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| Plot Synopsis | Interesting and Fun Details |
| Episode Review | Character Development |
| Episode Analysis | |
Plot Synopsis
Moonlight Rambler opens with four women being chased by men who appear to be some form of police. The vehicles that both the women and the police are driving definitely are not standard for either the Tokyo Highway Patrol, the Normal Police, or the AD Police, as they appear to be some form of hovercraft. In the process of the pursuit, the road appears to curve upward and from that point on, it is obvious that something is very strange in the opening sequence. The four women, one of whom is bleeding from a wound in her side, are obviously very earnest in their desire to escape from the police, and are nearly killed when several large barricades much like blast doors close off the passage they are fleeing through. One of the pursuers is in fact killed when his vehicles crashes into one of the closed doors. After the surviving pursuer reports that the women have escaped, someone releases two Dobermen, powerful Boomers specially adapted to the environment of space, with orders to kill the women. The Dobermen wait in ambush at the exit of the passageway, but the escape vehicle's scanners recognize the Boomers, and the women somehow survive bailing out of the hovercraft at high speed. One of the two Dobermen is destroyed in the impact and subsequent explosion, but the other somehow tracks the women's escape. The four women, as yet still unidentified, meet a fifth at a hanger where a large ORCA shuttle has been prepared for launch, and the women all head for it. The surviving Doberman appears, breaks through the hanger door, and in the ensuing battle, only two of the women, Sylvie and the woundedAnri, escape with their lives. The shuttle blasts out of the hanger and into orbit. After another quick run-in with the Doberman, they both escape and head for the Earth.
As the opening credits role after the shuttle's escape, Nene comes out of AD Police headquarters after her shift is over, Priss rides her motorcycle, Linna walks home carrying a full shopping bag, and Sylia, who's in her penthouse reading. Both Priss and Sylia see what appears to be a shooting star over the MegaTokyo skyline. The next morning, however, what appeared as a shooting star originally is revealed as the escaped shuttle that was entering the atmosphere over MegaTokyo and crashed outside of the city. Leon and Daley are both out at the crash site, investigating the possible causes. Daley makes the comment that the pilot hasn't been found, and that the pilot likely couldn't have survived the impact. He also indicates that the SDPC (Space Development Public Corporation, a UN-sponsored corporation devoted to the development of space) isn't likely to cooperate with the investigation, making it very likely a dead-end. Immediately afterward, helicopters from the SDPC are seen arriving.
The same morning, in a new building, an obvious VIP is in the middle of a conversation with the head of the Genaros Station, the SDPC owned and controlled station which the women escaped from. More important than the incident outside of MegaTokyo is the fact that the shuttle was apparently carrying a prototype of a new type of battlemover. After that conversation ends, the VIP discusses the incident with a well dressed man in the background. The conversation indicates that the SDPC, while officially a UN corporation, is actually a puppet of Genom, and specifically of the men in the room. The man in the background tells the VIP that it might be easier to make him disappear rather than for Genom to cut the puppet's strings. Once the conversation has ended, there is an indication that the man in the background might be a Boomer - a coin crushed beyond recognition by his bare hands.
Some time later, Cheif Todo talks with Daley and decides to send him up to the Genaros Station in order to take the official statement from the Genaros Station's commander. Neither Leon, who is listening from his desk, nor Daley likes the sound of the mission, since Daley is supposed to get the statement as a mere formality, but Todo doesn't want to get the evil-eye from his superiors. Leon sees a moderately concerned Daley (the station is mostly composed of Boomers, not humans) off at the spaceport, and Daley leaves with the comment that his feminine intuition is saying that there's more to this case than meets the eye.
That evening, a couple is parked in a somewhat secluded and scenic area when they are assaulted and killed by what appears, in sillouhette, to be a huge suit of combat armor or a giant Boomer. However, the chest cavity of the sillouhette opens to reveal the sillouhette of a human figure. That same night, Linna and Nene are in Hot Legs talking about Priss' new friend, a gorgeous woman named Sylvie who dresses ultra-stylishly and enjoys riding motorcycles almost as much as Priss does. Priss comes out front after her last set to talk with her friends, only to find that Sylvie, one of the women who had escaped from the station, has just arrived. After Sylvie apologizes for missing out on Priss' performances, Priss introduces her to Linna and Nene. It seems that Sylvie had other unspecified commitments that kept her from being at Hot Legs earlier.
Also that evening, but in a different and significantly less pleasant part of MegaTokyo, Sylia meets a contact named Fargo in a sleazy underground bar called C'est La Vie. He tells Sylia about a new job he's found for the Knight Sabers; recovery of the D.D. Battlemover/superweapon. Fargo indicates that the employer is the head of the Genaros Station, and that he made the mistake of falling in with a Genom splinter group. Sylia comments that she has a problem working for Genom, but Fargo assures her that this job is for the Genom splinter group, not Genom proper, and that the fee is 50 million yen, over double the Knight Saber's usual fee, and she accepts the job.
The next morning, Leon and Nene are in the AD Police morgue, where two more bodies have been added to the list of deaths caused by massive blood loss. The media has apparently gotten wind of the manner of death and has labeled them as being caused by a vampire. On the way back from the morgue, Leon comments that the deaths could be caused by a malfunctioning Boomer, specifically a 33-S, a Boomer with an artificial blood supply and the only Boomer ever to have been specifically banned and whose construction is now illegal. In a phone call to Sylia, Nene tells her about Leon's 33-S idea, and Sylia not only confirms the possibility, but tells Nene that the 33-S was banned because certain C-class (combat Boomer) parts enabled the 33-S Sexaroid Boomer to interface too well with superweapons and that those parts generally drove the Boomer insane in the process.
Later that day, Sylvie and Priss are out cruising along the coast on their motorcycles, when Priss suggests that they pull off for a minute or two. They pull off to rest a for a little while and Priss buys them both something to eat from some vending machines. Sylvie looks around and sees a large building which Priss identifies as the Genom Corporate Research building. Then Priss, seeing a hungry cat, feeds it some of her food, but when Sylvie tries to do the same, the cat freaks out and scratches Sylvie's finger, drawing blood. That night, the same huge combat armor attacks someone else, but this time the attack is on a major highway and a tube, attached to the person's neck, is shown draining the person's blood. Shortly thereafter, the Genom Research president orders the well dressed Largo to recover the D.D. Battlemover and to kill Sylvie and Anri, now positively identified as 33-S Sexaroid Boomers. That night, Sylvie has joined Anri in their apartment where Sylvie bares her fanglike teeth and sinks them into Anri's neck like a vampire would.
Later that night, Sylvie, having found where the data she needs to make Anri independent of blood transfusions resides, breaks into the Genom Research Tower. She goes to the President, and using her mesmerizing gaze, either kills him or knocks him unconscious. Sylvie then goes to the research vaults, steals the data disk which contains all the information she needs for Anri, and then runs into two BU-55s combat Boomer bodyguards. After shooting at them with a pistol which does no damage, she leaps out of a window, runs to her motorcycle, and runs from the pursuing Boomers. At about the same time, Leon is talking to Daley about the stolen D.D. Battlemover. After something Daley says surprises and concerns Leon, he rushes out to a chopper transport which is carrying a new powersuit, the K-12S, designed by the AD Police specifically for police use. When in the air, Leon and the pilot spot the running firefight between Sylvie and the two Boomers chasing her, and Leon orders the pilot over in that direction, followed by his immediate suiting up into the K-12S.
Before Leon arrives, Sylvie runs her motorcycle off the highway into the Quake caused chasm, and the Boomers follow. Unfortunately for the Boomers, Sylvie makes it into the D.D. before they have a chance to kill her, and the D.D. proceeds to easily and quickly kill both of the Boomers, but not before the D.D., currently appearing much like a dog, and Sylvie both take some damage. The wound in her side temporarily drives Sylvie unconscious, but the artificially intelligent J-1 combat system, thinking that Sylvie is a dead human rather than a Boomer, takes the D.D. into fully automatic mode just in time for Leon, in the K-12S powered suit, to appear. While the K-12S is much more powerful than the K-11 originally seen in Blow Up, even it cannot withstand the sheer power of what amounts to a bipedal tank, and Leon loses very badly and very quickly. Only the timely appearance of the Knight Sabers distracts the D.D. from killing Leon. Combat continues, and while the Knight Sabers do better against the D.D. than Leon did, it is still obvious that the D.D. is more than a match for them as well. Leon, just before passing out, warns the Knight Sabers of the final superweapon that the D.D. carries - a micro-neutron bomb large enough to kill everything in MegaTokyo, which Nene confirms with a technology scan of the D.D. Sylvie, finally regaining consciousness, opens up the pilot's compartment and asks Priss to kill her in order to save the city. Priss can't find the strength to kill a close friend, and combat restarts with the D.D. seriously injuring Priss and nearly tearing Sylia in half after she had tried to kill Sylvie with her laser sword. Priss saves Sylia by blasting off one of the D.D.'s hands with her Typhoon's cannon, and then Priss, crying, attacks the D.D. The D.D. counterattacks with missiles which totally destroys the motorslave, but Priss escapes and, using her beam cannon, kills Sylvie.
After the D.D. shuts down and Sylvie falls out of the cockpit, she asks Priss to deliver the data disk to Anri lest she have to start feeding on humans to stay alive. Although Sylia doesn't want Priss to turn over the data disk, she understands that Priss can't betray her friend Sylvie. The episode ends with Largo doing the same thing to Sylia that Mason did in Born to Kill - calling her by name. The major difference is that this time, Largo just calls out mentally, and somehow Sylia seems to hear him.
Interesting or Fun Details
- The space station's bulkhead doors are really low quality, aren't they? The Doberman Boomer sure broke through them easily enough....
- At one point, Daley hits on Leon and Leon's response is "Not tonight, I've got a headache."
- At Hot Legs, a man is out with his girlfriend. He scopes out Sylvie, and gets glared at by his girlfriend.
- After Daley comments that his "feminine" intuition hints that there's more to this case than meets the eye, Leon comments that that intuition isn't a bad thing to have.
- Nam, one of the 33-S Boomers in the opening sequence, looks almost exactly like the android Catty from the various Gall Force series.
- Sylia, in her conversation with Nene about Sexaroid Boomers, say that she might like to meet Sylvie. Sylia's manner indicates more than a casual, insincere interest, rather indicating that she might see Sylvie, as someone who was able to get as close or closer to Priss than even she has in a short period of time, as a threat to her team.
- It's Priss who saves Leon from being killed by the articulated arm that the D.D. Battlemover attaches to his neck. I wonder if it's just because she's the best long-range shot with a beam cannon.....
Episode Review At this point, I have to say that this episode is second favorite episode out of the entire series, right behind Red Eye's, the episode which follows this one. Let me explain why.
First off, this episode is the first time we actually see anything besides destruction in space. The Genaros Station, while not the bastion of democracy a lot of science fiction would portray, is still a major accomplishment, and it indicates that, in the Bubblegum world at least, humanity has made some small step beyond this small basket of eggs we call the Earth. As the colonization of space is something of a personal crusade, I approve of almost anything which shows said colonization in a reasonably good light. Unfortunately, the fact that the D.D. Battlemover was developed in space, the presence of the Doberman combat Boomer, and the fact that there are more Boomers in space than people presents a somewhat mixed bag, it's still better than no colonization of space.
I also like what Largo and the president of Genom Corporate Research represent: splinter groups of radicals within the larger whole of Genom. With such a large corporation and beurocracy, it would be impossible to keep radicals from generating their own ideas from time to time, and I think that the Research splinter group adds some impressive depth to Genom as a corporation. After all, not all the world revolves around Genom - some of the world revolves around Genom's puppets.
One more reason that I like this episode is Sylvie and Anri themselves. They are Boomers, but in some ways they're both more human than anyone else is. They have the same drives for freedom and friendship as a human would, but they have the disadvantage that they are trapped within a system views them as property that, when it runs away, becomes illegal and hunted. Yes, they're machines, but they're so much more too. The existence of the 33-S begs the question of when a being stops being a machine and becomes a person. When the machine learns hate? Or when the machine learns self-sacrifice? This episode poses the questions, but leaves the answers up to the viewer. For a more detailed analysis of this episode, please see the next section, after the various characters.
Character Development and Episode Analysis
- Priss: While Sylvie is the tragic heroine in this episode, Priss' reactions and fate make her one as well, although Priss' fate isn't so tragic as death. One of the major points is the irony of this episode, with regard to Priss. Priss hates Boomer with a passion, mostly because she's seen too many friends killed by Boomers or their creators, Genom. Yet Priss gains a new best friend who is also the closest to human that a Boomer can be - Sylvie, a 33-S Sexaroid. Even at the end of the episode, when she knows that only by killing her friend can she save the entire city of MegaTokyo, she still hesitates and, when she finally builds up enough courage to save many of her friends (Sylia, Nene, and Linna) by killing one, she does so in a way that makes it obvious that she hates what she has to do. The irony continues when Priss, the Boomer hater, takes the data disk that Sylvie had stolen from Genom, and gives it to Anri, Sylvie's companion and fellow 33-S.
While this seems very ironic, it's more than just that. Priss hated Boomers, yet by the end of this episode, she seems able to accept that maybe, just maybe, not all Boomers are amoral, stupid, dangerous killing machines like the various combat Boomers are. She has had a female Boomer friend, and even allows another free Boomer, Anri, to remain free, something that the Knight Sabers and the AD Police would both generally frown upon.
Priss has grown up some in this episode, if only in one very important way. An important change of heart for a very hard-hearted character.
- Sylia: We get a few more interesting glimpses into Sylia's character in this episode as well. First, Sylia actually trusts someone outside Dr. Raven and the rest of the Knight Sabers to know her real identity: Fargo. Why or how she came to trust Fargo is never explained, but that she does so is remarkably interesting, considering that Sylia is the most insular of all the Knight Sabers. There is also quite a bit more to Sylia than meets the eye, since no sane woman would be safe walking alone, dressed in expensive clothing and driving an expensive car (the red Mercedes), in areas of town or bars like where the C'est La Vie bar is located. A very upper class woman would generally find herself assaulted under those circumstances, yet either Sylia is there often enough that the regulars know to leave her alone, or she's somehow able to handle herself well even without a hardsuit. Considering Sylia's abilities in the hardsuit have to be based on something, this really isn't a surprise.
Another thing that really shouldn't come as a real surprise, but which still shocks me sometimes, is just how cold Sylia really is. In the battle with the D.D. Battlemover, Sylia is surprised that Priss can even hesitate to kill Sylvie. Rather than cold, this is more pragmatic, since the entire city is dead if Sylvie isn't. But after Priss finally kills Sylvie, Sylia asks Priss if she should really give Anri the data disk under the circumstances. The circumstances that Sylia is referring to is the fact that Anri is essentially a rogue Boomer, just like Sylvie was. It's almost as if Priss' friendship with Sylvie has no meaning to Sylia. However, Sylia does allow Priss to give the data disk to Anri without following her or attempting to interfere. She accepts Priss' feelings regarding Sylvie, even if she can't seem to understand their depth.
There is something, though, which is a little bit surprising. In her conversation with Nene about the Sexaroid, Sylia seems more than just a little interested with Priss' new friend, Sylvie. When Sylia teases Linna, Nene, or Priss about thier relationships with people (Linna's endless boyfriends, Nene's interest in Mackie, and Priss' love-hate relationship with Leon), she's very casual about it. I could be wrong, but I see Sylia's interest in Sylvie differently, as if she's started thinking about a threat assessment, or maybe she has some intuition that Sylvie might be the problem.
- Leon: As in Blow Up, Leon shows that he's rather cranky in the morning, especially when he hasn't gotten enough sleep. This happens the morning that he and Daley are investigating the crash of the ORCA shuttle. However, this is a little shallow, even if it adds a little character to Leon at the time. Another little thing that is a bit surprising is Leon's loss of composure in the car coming back from the morgue with Nene. Nene's conceit about her appearance seems to surprise even Leon, who, up until now, hasn't seemed to be out of control around women in any way.
Leon's character shows a little more depth in the morgue with Nene. First, at an obviously inappropriate moment, Leon comments to Nene that having all the blood drained out of her was a terrible thing to have happen to such a good looking woman. But although Leon gives the body a quick look, he quickly looks away and then, almost as quickly, puts several meters between himself and the body, staring out of a window. It's hard to tell if Leon is staring off in contemplation of why someone would need to drain all the blood out of people, or whether he's tripping and stumbling down memory lane, or even if Leon's customary composure can't extend to looking at meaninglessly killed people. If it's the latter, then what we're seeing from Leon is a crack in his emotional armor which he just doesn't show people, a crack which makes quite a bit of sense. After all, even Leon shouldn't be able to just shrug off death easily, and I think that this is part of his reaction. Another part of his reaction, I think, is related to another series where we meet Leon - AD Police Files. In that series, Leon's just a frontline officer like all the armored men who lose their lives to the combat Boomers in Bubblegum Crisis. But in the second episode, Leon encounters a woman who has become a Boomeroid - a human with more than 70% of her body replaced by cybernetics - and who is committing meaningless acts of violence against teenage prostitutes. I also think that Leon's actions in the morgue are partly him remembering that case several years earlier, and that those memories are part of the cause of his discomposure.
Finally, Leon's interactions with Chief Todo change a little bit in this episode. First off, Leon is usual self, insulting his superior officer when Todo orders Daley up to the Genaros Station to record an official statement. But later, after Daley has contacted Leon with new information about the D.D. Battlemover, he actually thanks Todo for telling him not to take the new K-12S armored trooper and patrol chopper, because Todo is essentially giving Leon tacit approval for disobeying his orders. For a man who, in earlier episodes, seems to think that Todo is just about useless except for interfering with serious police work, Leon's thanking Todo is a major change of heart, and Leon's tone of voice seems to indicate that "Thanks" was pretty hard for him to say.
- Nene: Much to my personal liking, Nene gets some more screen time and character development in this episode, just as she did in Revenge Road. One of the more obvious things is that Nene, as smart as she is, is also more than a little bit conceited. In the car, when Nene is driving herself and Leon back from the morgue, Nene makes a comment that she'll have to be careful too, since all the pretty girls are being killed by the supposed "vampire". Her comment even stops the normally unfazable Leon for a second or two. And in Hot Legs, when she and Linna are talking about Priss' new motorcycle friend Sylvie, Nene makes the comment that there's no way that Sylvie could hold a candle to her beauty, as if no-one could possibly be more beautiful than Nene.
Other development points include Nene's conversation with Sylia and a couple of other interesting observations about Nene in Hot Legs. During her conversation with Sylia, Nene shows a couple of things. The first is that she's pretty good at keeping track of details, since she very completely recounts all of Leon's observations about the 33-S Boomer to Sylia. The second is that Nene has sex on the brain. What I mean by this is that she reacts with almost childlike enthusiasm when Sylia mentions that the 33-S was a Sexaroid, a Boomer created for the express purpose of physical pleasure. In Hot Legs, again in her conversation with Linna, Nene is in opposition to Linna's initial criticisms, praising Sylvie, at least until the two meet. Nene's facial expressions upon meeting Sylvie seems to indicate a little jealousy (Sylvie is, after all, very beautiful, which Nene admits to Sylia later) and even a little suspicious discomfort. It's almost as if Nene seems to know intuitively that Sylvie is more than just a pretty woman.
- Linna: Linna again is left relatively unchanged in this episode, with one interesting exception. When Linna and Nene are talking about Sylvie in Hot Legs, before Priss comes out to say "hi", Linna is rather critical of Sylvie. But as soon as Sylvie makes her appearance, Linna is more outgoing and friendly than Nene, who had been praising Sylvie up until that point. This suggests a level of duplicity or hypocrisy that I find personally disturbing. But the interesting thing is that it's Linna who seems duplicitous, considering that it's also Linna who lives the most stereotypically "normal" life of any of the Knight Sabers. Considering the level of hypocrisy, duplicity, and badmouthing of people behind their backs I see in real people, perhaps Linna's potential duplicity isn't that strange after all.
On the other hand, it could be that Linna was genuinely impressed by Sylvie, and that her instant change of heart is genuine. Considering how fickle Linna is with regards to her boyfriends, that quick of a change certainly wouldn't be out of the question.
- Chief Todo: In this episode, we see a slightly different Chief Todo than in Born to Kill. In Born to Kill, Chief Todo is presented as a hard-ass for police procedures and something of a toady for his politically motivated superiors in the AD Police hierarchy. He seems to feel that Leon is out of control and can't possibly understand the realities that the Chief has to face everyday.
But in Moonlight Rambler, Chief Todo is developed a little more. He's still impatient with Leon's overconfidence, but he's also portrayed as a man who's resentful and not just a little bitter about his having to deal with the politics that comes down the chain of command. Chief Todo is very well aware of the realities of his position and his place in the world, another source of resentment. On the other hand, Todo also understands his position as it relates to Leon and the rest of the officers under his command. While it means that he's ultimately responsible for their actions, Todo also knows when his men are on the right trail and when that trail is being covered up by the corrupt politicians who write his paycheck. When that happens, Todo, as he does in this episode, is willing to help his officers, albeit somewhat surreptitiously, as he helps Leon with the D.D. Battlemover when he "orders" Leon not to take a K-12S equipped transport chopper. Leon and Todo both know that Leon will get chewed out by Todo if anything goes wrong, but they both know that it's the right thing to do, even if the big boys wouldn't agree.
Basically, Todo shows that he's not a bad guy in general, just that he has a set of rules and realities that he has to work within.
- Daley: For the first time in the series, we actually get to see Daley Wong upset about something. This occurs when Chief Todo orders Daley to go up to the Genaros Station and get the Commander's statement as a formality. Daley, who feels that there's more of a story than Todo is admitting to with that order, is naturally upset. But until now, we've never seen Daley really upset about anything. He's always seemed very calm and pragmatic, in opposition to Leon's firebrand temper. This episode shows that even Daley can lose his characteristic composure when he feels an obvious injustice is being done.
Episode Analysis There's quite a bit of depth in this episode. In fact, Moonlight Rambler is one of the deeper episodes in the entire series.
First off, there are some interesting sexuality questions raised in this issues, mostly relating to whether or not various characters are heterosexual or not. As I mentioned above, Sylia's comments with regard to meeting Sylvie seem to have a more personal than professional tone. But a more obvious question arises between Sylvie and Anri. Their dress and facial expressions when Sylvie is pumping human blood into Anri's veins may be no more than just a couple of sexually comfortable close women friends, or even gratuitous titillation for male viewers, but the sexual content seems to be more than that. But it's interesting that the female characters who present the most potentially lesbian characteristics are two machines, two Boomers, and not real people. And what's the deal between Priss and Sylvie? Their friendship appears to have blossomed really quickly, and this episode is one of the premier reasons that some fans consider Priss to be bisexual or lesbian herself. I don't see it, personally, but that's just me.
A couple more issues related to the 33-S Sexaroid are that they are Boomer who were specifically designed for sex. Their eyes are able to mesmerize on eye contact, a function probably originally designed to enhance physical pleasure. The 33-S is also the only Boomer ever to have been banned. Ostensibly, they were banned because they went out of control when certain combat Boomer parts were implanted into them, but their sexual nature begs the question - Is that really why the 33-S was banned? I personally think, and I think that the various sexuality issues presented by Nene, Leon, Sylia, and both Sylvie and Anri supports the conclusion that the official reason was the 33-S going out of control, but the real reason was that the 33-S was a Boomer slave designed for sex. There's another, even more important reason, but I'll get to that in a moment.
A couple more comparably minor issues raised in this episode are corporate and government interference with police investigations and what kind of life is it that requires killing to survive. The first issue is raised repeatedly in Bubblegum Crisis, always with Genom or the UN (in this case, the UN and Genom through the SDPC) pressuring the VIPs in charge of the AD Police to drop a case. The second issue is an interesting question which really isn't answered by the episode. Anri and Sylvie both wanted to be free of their imprisonment aboard the Genaros Station, yet they were both slaves to their imperfect bodies, and Sylvie had to kill humans to maintain their degrading systems. What kind of life is that, really? As I said, this question is raised, but not answered.
But the main themes of this episode are freedom and, to an even greater extent, humanity. Both Sylvie and Anri, and indeed all five of the renegade 33-S's in the Genaros Station at the start of the episode, want to be free. None of them are, yet they are willing to die, to sacrifice themselves, to live free or, in the end, to help their friends to live free. Boomers are inherently property in the world of Bubblegum Crisis, yet these Boomers are so close to human that it would take a close examination with instruments to realize that they weren't. They're very tough to kill, and they're very beautiful, but they're also very intelligent and have the same emotions and drives that any real human does. Are they then any less human for having been created?
Moonlight Rambler shows that, in many respects, the best of the machines are closer to being human than the true humans are. Sylvie and Anri care for each other, and Sylvie sacrifices herself to save her friends and, indeed, all of MegaTokyo. Sylvie and Anri are so close to human physiologically that they even have tear ducts and cry. Anri feels guilt over what Sylvie has to do (kill human beings) to keep her alive, and wants Sylvie to stop at one point. And all five of the 33-S's have high hopes for the future, even if only two of them ultimately escape Genaros. But look close at the human beings for a comparison. Humanity looks at the 33-S as a dangerous toy, as a tool, nothing more. No matter how intelligent the Boomer may be, it is still property and still treated as such. Sylia seems to care not at all that Sylvie was a good person, only that she (and, by extension, Anri) was a Boomer instead of a human. Daley hates the concept of going up to a space station filled with Boomers simply because they're Boomers, as if that were good enough.
When the machines behave more humanely than the human beings, what, precisely, defines a human being? Is biology the only remaining identifier, or is there some immutable essence? And in a world where intelligent beings are slaves, and the machines have the audacity to look exactly like a human being, and even when those machines may show each other more human compassion than the humans show each other, is it any surprise that the 33-S was banned? I don't think so.
As a final comment, there is a strong undercurrent against racism in this episode, but as it is really a greater issue in Red Eye's than in this episode, I haven't covered it in detail.
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Revised - September 21, 2000
