots, that Luna left behind at her birthplace. At this point, we’re not sure what its purpose is, but Ouji is going to find out. For that, however, he was forced to break up with Ringo, which made for a really emotional break-up scene between the two. I also wonder: those children referred to Luna as their mother, but also talked about a father, who has long since died. I can’t imagine anyone who fits that bill, other than that the children somehow misheard about either Dune’s or Braiking Boss’ death or something. Also, that one comparison they made with Leda and Luna is also very interesting, hinting that there’s much more to Leda still.
Also, this part is what I’m a bit unsure about, but if I’m not mistaken those children also revealed something about the concept of immortality in this series: if you want to be immortal, you’ve got to know the meaning of “love”. If this is true, then it does explain a few things: Leda herself can’t understand that concept, so despite her wishes to be immortal that became apparent in this episode, she’s never going to attain her goal. Dio himself is stuck with such a woman, so the concept of love also shouldn’t occur with him. And now that I think about it, all of the robots feelings we’ve seen so far in the random stories were despair, admiration, obsession and fascination, but no romantic feelings. Luna herself somehow did understand the concept, and when Casshern “killed” Luna, he somehow understood this as well, fell in love with her and lost his memories because of it, or something similar.
Also, bad things are going to happen to Ringo, with this episode I’m sure, due to one particularly nasty case of foreshadowing where Ringo’s legs stopped working (does that mean that she really is a robot?). When this is going to happen again, Ouji won’t be there to cover up and fix it. At first sight, it’s a bit irresponsible of him to just leave her like that, but I think that the reason why he’s decided to say goodbye to her is to be able to find the solution to the destruction as soon as possible, because he knows that she’s about to suffer from it.
Early on, I thought they were going for the “Ringo-is-the-child-of-Leda” idea, but in the end, that wasn’t it.
I don’t agree with your assessment of Dio. I think he’s already started to care (more) about something else other than himself and his obsession with always being in second to Casshern; Leda. Sure, he made that awesome save back in Ep. 10, but up until the previous episode, he’s been rather passive towards his relationship with Leda. By the way, him suddenly carrying her was a nice touch.
I think what you said about Casshern and Leda’s emotional stability is also true for Dio and Leda. I could see Dio being more in control from hereon; while the opposite being for Leda, especially with that scar… that was a pretty bad move by Casshern that really could have been something else. But speaking of Casshern and Leda, Casshern’s losing to Leda too? What the…?
This is obviously “the Leda episode”. The next will be that “Lyuze episode” that I’ve been looking forward to. I was hoping this is going to be a “swimsuit episode”, with the beach and all… But that’s ok. Something better’s in store. 😀
“I can’t imagine anyone who fits that bill, other than that the children somehow misheard about either Dune’s or Braiking Boss’ death or something.”
We didn’t get a name, but during the episode they did say that he was a researcher. It’s pretty safe to say that these “children” were never born, but created. They just happen to call their creator “father”.
“Ouji’s research did succeed, apparently”
I don’t think it’s the same research. Ouji worked for breakin boss, the researcher(s) spoken about in this episode wasn’t Ouji, but most likely a human. I’m guessing that Leda was promised by the reasearchers to be able to bear children, but the research somehow failed and Leda lost the child in the process. Leda then killed the researcher(s) “消してあげるは、私におろかな夢を見せた。。。あの科学者のように！”
Also I think Leda is well aware what love means, but she simply only loves her self and wish to live forever and have her beauty be a permanent thing, unaffected by the “ruin”
Furthermore, the thing in the basement was a グラス揺りかご “glass craddle”. A craddle is something you put a born child in, so chances are she actually birthed the child before it died.
Leda also goes on saying (while holding her belly)
グラスの揺りかごとは、なんて儚く、なんておろかなでしょうね
“A glass craddle, such a fleeting, foolish notion”
I can’t translate the japanese very well, but this is pretty much Leda thinking back on the past and reflecting how foolish she the hope of bearing and having a child” I’m thinking that this failure and her hatred for the researchers has pretty much made her a self-centered person who only really cares for her own well-being.
At the end of the episode was Ouji says
それはたぶん、あの子らの生みの親が作ったルナのナノの細胞そのもの。
“That is most likely Luna’s nano-cell an item created by those children’s creator”
Puh, this is getting long. One last comment.
“Also, bad things are going to happen to Ringo, with this episode I’m sure, due to one particularly nasty case of foreshadowing where Ringo’s legs stopped working (does that mean that she really is a robot?).”
I don’t know if I agree. It could be just that they want to show that Ringo is more human-like, and that she grows and develops like a human should. Kids growing up often have poor body control and I think that the creators were trying to show that.
“And now that I think about it, all of the robots feelings we’ve seen so far in the random stories were despair, admiration, obsession and fascination, but no romantic feelings. Luna herself somehow did understand the concept, and when Casshern “killed” Luna, he somehow understood this as well, fell in love with her and lost his memories because of it, or something similar. ”
—> I totally wish you are right about this *_*
But it’s Ohji who created Leda. And it was Ohji who wanted to create robots that can reproduce like humans.
As I’ve said Leda is my favorite, and now it shows she can fight. I still think she may be final boss material, if she does go psycho (though from the looks of it she already seemed somewhat imbalanced just that she was hiding it I’m guessing her true colors showed when she started threatening those kids.) In any case go Leda~
Probably to make a robot into a human, Ohji had to take a human and turn them into a robot – a cyborg. But while this isn’t clear yet, all we see in the series so far are bleeding robots.
This episode confirmed what we all suspected: Leda is a narcissistic b**ch who really just wants immortality to herself. She’s not going to get it though (unless Casshern and co somehow manages to save everybody). For some reason she just thinks it’s better helping Dio than Casshern.
I thought Ringo’s legs might have stopped working because her feet got cold, which doesn’t necessarily mean that she’s a robot. She does have some robotic parts at her hairline though from earlier episodes.
To be honest, Leda being only after her own immortality all along never really occured to me until some people started talking about it here. (I haven’t seen the subbed vid of this episode yet.)
It seems that “immortality” may just be the central idea of this series. I mean, there has been a constant mention of it right from the start, but it has never really been the focus of the story.
Well CXL I wouldn’t be that surprised about the immortality part, after all before the whole ruin it did seem they were all pretty much immortal (robots for obvious reasons and humans had medical technology). But thanks to the ruin things have gone topsy turvy and now everyone is scared of dying for the first time, wouldn’t be surprised that Leda wanted immortality.
Yeah, when you think about it, what else could a narcissist in their situation possibly desire? But I’ve never thought of Leda as a narcissist before.
I’ve just seen the subbed vid… Wow. Dio knew Leda’s going to do something tedious and ugly. Well, there’s one way of walking away from something like that. It also leaves plenty of room to make a cool save later, like what he did.
So it turns out that Luna’s also a robot. I guess that makes all the main characters either a robot or a kind of cyborg – none fully human/organic.
I don’t think she was narcissistic more of completely emotionally scared by the loss of her baby, and I’m guessing that’s why she wants immortality after losing her baby my theory would be that she got frightened of death (didn’t seem like dying was pretty common). And Leda does mention scientists, I’ll just guess that Ohji was the pioneer but there was other scientists that worked on the project (Leda was probably flawed so she didn’t get to push through giving birth).
It was pretty shocking to see her snap after being reminded of her pregnancy. Casshern sure got beaten up, just imagine if Leda actually had her own berserk mode like Casshern and Dio she’s be pretty strong. This definitely was a good episode, and a totally unexpected twist on Leda. Now, after Lyuze’s episode I’m hoping the series will now focus on explaining the ruin, Ringo is probably a key to solving it so I’m sure she’ll get explained along the way.
Nice episode. Something major happened here. They got a colored rock. haha
Seriously. There are a lot of mystical elements here. The robots seemed magical rather than technology. But that’s interesting. I agree, the beginning was a real surprise. That was a VERY different Leda there. And what really happened to her baby has yet to be revealed. I wonder if it’s actually Ringo.
All it took was a scar to Leda’s face to stop her attacking. Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the vainest robot of them all? hehe
@ Machi:
This episode specifically highlighted her obsession with her own beauty. There’s been a lot of robots in the series who were afraid to die, but none of them exhibited a worship of their perceived physical aesthetic value of themselves like Leda did.
I think it’s more of, she became distrustful of everyone else because she believes her trust was betrayed in something that was very important to her; and that led to believing that the only person she could really count on is herself; which in turn led to an excessive love of self.
Maybe it’s some kind of “Philosopher’s Stone”.
That occured to me as well. If it is, they’re doing a good job of keeping it under wraps. The only connection between Ringo and Leda so far is that Ringo was “accepted” by the girl with the Judgement Eye, while Leda was “rejected”. Everyone else was pretty much ignored.
Well, she’s got something to be vain about. I’ve seen narcissists who don’t have the appearance to go with their shitty personality trait.
This ep though presented us with more clues that also give us questions, but it moves the story well forward. That secret jewel and what Oji is going to do is something to wonder about next ep.
Does anyone has any idea what is the title of the song when the kid brought out LUNA nano cells? Its really nice and if anyone has any idea please tell me. Appreciate it a whole lot