Akudama Drive Episode 7

It’s funny because I had predicted that one of them would end up being an imposter/a spy but because so much stuff happens every episode, I had completely forgotten about my theory. Well, I was right but I was wrong on who the spy was but man that was a cool twist! I had thought at first that maybe Doctor’s interest was piqued based on the whole immortality thing, seeing as how she’s a doctor and she must be hungry for knowledge and wanted it all to herself. But no, she agreed to work with the executioners so she could be taken off the Akudama list. What a sneak.

It explains her insistence of learning who the children were and what their objective was, since she had a job to do this whole time. Doctor just became way more interesting now that she betrayed them all. She’s sort of been in the background where I felt the other characters were in the spotlight more and a little more entertaining and interesting. I had expected maybe Swindler or Courier to be the spies so it’s fun to see it was someone else I wasn’t expecting.

Everyone makes it to Expo Park and we finally learn the truth about Brother and Sister, while also getting a little background on Expo Park, which was kind of creepy. It’s basically a large underground amusement park/city with all types of cool and wacky things from the past before the war happened, and it was interesting to see some of it since a few things still looked pretty advanced. Also, that one moment where Hoodlum was looking at something and called out for Brawler to see broke my heart. T_T And even while we got some big answers this episode, there’s still so many questions and even some new ones. We learn bit by bit about their world and it seems like the moon landing never happened at all, or at least it’s not general knowledge because none of them except for Brother knew about it. We learn by the end from Boss that the moon was completely destroyed because of the war, and it just makes me wonder what the hell this war was even about and how horrific it was for the MOON OF ALL THINGS to be destroyed. It’s such a crazy thought but it’s interesting to note that their world is so different. I hope the anime actually spends some time showing us the actual war itself since, after learning something insane like that they kind of have to or else it’d be disappointing.

It was obvious that Brother and Sister were human experiments/creations, but seeing the pool of blood just build up with every experiment was an awful thing to see. I’m surprised Brother didn’t end up going insane since he can still feel pain, and they performed horrible experiments like slicing off his head twice. And they happened every single day, this poor child. Obviously things were going to go wrong very quick when we saw the thousands of children in the gymnasium (which reminded me of Danganronpa). It seems that Brother was the most successful of all the children because he was the only “graduate” of his group while all the other children were discarded, and eventually they succeeded with Sister as well. Seeing the pool of corpses was horrifying, but so depressing because Brother had his group of siblings and they had made him a little gift. It seems that Kanto is behind all this and with immortality being achieved, the children were to be sent to Kanto for whatever reason (more experiments?) but Brother was able to use his Professor’s cat body and that’s how everything started. And just when Brother thinks he and his sister can finally taste some freedom, apparently the moon is destroyed and there’s no point going into the rocket, and Doctor betrays them. And yet, he sacrfices himself and pushes Sister and Swindler into the rocket just in time before it took off. Though…he totally had the chance to jump in with them as well since the door closed immediately. Hm.

There’s no way Swindler and Sister are heading to the moon what with the rocket’s trajectory going in the opposite direction from the moon. I’m not sure where they’re headed, but I’m hoping maybe we’ll see Hacker again?

Another thing to note is all the changes in the OP. Yes we got lots of colors this time and splatter on the Akudama’s bodies, but the last bit with their silhouettes is also quite different. Before it was really blurred and we weren’t able to see much at all, but Brawler’s was crystal clear and it showed his death on the bridge. It seems to me that each silhouette shows each character’s deaths, and maybe in that particular order as well. Though it could be possible that not all of them will die but something huge might happen, but if I had to pick which person would survive, it might be either Swindler, Courier, or even Hoodlum? None of theirs seems violent though Hoodlum drowning in debt and making enemies spells danger (as we see in the preview). Courier seems the most chill, and Swindler finds herself in front of graves by herself, making it seem like she was one of the few that survived. Considering she and Courier are the last ones in the sequence, it’s possible that they both might survive. And going by the sequence, Cutthroat will be the next death. I really appreciate the changes to the OP, it’s always so fun when they take the time to do something like this and I’m happily looking forward to the future changes.

A really entertaining episode and I’m excited to see what’ll happen next. I’m not sure what to even expect with the rocket and everything else, so until next time!