When Lacia heads to be under a control of a Mad Scientist, Arato steps in and confesses to her that he is in love with her. Lacia who always been mechanical in terms of body and personality actually felt touch by it. Arato made his choice to be with Lacia and Lacia made her choice to be with Arato by destroying the device that registers new owners. She would rather be ownerless than under the control of someone other than Arato. And judging by how she continue to squeeze that device to dust, she looks ready to kick some ass which counts as a Moment of Awesome.
As small as it was, it was genuinely sweet that Kouka sympathies with Kengo about how both are behind compared to their more accomplished acquaintances. This act of kindred spirits raise Kouka's spirits who has been down ever since the beginning of Episode 15.
Try and keep a straight face whenever Memeframe Corporation is mentioned.
The concept of "analog hacking" is so oddly named and explained for what amounts to be emotional manipulation by hIEs.
The damaged hIEs moving and attacking like zombies in episodes 10 and 11 make it difficult to see the situation as horrific as it was intended.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: The overarching issue is whether highly intelligent and life-like machines, who can turn men's heads by looking and acting like attractive girls, should be let loose in society. Will they contribute or do damage? What will the five elite hIEs show us? However, the plot is bogged down by lengthy exposition, diffuse motivations and a sense of losing direction. By the end of the first season, "Why?" is the main question among the remaining viewers.
Kengo strongly dislikes hIEs and might have a point, but he doesn't consider (until it's too late) that his careless actions are likely to hurt his family. Confirmed that he actually didn't believe in his own nonsense as it was all just him just jealous about his friends and his hatred has now become just petty. Harsher in Hindsight that Kengo gets arrested for his actions but this is still just comeuppance finally caught up to him.
Ryo and humanity themselves are these except Arato and several others. All of them ranged from total morons, hypocrites or self entitled bastards. Even if Lacia is at her worst, she is presented in a better light thanks to how she treated Arato better and more concerned about him than Arato's so called friends who occasionally insults him behind his back or right in front of him. Which doesn't help their case when Lacia, Shiori and Erica actually agrees that this current generation has made the future a Crapsack World and what Lacia summarized about humans is on point.
Vanilla Protagonist: Arato's background and personality is a more plain in comparison to his other human friends, and this gets more noticeable as his friends gain ownership of the other Red Box hIEs.
