Code:Realize -Guardian of Rebirth-

Episode 7

It's not surprising that Frankenstein had figured out that Cardia is a homunculus before they stumbled upon her dad's collection of extras. After all, he's basically in this story to medically and scientifically help Cardia out, and given his origins in Mary Shelley's 1818 novel, he's bound to have known. As for keeping it to himself? That's another debate. Lupin may feel that Cardia should have heard it from her friends, but I'm not so sure – it was finding out the truth about her body that really made her take an active role in her own life, which was something she needed to do.

It's interesting that the guys can't quite see that, although it's very much in keeping with Code:Realize's Victorian setting. When Cardia returns to her family's crumbling manse, it's not so much that she feels the need to escape from her new friends (although she isn't convinced that she's not a monster), but more that she needs to find some answers on her own. She never explicitly says that she's not coming back, and she certainly needed the rescue from Lupin, (so we're definitely on his route now?) but ultimately she just wanted to confirm some things by herself. It makes sense; she's been so passive about everything in her life up to this point, just accepting her poisoned state and sort of drifting along like a fairytale princess locked in a tower of her father's making. Now she's been jarred out of her reverie to find that she isn't content to just be anymore. The first thing she does back at the Beckford family home is start rummaging in drawers looking for answers; if she was truly running away, she would have just sat back down in her chair.

Of course, this is largely because she now has people she actively cares about. Her nightmares are now about accidentally dissolving the man she loves (which is some great imagery), meaning that she can no longer afford to insulate herself from the world. She's tasted humanity, and she doesn't want to give that up, so she needs to understand her own body in order to live in the world. She doesn't want to see herself as a monster, and once she's decided that, she's taken a major step toward being her true self.

One of the big questions now remaining is why Isaac Beckford, who clearly loved Cardia as well as he was able, created her in the first place. I'm still considering the idea that Cardia is a recreation of a deceased daughter, and her room seems to indicate that as well – why would a girl who was created at the age of fifteen have a room full of stuffed animals, dollhouses, and other toys? Either Beckford went to an insane amount of effort to convince her that she's forgotten thirteen-odd years of a normal life or there was another girl who originally lived in that room.

In any event, Beckford was hoping that this Cardia would eventually come to find him; the letter he hid for her gives directions to his location, conveniently also giving us a reason for the series name. That his shady organization has ties to Lupin's past isn't so surprising, although I can't help feeling like a lot was left out there – it would have been nice to at least know the name of Lupin's foster father or where Lupin himself came from initially. Given that this is his route, it's a bit odd that we know more about the other guys' backgrounds (well, van Helsing's and Frankenstein's) than his. But now the stage is set for things to really get moving, and as everyone races to Saint Paul's Cathedral with London burning around them, it's time for Cardia to really show what she's made of – or rather, what she's made for herself in the body that she was given.

Rating: B

Code:Realize -Guardian of Rebirth- is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.