I'm gonna call this series Vivy for short throughout this review, cause there ain't no way I'm writing that entire title over and over again.

At first glance, Vivy’s premise reminded me a lot of Terminator: AIs in the future suddenly go insane and start murdering every human around them, so some science dude builds some other AI (that didn’t go crazy because it’s special or something) and sends it 100 years back in time, to the era where AI science had just started developing, in order to change certain events in history so that the terrible future in another 100 years will be prevented.

This is where the clichés end.

The story of Vivy starts in the year 2061, with the first AI ever built- Diva (also known by her other name- Vivy). In 2061, robots that are programmed to do some single tedious job so that humans don’t have to are a pretty common sight, But Vivy is the first fully-functioning, human-like, artificial intelligence- and definitely not the last, as we see later. She was created for one purpose alone: To make people happy with her singing.

Vivy’s life flips over when the Singularity project starts, a project she is included in… Without her knowing a single thing about it or being given any warning. An AI named Matsumoto comes to visit her and claims that he arrived from 100 years in the future, and was sent to stop the war between humans and AIs that happens in that future from happening. Granted, Vivy doesn’t really believe him in the beginning, thinking he is a virus, but ends up cooperating with him. And that’s how their 100-year journey starts- with Vivy just living her life as an idol and Matsumoto travelling in time and coming to visit Vivy every few years in order to grab her for another mission.
I think that the first thing that made me get into the series so quickly was the opening scene. This is the scene that depicts the AIs going insane and murdering humans. I won’t spoil exactly what happens there, but I will just say that it’s brilliantly directed, hitting you in an extremely unexpected way, leaving you in absolute shock. It’s no generic “robots massacring the helpless” scene, but in my opinion is one of the most powerful (and also pretty disturbing…) opening scenes I have ever seen in a TV show. Just watch it, it’s really a brilliant scene in my opinion.

…Anyways.

Vivy is divided into short story arcs spanning two episodes each (mostly with a cliffhanger in between), with each arc being a little mission of changing a certain event in history that, according to Matsumoto, was a major event that led to the war in the future. If you’re asking why the series is 13 episodes long… well… forget it. Anyways, every arc depicts a certain important event in the development of AI science, which in most cases effected the world in pretty unpleasant ways. Vivy and Matsumoto just swing by and fix those events. Of course, not everything always goes quite as planned, and the series develops a bunch of little but generally pretty good action plots about how they resolve those problems. Combine that with great animation, an awesome soundtrack, and the animation studio that made the first three seasons of Attack on Titan, and you get an overall very enjoyable experience. However, all of these little plots combine into Vivy and Matsumoto’s 100 year journey- and here begins the reason I love this series so much.

Vivy is an artificial intelligence. As in, it’s not that she’s programmed to imitate emotions in order to look human, but her mind is supposed to function like a human one, and she can think, feel, and develop her own opinions. But… She doesn’t know how to do that. She wasn’t raised like humans. The first thing she saw was a lab, and she was then just told to do her one mission: Make people happy with her singing. She was never exposed to any form of emotion, and hence has no idea of what exactly her emotions are and how they work- she only knows the dictionary definition. As an idol singer, she wasn’t popular at all- even though her body is beautiful, she has an amazing voice and can sing any song to perfection- and a little girl once told her that this is because she “doesn’t really pour her hart into her singing”, and only repeats a bunch of words in a certain melody. This idea leaves Vivy very confused, and she spends most of the series trying to understand what her emotions are and what does it mean to pour your heart into something. I know, this idea might be a little worn out, but what isn’t worn out is the execution. This concept of the AI that can’t understand emotion is quite well known- but it’s mostly used as comic relief more than anything else (the most shining example being Lt. Commander Data from Star Trek. Don’t get me wrong though, he’s absolutely great). Vivy is a character that actually explores the idea of what emotion is to someone emotionless- and this is executed perfectly. The creators managed to write Vivy to look and feel just like a real human- but I never forget that she is actually an AI, something that happens in so many other AIs in different shows- which are basically just humans with superpowers and varying levels of personality, most of the time. Vivy is nothing like that. She starts as an apathic Artificial intelligence, just trying to do her job and showing almost no emotions or thoughts whatsoever, and throughout the series develops to be… Not an actual human, but the most human-like AI I have seen in my life. I absolutely love how the series uses this concept to explore ideas such as “What actually makes a person who they are?” and “What does it mean if you really care about something?”- which to us look sort of like obvious things, but we see it through the eyes of a character that really can’t grasp those ideas like we do. The entire series shows us Vivy’s journey of exploring herself- slowly but surely, she builds herself opinions, feelings, desires and maybe even a heart. We also see, in a very interesting way, how the way in which Vivy tackles different situations, like when unexpected problems come up in her missions with Matsumoto, changes. Can an artificial intelligence develop over this journey, and can it make decisions in a different way than the normal AI learning concept, but according to its own intuitions and ideas? Can an artificial intelligence develop a spirit or soul? Vivy is a character that explores all of those ideas, and all of this together has solidified her as my favorite fictional character ever written.

Then there are the other AIs. I mentioned how the series is split into two-episode stories. Those stories all help build Vivy as a character, and every story explores a different side of being human. If you would like an example, the first one is the idea of free rights for AIs- with the event being, the first time that a government law was offered that gave a few rights to human-made machines- a very interesting idea, because, well, they’re just machines after all, but are theoretically human in every aspect- so should they have their own rights? The rest of the ideas in the series (which I won’t spoil because they just become more surprising and intriguing as the series continues) are built pretty much in the same way- “The first time that something happens which changes human’s perception of AIs – and the AI’s perception of themselves”. Every single time, this concept is used to present some really interesting ideas that are always perfectly structured and executed.

One thing that might bother some people is the fact that this is a story that spans a century with very large time skips, so most side characters appear only for an episode or two and their personality couldn’t really be explored. You know what? That doesn’t bother me at all, because what they are used for is the further exploration of all the philosophical ideas that I mentioned above, and they, of course, also affect and help the development of Vivy herself. They are still a bunch of pretty solid characters, so it could have been nice if they were talked about a little more, but I think that ultimately, it’s not that important. The only other character worth mentioning is, of course, Matsumoto. The idea of time travel that changes the events of the future is pretty common in Sci-Fi shows, and the same thing happens with the AI known as Matsumoto. He traveled back in time, and Vivy initially thought him to be a virus- but this excellent character, who is basically the sidekick, is the one that affects Vivy’s decision making throughout the series and generally helps her grow as a character. Except for that, allow me to quickly mention his personality- He’s wacky, weird, annoying, speaks in a speed of 5000 words per minute and I absolutely loved him. He also sees Vivy as his sidekick, which makes for some great comic relief. Overall, I enjoyed every moment he was on screen- he is the perfect partner that appears in the precise moment and makes everything more enjoyable and interesting.

Now that we got the plot and characters out of the way, let’s dedicate a paragraph to the technical qualities of Vivy. First things first: The art. Marvelous. Absolutely marvelous. The series does a really cool thing with changing the art style every so often, in all kinds of impactful or emotional moments, and this is executed perfectly. Generally, it’s absolutely amazing. Second: Direction. I don’t think there are many animation studios that can compete with Wit studio when it comes to the direction of action scenes. Every single fight flows smoothly and perfectly and never gets boring for a second. Third: Animation. Did I already mention this was the same studio that did Attack on Titan? Well, to be fair, the animation isn’t quite on the same level, but it’s still very good and goes great with the awesome action. Fourth: Voice acting. Tanezaki did a great job as Vivy, also by portraying Vivy’s emotional development throughout the series through her voice and also by singing the OP and every other song in the series in Vivy’s voice. I also really like Matsumoto’s voice acting- Fukuyama managed to bring Matsumoto’s quirky and sometimes annoying attitude to life perfectly, making him even more enjoyable to watch. Fifth: The soundtrack. Except for the great opening theme, this is generally a series about music- and not only is the soundtrack great and accompanies the series’ events really well, but also the songs that Vivy sings throughout the show fit really nicely with the events happening at the time. They represent Vivy’s growth in an exceptional way, helping to emphasize the state of Vivy’s development of her heart and emotion.

And… that’s it. After about two hours of my life and an essay almost two thousand words long, I think (and sincerely hope) that I managed to put into words what made me love Vivy so much. But if you are part of the 95% of the public that didn’t bother reading all this because of the length, allow me to make things short: Vivy is an absolutely brilliant show, packed with great action and gorgeous artwork, great animation and soundtrack, that at the same time explores a whole lot of awesomely intriguing ideas that are presented perfectly- and it’s only 13 episodes long! It’s short, it’s sweet, and it gave me some of the most incredible 4 and a half hours I’ve ever had in my life. Overall, an absolute masterpiece. I rate it 10 out of 10.