Kaiba – Episode 12

Kaiba’s final episode begins with the plant that is its namesake extending its tendrils through space, eager to consume all memories, to devour everything humanity has fought for and built. It is an omen, a warning, and perhaps an inevitability: if we do not tend carefully to the cultivation of human experience, if we do not seek to share what we have and create an edifice that can last into the future, all of our achievements will eventually collapse into the dirt. We will be as the ghosts of that abandoned moon, or even worse – simply an absence where our feet once tread, where we once strove and yearned for eternity, or merely for a better tomorrow. With the powers currently at our disposal, our capacity for self-destruction seems like it will naturally, inevitably overwhelm our capacity for self-preservation.

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Kaiba – Episode 11

We return to Kaiba in a moment of utter catastrophe. Having journeyed halfway across the universe in pursuit of a love he could barely remember, Kaiba’s dreams have turned to nightmares, his life stolen by the very woman he sought to protect. Through the meddling of Popo and his allies, Neyro was conditioned to see her former love as the enemy, another tyrant who must fall in pursuit of a brighter dawn. Only when the damage was done could our star-crossed lovers recognize each other; only in the ruin of Warp’s empire could their promise be fulfilled. In his pursuit of a world without Warp’s all-consuming tyranny, Popo has sacrificed everything that made that pursuit desirable: the hope of a happier world with his friends beside him, where Neyro and Cheki can live freely, both in body and mind.

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Kaiba – Episode 10

With Neyro and the Warp she knew as Kaiba tragically reunited, our tenth episode begins just before their first meeting, at the moment their story began. We open with Warp flying high above his planet of swirling canyons and grasping towers, his strange and claustrophobic kingdom. Dirt below and smog above; it is an oddly insular world, in spite of his position on the throne of this transhumanist empire. The more you seek to control your world, the more narrow that world will become; we cannot hope to claim ownership over humanity’s sprawling potential, only limit that potential to the point where it can fit within our grasp. Humanity can only express its true vibrancy unchained; we have seen the brightness of humanity struggling onward in the private margins of this world, but here in the seat of Warp’s power, there is nothing but refuse and resentment.

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Kaiba – Episode 9

Kaiba’s ninth episode begins much like its predecessor, with the alleged “King Warp” in the shower, gingerly dressing his wounds while his mechanical overseers question him on what went wrong, and why they can sense blood. As before, words that could theoretically be meant kindly are here known as anything but – though they masquerade as caretakers, his robot guardians are more like sharks, smelling weakness and circling for the kill. To stand at the pinnacle of this world is to surrender all privacy, all anonymity. He is in truth not actually the ruler of this world, but merely its most elevated cog: the crown-shaped screw adorning a machine that is fundamentally indifferent to all of its component individuals, knowing each of them are just parts that will eventually be replaced.

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Kaiba – Episode 8

After half a season of rambling episodic tales with diverse thematic takeaways, Kaiba’s eighth episode finds itself falling victim to that enduring foe of metaphorical fiction: narrative continuity. With our protagonist’s fate uncertain following Vanilla’s heroic sacrifice, our story turns to the planet highlighted in the show’s opening, the planet of rule and rebellion. Here, the tyrannical Warp rules from on high in a body that’s strangely familiar, while Lord Dada foments rebellion below, aided by his chief accomplices Popo and Neyro. The course of this episode resolves as so many dominoes tumbling into place, the falsehoods of both Warp and Dada breaching the surface as the friends Kaiba has long grasped towards make their final stand.

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Kaiba – Episode 7

Since its beginning, Kaiba has presented little reason for hope regarding the future of its universe. Though there is allegedly some sort of rebellion pushing back against this transhumanist-by-way-of-capitalist hierarchy, from our position on a pleasure barge, such interference has amounted to nothing more than fireworks seen from a great distance. We have witnessed the full solidification of class stratum while safely ensconced in a luxury cruise liner. And though these circumstances have provided distance, they certainly haven’t offered comfort; in fact, our position has only made this world’s crimes seem all the more horrifying.

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Kaiba – Episode 6

After several episodes spent exploring the individual human tragedies fomented by Kaiba’s system of purchasing bodies, wherein debt slavery can steal not just your time and labor, but your very ability to interact with the world, episode five brought us to the bleeding edge of transhumanism. The promise of new limbs and healthy bodies for those suffering from disease or injury has been discarded; after all, what good is a customer who purchases your product and is then content, with no desire to make future purchases? No, the customers for this miracle technology must be perpetually discontent, always purchasing the latest in body-morphing innovations, and never satisfied with the results. The future of capitalism is a donkey chasing a carrot on a string, while consistently paying his masters for the privilege.

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Kaiba – Episode 5

Kaiba’s last episode was a tragic story of grief and abandonment, ending with the deaths of all parties involved. The episode before that was another story of grief and abandonment, ending with a mother sobbing over her sold-off daughter. In the world of Kaiba, the tensions of our daily lives are drawn to an unbearable tautness by the encroaching influence of biotechnological capitalism. These characters live in squalor and poverty, but many people throughout history have lived such. What sets Kaiba apart is the fullness of capitalism’s reach, and the uniquely terrible bargains it is sanctioned to make. Here, even our bodies are commodities – in fact, for the poor, they are one of the few commodities they possess with any real value. For the rich, this enables a dazzling new world of personal experience; for the poor, their bodies are just one more thing to be sold, one more thing that can be possessed to account for their debts.

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Kaiba – Episode 4

What is truly precious, or irreplaceable? In the world of Kaiba, where both bodies and memories can be bought and sold, it can begin to feel like nothing has any genuine value. Cronico sold her body to help her family, but it only brought her stepmother more grief. Meanwhile, her “precious” memories were ultimately tossed out like garbage, to float into the firmament like a lost balloon. Ultimately, Cronico’s body at least allowed Kaiba to sneak back onto the cruiser; but even that was an insidiously transactional process, relying on the wanton, lascivious hungers of the Chief of Security. Only the opening song seems to disagree – as hands flash through a myriad of forms, their determination to connect remains undiminished. Might we perhaps hold onto love, or at least its memory?

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Kaiba – Episode 3

Past shimmering stars and an aurora of souls, Kaiba has fled. Pursued by Vanilla, the cruise liner’s bloodthirsty head of security, Kaiba has run through cities and slums, stowed away in luggage compartments, and fired off in an escape pod, seeking a reunion with the one he loves, or perhaps just an escape from this world’s injustices. But in a world like Kaiba’s, there is no true escape from violence or injustice; with capitalism having even claimed dominion over our bodily autonomy, violence and injustice are woven into the system itself. Even in our own world, homes can be stolen, families ripped apart, and lives destroyed, all with perfect legality and systemic support. In a world where even your body isn’t yours to keep, where can you possibly run to, and what can you consider home?

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