天下制覇

You know, had they just based this off of Simon and Garfunkel's I Am a Rock, this arc would've come out much better.

Impressions:

Well, that was anticlimactic. I fully expected to be let down by the FRIENDSHIP YAY lesson of the fortnight, but expected at least something to explain this bizarre world. To summarize, an AI has apparently conquered it and has total brainwashing technology, which sometimes works but sometimes doesn't with no rhyme or reason, and keeps some people in pitch black cages crammed in like sardines, while others are allowed a life of brainwashed paradise. It also has the power to keep people permanently trapped in virtual reality, unable to tell that they're even in there, but reserves that for only one person. Also, I guess it's psychic, because it can pull your nightmares out of your head, even if they're magical, and give them physical form. Its second line of defense is to throw pillars. In the server room. That is kept under water.

I think the thing that annoys the most is the off-handed reveal that Chloe had been trapped in the Matrix for some indeterminate amount of time. That feels like the thing that should have been the 'surprise' twist at the culmination of the arc, not to mention would've been an excuse for all the particularly weird nonsense in the fight at the end. It's all VR. Screw the rules. Instead, they just roll right over that and move on. This world is also bizarre enough that I feel like it needed at least some explanation as to how it ended up under the dominion of an AI with the only pocket of resistance being a couple random girls on islands. What was the AI even trying to do? They have their NO MAN IS AN ISLAND platitude, but missed an opportunity to actually tie it to something. Even if it had just been the AI spouting some crap about people being most stable/safe/secure when separated/on their own, that would've been something. A weak something, but still something. I suppose it still compares favorably to the other two characters and their 'arcs', but that's not saying much.