Aliens - Vol. 1 Ch. 5 - Smile

[MangaDex]

 

[5hijima]

I don't remember if I noticed or pointed it out but the ship looks like a showerhead

 

[shae_]

Oh, so the original owner was either a freak or someone who deeply missed his wife. But the way she smiles when thinking of Aoi makes me think of a little sister, so maybe a dead sister but he used a sexbot for some reason?

 

[UdenEmpati]

Oh, so the original owner was either a freak or someone who deeply missed his wife. But the way she smiles when thinking of Aoi makes me think of a little sister, so maybe a dead sister but he used a sexbot for some reason?

well the tech mentioned that Aoi almost seemed like an even earlier version of the Mark-15 ("A prototype?"), and everything that predated the Mark-17 models were more like "helpers" than anything.
If it was a sister and not a wife, then it could be that Aoi's specific "type", even if ostensibly a Sexaroid, was incidentally prone to being the most life-like/human-like (probably to get around the uncanny valley during Bedroom Activities), and so that fidelity brought the sister to life in a way no other model could (at least ~20 years ago), and Aoi was purely meant to faithfully emulate a dead human sibling.

Or, it could be that Aoi was the dead man's longer-dead wife, and she just had an innocence and liveliness to her that, again, only that specific type of android could get close to emulating.
Given the tech comments repeatedly on the staggering level of attention to detail and quality in Aoi, even for such an old model, there's something clearly special to her, beyond just the significance to the original, now-deceased owner.

 

[UdenEmpati]

Seeing Aoi taken apart and reduced to a machine, but still having the tech marvel at the sheer quality of her parts and makeup, was more than a little jarring - given it was seen through the eyes of an alien, who possesses little in the way of "context" for what a human being would truly feel in that specific context of circumstances.

But quite interesting, in how - even treated as a machine, and an illegal object at that - the tech could express actual discomfort in the fidelity of Aoi's being despite being a sexbot, even as he spoke at length about how she was clearly not expressing real emotions, whatever the perception of our MC. The two views of "it's just a sexbot, and thinking that she's feeling is a delusion" and "the quality of her build and parts is to an extent that it almost feels like an invasion of someone's privacy to strip her apart to fix her like this" really sells the mixing of perceptions of what being a person means, depending on who is looking and how they're looking.

And of course, that smile at the end really does hint at the potential of something more than "a hallucination" going on. And even if that's not the case....well, it's all up to the perceiver, what the reality truly is, isn't it?

Thank you for the chapter. I'm very, very grateful for the continued work on this series and the story of these two.

 

[Yuri_Enjoyer_Deluxe]

Dumbo dum dum Android is just perfect for this world 🔥

 

[Yuri_Enjoyer_Deluxe]

I don't remember if I noticed or pointed it out but the ship looks like a showerhead

Beat ya to that joke twin 😂 peep the message:

"Showerhead ass UFO, gamers live in fear of this object 😅" - Me, Chapter 1

 

[KZO]

So I'm thinking Aoi really was human, but after she was made a robot she became the prototype of all the future models.

 

[mrboxeater]

what the hells going on? so much mystery suddenly...

 

[Mlfg_AK]

I believe in you Aoi😭✋🏽

Thanks for the update

 

[KitsuKyouno]

Is kind of cruel show her metal skull, it like deshumanization for a robot thatnis acting like human

 

[Glimmung]

Oh, so the original owner was either a freak or someone who deeply missed his wife. But the way she smiles when thinking of Aoi makes me think of a little sister, so maybe a dead sister but he used a sexbot for some reason?

He was a freak who was obsessed with an idol. If you look back at the first chapters there is a shrine to “Aoi.”

 

[Glimmung]

So what was the deal with the tech who was memory wiped? Best guess is he is unknowingly a robot too.

 

[shae_]

He was a freak who was obsessed with an idol. If you look back at the first chapters there is a shrine to “Aoi.”

I don't know why, but that sounds worse then if it was a sibling tbh. With siblings there's the benefit of the doubt that he's just very doting, but an idol is must definitely something sexual.

 

[Glimmung]

I don't know why, but that sounds worse then if it was a sibling tbh. With siblings there's the benefit of the doubt that he's just very doting, but an idol is must definitely something sexual.

Her default “bath” is something from a soapland.

 

[DioBrandoXVII]

Why does this suddenly feel like a Hamita manga?

 

[Ichigo69]

Okay, as of p16 the Tech guy seems to be fully engaged, seems to have full mental capacity, etc... Why in p17 does he not seem to know what's going on? Is this just a tease for things revealed in a subsequent chapter, or do we know who the other guy is (and my ADHD-addled non-memory isn't remembering), b/c that page really confused me...

 

[UdenEmpati]

Okay, as of p16 the Tech guy seems to be fully engaged, seems to have full mental capacity, etc... Why in p17 does he not seem to know what's going on? Is this just a tease for things revealed in a subsequent chapter, or do we know who the other guy is (and my ADHD-addled non-memory isn't remembering), b/c that page really confused me...

Tech Guy was hit/interfered with, and that wiped his memory of the entire meeting with the Main Pair.
you can see in the top 2 panels of p.17 where Tech Guy is muttering to himself as a shadowy figure moves behind him, with the sfx "smack" spaced between the two panels, indicating he was struck, after which his memory of meeting the Main Pair was removed.

The person crouching around the corner (who had hit/reset the Tech Guy's memory) is a brand new character, and this is the first time we're seeing them & we do not yet know their motives (other than they seem to be covering for the Main Pair, given they just reset the memory of the one person they've extensively interacted with).

 

[UdenEmpati]

He was a freak who was obsessed with an idol. If you look back at the first chapters there is a shrine to “Aoi.”

there could be a (very slim) chance that Aoi was an idol, but also related to Dead Dude in some capacity (it's not hinted at one way or another), but the soapland "bath" that she gives Ami is a pretty explicit allusion to Aoi being a "servicing sexaroid" and not someone meant to have a platonic/familial relationship with Dead Dude.
And assuming this follows general Japanese convention in some respects, if Aoi was an idol, that would mean she likely wasn't married to Dead Dude, either.

So, yeah - those two clues would indicate that she likely was some famous person Dead Dude revered, to the point that he had an extremely advanced & faithful replica made of her in android form. Not outright confirmed, but it's a likely explanation with what we know.

Also interesting - in ch.1, Aoi mentions that Dead Dude's "registration of ownership" was "annulled" 12years 6months prior to meeting MC, but he died 9years 7months prior, and even Ami comments on how "dangerous" an action living together without certification was.
She also attempted to fix the damage to the house from the spacecraft, but even as she could "picture it in [her] head", she couldn't actually perform the actions necessary. Which I would imagine that without the proper software, even mentally envisioning the task should be impossible for something that is simply a machine.
Coupling that with Aoi's apparent "abnormality" as detailed by the tech guy in this chapter, and something very much seems to be up with her that might very well not be explained as "AI hallucinations".

Anyway that was all an aside to the original point, but.

 

[lfb]

Pretty interesting so far. Thank you for translating! Looking forward to the next chapter !