One of the most iconic fictional rules of time travel comes from the show Lost, the rule that you need a constant or anchor when jumping. through time or else you'll pretty much go crazy. Vivy: Flourite Eye's Song is an ambitious time travel tale spanning a century with multiple timejumps, and it could have very easily spun out of control, but it manages to stay anchored and grounded thanks to its fantastic robotic protagonist.
Vivy: Flourite Eye's Song is a show about the titular singer AI being recruited to stop a human-AI 100 years in the making by correcting pivotal points in history. Each arc of Vivy takes place during a different one of these important points in time, and the anime as a whole takes place over the course of these 100 years. With multiple timejumps and only 13 episodes, it could have been easy for Vivy to completely spin out of control, but it doesn't. I get the sense that writers were able to fully plan out a fictional history for the world Vivy takes place in, and being able to see the big events during this important century leads to a lot of great world-building. In addition, while the story jumps around, the main character Vivy's character arc is incredibly well-paced and natural. Vivy is such a great protagonist, you can feel how she evolves from a robotic AI who can't sing well to a far more emotional character who sings with all her heart. Her arc revolves around the theme of how you can sing with your heart if you're an AI, which falls right into the fascinating discussions on robots I like to see from sci-fi. Vivy's partner is a cube-shaped AI named Matsumoto who has returned from the future to send her on missions to prevent these pivotal points in history. He could have easily been an irritating character with his motor mouth, but his dynamic with Vivy is really charming and we eventually learn he's a bit of a sweetheart.
Vivy's pacing is shockingly great for its premise, managing to squeeze in a whopping six story arcs into its 13-episode-length without any of it feeling rushed or overstuffed. As mentioned above, Vivy's character arc is the anchor that helps the show feel cohesive, but each individual arc stands out on their own as memorable, with my favorite being the Ophelia arc, which managed to take an amnesia storyline (one of my least favorite tropes) and actually make me enjoy it. Between that and the timejumps, I'm impressed at how the writers of Vivy managed to take some really bad tropes and make them actually enjoyable. Another thing I really like that Vivy does is that it doesn't shy away from the cost of Vivy's mission. Sometimes, Vivy's attempts at correcting the past don't work the way she and Matsumoto would have hoped, leading to consequences of their own. Other times, Vivy is forced to deal with the fact that to correct the past, people she cares about are going to have to die. It's absolutely heartwrenching every single time it happens.
As for its presentation, Vivy looks and sounds absolutely amazing. This is my first Wit Studio anime, but they absolutely killed it here. It's not even just the animation that looks great, but the general art direction and usage of CGI looks absolutely stunning at times. The futuristic backdrops, the intricate character designs, it's undeniable that Vivy is an absolute visual treat. The fourth episode in particular has a scene with a spaceship crash that left in complete disbelief that I was even watching an anime, it's that jawdropping! The action scenes are also fantastic, probably some of the best I've seen in an anime. They're fast-paced, kinetic, and incredibly clear, with pretty much zero expository dialogue. Once the action starts and the music kicks in, Vivy goes into overdrive and showcases some of the most fluid animation the show has to offer. The music is also fantastic through and through. Obviously the highlights are the vocal tracks, and I mean all of them. Each arc has its own major theme and they're all fantastic, and the OP quickly rose up the ranks to one of my favorites ever. The background music is fantastic too, though. The mix of piano and synth remind me of games like CrossCode and One Step With Eden, and it all sounds fantastic.
While the whole show was pretty great, there were some episodes (particularly the endings of arcs) that stuck out:
Quarter Note - The Beginning Of The Hundred-Year Journey: This first "arc ending" episode was a pretty bombastic one, culminating in a stunning scene where Vivy jumps off a crumbling building. There's also her first major confrontation with Yugo, and the shocking ending where Vivy is forced to watch as her friend Momoka (who I thought would be a major character) dies in a plane explosion, unable to do anything without altering the timeline further.
Ensemble For Polaris - Our Promise: This episode had everything. The Estella arc ended on a satisfying and heartbreaking note, Vivy got her combat program which would allow for much cooler fight sequences from here on out, and the ending where Estella and Elizabeth sing as they crash the Sunrise is easily one of the best scenes in the series, both for its visual beauty and emotional impact.
Sing My Pleasure - I Love You: While the Metal Float arc wasn't one of my personal favorites, this was easily one of the darkest episodes in the series. The reveal of what happened to Grace is incredibly tragic, and that final scene is even worse. However, this was also a super fun episode with a thrilling chase sequence set to a version of the show's OP, which easily became one of my favorite scenes in the anime.
Harmony Of One's Heart - My Mission, Your Future: This episode was pretty much a 30-minute-long action scene, and it was fantastic. The fight between Vivy and AI Yugo is easily the tightest choreographed in the series, and getting to see Matsumoto duke it out was so damn cool. But this episode also serves as a satisfying and once against sad resolution to the fantastic Ophelia arc, while also finally allowing Vivy to regain her memories of the arcs prior at the cost of all the progress she's made as a singer.
Refrain - My Mission: While the reveal last episode of The Archive being responsible for the AI war was probably the series's best executed twist, this episode really hammered home how well it was all foreshadowed and how much more danger Vivy is in now. Once people started liberally dying during this first attempt at stopping the Archive, I was pretty sure Vivy would have another chance, but it was still shocking just how horribly she failed here. The action this episode was also fantastic, between getting to see her and Elizabeth fight together and that fun chase scene near the end.
Flourite Eye's Song: This is easily one of my favorite finales in any anime I've seen, it really just nails everything. It was so much fun to watch Vivy use all of her knowledge from the past two episodes to come up with the perfect plan and correct all the mistakes that were made the first time, and there are some truly heartwarming moments between her and Matsumoto that show how much they and their friendship has grown. The action was great, Vivy's final song was stunning, and the ending was bittersweet while still being satisfying and rewarding at the same time.
Overall, Vivy: Flourite Eye's Song is easily my anime of the year and is definitely up there with some of my favorite anime of all time. It takes such an unwieldy and ambitious concept and executes it so well, actually managing to utilize some of my least favorite tropes in some of the best ways I've ever seen. The action, animation, and music is jawdropping, the characters are likable, and the twists and emotional moments hit really hard. And to think this was a side project from Wit Studio, they absolutely killed it here.
5/5 Stars
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