Kaiba 02 “Stowaways”

The 2nd episode of Kaiba continues as an exploration of its world and also as a piece of cinema vérité. The primary subject of this episode isn’t Warp or Hyo-hyo who is supporting him on his journey. Instead, it is a character named Butter who transforms from a reluctant boyfriend to a monster over the course of 20 minutes.

The story of the episode first as Warp and Hyo-hyo get used to their surroundings in the storage area with the former in a new body which is unable to speak. A girl named Kochu introduces herself, while also alluding to her own situation by asking if Warp’s master was sipping fine wine.

The dynamic of the episode has changed from episode one already. The character of Warp truly becomes an observer just by losing the ability to speak. That isn’t to say that role is completely powerless, but that comes later in the episode.

Warp and Hyo-hyo stumble around a bit more before accidentally falling into a tunnel to the room where Warp’s former body was engaged in extreme sexual activity with the woman who had rescued him. They got out of there quickly, where upon Kochu quickly introduced them to her boyfriend Butter. He wasn’t very sociable with them, obviously. Warp observes a sea of eggs outside of the ship which Kochu says are the memories expelled from dead bodies.

The scene of the eggs floating by the ship is something that looks aesthetically beautiful, but on the other hand is actually a tragedy. What the ship is actually sailing through is this world’s equivalent of a mass grave.

Later, Butter snuck away and Kochu was suffering from nightmares about the thought that Butter did not love her since he had her stowed away as he slept in comfort. Later, she looked for a set of panties only to stumble upon a bunch of memory chips that had been packed with her. In the midst of this we learn that the memories of thousands of people had been sent into space and the primary suspect is named Neiro, and she happens to be the one in the photo Warp had with her. While Vanilla used a device to create a woman.

Kochu then confronts Butter at his room with the spare chips and a large pair of pants, and soon discovers that there was a different woman in the room. The disturbance draws Vanilla who demands to see tickets. The new woman and Butter are quick to show their tickets, but having a grasp of what was really happening and feeling he had to do something in front of the assemble bystanders, Vanilla wanted a confession from Butter. That he would get, and Vanilla responded by shooting him, and then shooting Kochu, who did not have a chip, so she turned into memory eggs which were sucked out into space.

This scene actually played out quite comically, with Kochu’s confrontation with a big pair of pants, and the other girl being a caricature of a woman with gigantic breasts. Then being immediately sold out by the other 2 in front of Vanilla. Of course this all ends as she’s killed by Vanilla, but that itself brings insight into this world. Vanilla shot fully expecting death not to be a possibility, but stowaways on this ship wouldn’t be able to afford to have their memories converted over into chips.

Warp was unable to pull himself away, so Hyo-hyo pulled him away. That was only for them to return to the room where Warp’s old body was pushing the woman’s body beyond its limits. She knew she was being observed, but was all the more willing to continue with it. As she approached her end, she had a flashback of chasing after her father who is revealed to be Butter, who she imagines to be watching her.

This was an interesting scene to me because it started as simple voyeurism. It became mutually beneficial for all parties as the climax literally approached. However, by the end it became something different by throwing a flashback in. By imagining her father as the voyeur, her own destruction became the way with which she chose to exact revenge against her father.

The end comes spectacularly in an explosion of colors. Vanilla arrives quickly to investigate, where it is revealed that a copy of the woman’s memories is in Warp’s body. He sets about destroying the original’s memory chip before Vanilla freezes him. Vanilla’s superior arrived and stopped him before he could finish off the clone, and asked to investigate the inside of the new body. Vanilla begrudgingly accepts.

The captain then climbed into the clone’s memories which were filled with images of the woman in compromising positions before Hyo-hyo intervened and shut off the machine which trapped the captain inside. Warp and Hyo-hyo ran away as Vanilla shot at them, with Warp taking significant damage. They do ultimately make it to an escape pod where the adventure will continue in the next episode. Not before the end of this episode in which a group of children are found stowed away, and looking for Butter.

By the end of the episode, we have the complete transformation of this odd-looking man named Butter from anti-social cheap boyfriend material to faithless scoundrel and memory trafficker to human trafficker in children by the end.