Coming out guns blazing from the previous episode’s own cliffhanger we have Kaburagi explaining the true, artificial nature of the world of Deca-Dence to Natsume after they successfully initiate the self-destruct sequence at the Gadoll factory—cyborgs created that world and control it. Unsurprisingly, this was a huge shock to her, so much so that she faints but, who can blame her? Not only have she and all humans been forced to fight in meaningless wars against the Gadoll for generations as part of a sick game but the one person she trusted most and believed in, Kaburagi, has been hiding this truth from her the whole time and to make matters worse, she finds out that her father was killed for knowing too much.

This rift between Natsume and Kaburagi was an emotional one, particularly for Natsume who loses her reason for fighting, even saying "If this is the truth, I would've rather stayed ignorant!" Thankfully, Kabu’s letter to her leads to them reuniting once more and gives us insight into his feelings when he explains that "When I first met you I had no attachment to life" and how he was captivated by her and now has "decided to destroy the rules of this world." This speech, unfortunately, gets cut short very expectedly, more on that later!

Another exciting part of "Brake System" was seeing Kaburagi, Donatello, Jill, and company finally escape from the prison facility literally giving the guards the slip and then covering them in the same crap they’d been forced to deal with. Bursting out in a truck with yells of “Banzai!” to escape to what appears to be the ruins of an old Deca-Dence adds another interesting wrinkle to the world, just how many generations of the fortress have there been? Why was it left out in the open instead of being reused by the system somehow? Perhaps we’ll find out but it inspires some speculation.

Since it seems like at least some of the crew plans to go their separate ways now that they’re out of the facility, it’s also interesting to think about what exactly their goals are, particularly Jill who clearly is the type to have carefully planned out what they want to do but we don’t really have much on her backstory or motivations, she could even be traitor for all we know. The possibility of a cyborg-human alliance beyond Kaburagi and Natsume also seems like it could be on the horizon which would make for a fitting part of the final battle presumably happening in the next episodes!

The other elephant—or giant Gadoll we suppose—in the room, is the strange, somewhat seahorse-like Gadoll who somehow infected or laid eggs in one of the researchers at the factory, letting its child, which emerged from his body, remain intact after the purge that seems to have killed all of the other Gadoll. It quickly got busy devouring the many dead bodies in the facility and has now grown to a monstrous size.

Besides the obvious Godzilla-level threat that can’t be simply switched off by the system, this also brings up a lot of questions about the Gadoll themselves. Was this one, in particular, some kind of experimental monster or has this ability occurred by some random mutation? Could some Gadoll be more intelligent than they would appear to be and have started a rebellion of their own? Probably not, but as cultivated artificial lifeforms it’s hard to imagine this weird reproduction technique was part of the system’s plans so it begs to question as to why and how this happened.

So with Kaburagi’s host body most definitely being dead for good this time after Higen swoops in out of nowhere to assassinate him mid-sentence, it’s going to be interesting to see how Natsume gets out of this when the two of them working together were just barely able to get away from him in their last fight. Since she’s one of the main characters, it’s hard to believe that she’ll actually get got for good but there’s still a lot of tension going into episode 11 with her cornered inside and likely traumatized by Kaburagi’s corpse rolling down in front of her, not to mention the giant mutant Gadoll coming her way soon enough.

As for predictions, it wouldn’t be too surprising if Kurenai steps in to help fend of Higen, especially since her conversation with her last time has kept them close and she’s probably worried about Natsume. Perhaps the looming Gadoll threat will call Higen back somehow? It’d be interesting to see if we’ll get to learn more about his own backstory, you have to imagine that someone with glasses that cool must have done something worthwhile beyond being a dog for the system, and what’s with the crow? Jokes aside, it might even be possible for the story to pull another Donatello and have Higen go rogue to join the heroes, although that’s probably not too likely as he’s as close to the face of the system as we’re likely going to get at this point.

In any case, we’re betting his fight with Natsume will be another exciting one! We’re still holding out hope that Pipe will come back too, seeing him help save the day out of the shadows would be amazing!