Kaiba’s second episode opens on a monologue that serves as both a description of its world, and an articulation of its central question. “Are memories one’s soul, or one’s spirit? This is a world where memories can be turned into data, and stored.” The age-old question of where our fundamental “identity” resides is further complicated by the next line, as the narrator explains that in this world, “bad memories are deleted, while fun memories are downloaded.” If memories can be altered, it seems inappropriate to consider them our “soul” – but if we are nothing but that collection of memories, being altered and bartered and passed from body to body, what other selfhood could we be said to possess?

In light of that question, Kaiba’s opening song feels almost like a prayer, as a gentle voice speaks of wishing to reunite with another, while arms slowly reach out to one another. These arms are not stable shapes – they transform rapidly, acknowledging the fluidity of bodily form that is this universe’s defining feature. But in spite of their changes, these two arms clasp tightly, the bond of Kaiba and Neyro maintained even as their physical shapes change. In a world where both bodies and memories are bought and sold, that unbreakable connection feels like an expression of hope – that there is some spark or fragment which is truly “us,” and that our truest selfhood might be best expressed through our unwavering love for another.

But while Kaiba’s opening is full of hope, its second episode finds us deep in its world’s nightmarish reality, as Kaiba finds himself stowing away on a space-faring ship, trapped in a stuffed animal body with limited mobility and no voice at all. Kaiba’s drama inherently demands we detach our sense of personal identity from our bodies, or at least recognize the ways in which our sense of self can be naturally shaped by them. Those who are already trapped or inaccurately represented by their bodies understand this intuitively, but it is a horrifying thing to feel trapped within the wrong frame. Kaiba isn’t necessarily clumsy and ineffectual, but he has been tethered to a clumsy, ineffectual body – and if that body is your only way of interacting with the world, you’ll naturally begin to see yourself as clumsy and ineffectual. Our bodies and minds might be separate, but the way our bodies interact with the world, and are perceived by others, cannot help but filter back to our perception of self.

The inherent horror of this situation is also facilitated by Kaiba’s distinct visual design. Kaiba’s exaggerated, Tezuka-esque characters feel both malleable and childlike, emphasizing the show’s central conceit while also creating a natural dramatic tension, as enslavement and brutal violence are enacted upon these simplified, childlike creatures. The background architecture amplifies this effect, offering a world that feels like a child’s dream, with uneven linework and no clearly delineating outlines. The end result is a world that feels both childlike and on the verge of dissolution, an organic mass with no stable form – like a nightmare take on Dr. Seuss.

Trapped in the luggage compartment, Kaiba comes across another stowaway, the energetic Kochu. Kochu switches outfits with little disregard for Kaiba’s presence, her nonchalance seemingly reflecting the feeble nature of Kaiba’s current body. Little details like Kochu’s brush, which is only used to brush her one swirly hair antenna, add incongruous playfulness to a scene that is ultimately full of more bleak reflections on the nature of this world. Kochu’s clothes are ragged, and she’s only stowing away at all because she and her boyfriend could only afford a single ticket – Kaiba never lets you forget the class context that would surely inform any pursuit of transhumanism, or the commodification of identity that would result.

The nature of bodies as commodities, and of the underclass as a consumable resource, is given vivid demonstration through Kaiba’s brief visit to the closet of the woman who stole his own body. As Kaiba watches through fragmented panels, this woman treats his old body as a sex doll piloted by her own copied consciousness, while crying out for total annihilation. The shattering of his identity, and lack of connection with his own body, is conveyed vividly through the quasi-cubist disintegration of bodies in the curtain. Body stolen and repurposed, Kaiba has been truly torn to pieces by this woman, any illusion of “this is me” violently dispelled.

Even actually succeeding in this world feels like a nightmarish proposition. As Kochu tells it, when she achieves her own wealth she’ll “get rid of the bad memories, and fill my head with only fun things!” This idea of self-lobotomizing to sculpt your happiest selfhood seems monstrous, but in truth, it’s not actually that different from how wealth works in our own world. The truly rich are able to float above the cruel context of the ordinary world, their gaiety and charitable nature unmarred by any ugly experiences. Kaiba only takes the cushion of wealth a single step further, allowing the rich to apply their wealth backwards, and scrub themselves of any unpleasant memories or unflattering truths.

But while news briefs on the ship’s monitors tell us of this world’s larger atrocities, like the loss of 200,000 body-bereft souls in a recent data breach, both episode two’s drama and its politics are most searing when they remain close and personal. Eventually, Kochu’s fears about her boyfriend Butter are proven correct, as we learn Butter has been convincing a vast number of girls to smuggle memory chips for him. Kochu’s journey seems like it’s headed towards a storybook ending, as Butter redeems himself by taking the fall, and Kochu is left to wonder at what might have been – and then, the disinterested guard simply shoots them both. It’s a punchline that feels designed to remind us that narrative fulfillment, or even right and wrong, have little relevance in a world like this. Worlds like this, and frequently our own, are not defined by justice – they are defined by power. In the end, whether Kochu was a victim or Butter a cad doesn’t really matter; the guard is the man with the power, and he assigned both of them no value at all.

In a world like this, perhaps even getting to choose how you leave it is a rare gift. None of those two hundred thousand souls expected they’d exit like that, as political grist and unfulfilled promises – nor did Kochu think that her domestic conflicts, until recently just a source of personal anxiety, would end in her getting gunned down by an indifferent cop. If anyone “chooses” their end in this episode, it is the woman who stole Kaiba’s body, who literally destroys herself in a flurry of self-scouring auto-erotic bliss. Of course, even that might not be an escape – for as the police inform her panicked, copied self, bodies are valuable property, and destroying property is a serious crime.

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