A couple of things I'm a bit confused about when it comes to the sequence of events. But, if I'm understanding things correctly, some kind of apocalypse happened and Haku and his brother, his brothers wife, and child and any other remaining humans were now living in underground cities. Haku's brother seems to be doing research on making the surface of the earth habitable or to at least make humans more resilient to be able to survive on the surface. There are other labs where other people are doing similar things. Decoys end up being the result of one of those experiments. Haku's brother has some kind of breakthrough with his own research, and Haku volunteers to be his guinea pig. This is where it starts to get a bit fuzzy for me. Did the brothers experiments involve putting Haku in some kind of cryogenic sleep? Well, it seems that sometime after this event humans started melting and turning into curses and humanity turned against itself before someone finally decided to just nuke (I'm using this term loosely) everyone from space or at least a good portion of people. Haku's brother made it out alive and decided to create more Decoy's himself since beside himself they seemed to be the only other living beings left. The Decoys in this particular area at least began to thrive under Haku's brother who's now the Emperor.

However, being the only human around made him kind of lonely so he found another lab, or his old lab (?) and started doing research again on how to turn the curses back to human, and created those masks in the process. And he now wants to use or get some information from a lab in Tusukuru to continue this research?

That's what I believe to understand so far, any corrections would be appreciated.

Very good episode. Finally the action will start ;)

btw. I read this on the reddit discussion:

They skipped the (other) lab and Kuon's lap pillow yo.

Infodump was fine tho, viewing the event from the Emperor, kinda put in perspective what the disaster did. Wasn't expecting the melting to be at random times.

What does this guy mean with skipped? Anyone can explain? :confused:

Where was small episode than Haku, Kuon and Ko found another lab ruins. They omitted it in the anime same as most of the "missions".

Jesus christ... I want to see that scene. Hopefully somehow the game will get once some kind of mod with eng subs - but probably not :( I hate it when story gets skipped, even when it might not be important. Also there is like no lets play video avaible of it on YouTube. So I could atleast check out the scenes without knowing what they are talking about. Same goes with that one mission that got skipped in the anime. :D:(
Maybe some spoilers from the game:

It will be later, probably. Same as figt with Benawi and Kuroh.

Mostly correct. Haku's brother's research aims for human to be able to live on the surface, and it involves putting the test subject to sleep. And there's no mention of how he became the emperor. The purpose of getting to Tuskuru is still not mentioned so it's now speculation.

There are some differences from the game:

When the emperor mentioning first teaching the decoys, it feels very similar to what Hakuoro did. So I think this is also a reflection of what could happen to Hakuoro if he stayed awake for a long time.

There are some added information in the anime: Details of the research of Haku's brother. I'm not sure is it canon, but if it is that would mean Haku might live significantly longer than normal human, perhaps more than hundreds of year like his brother.

This episode is very well handled, though with some changes that may affect overall theme.

The camera work of Haku looking at his sister in law is somewhat sexy, as a subtle hint of his feelings toward her. Not particularly important, but that's a nice touch.

In ancient times or present day an archaeologist found a kaiju fossil that is a missing link. Archaeologist is killed by his colleague and he merges with the kaiju. In the future where the Earth is uninhabitable a group of scientists finds an Ice-Man with a mask. Using his genes as basis they create a new race. Scientists creates masks based on the Ice-Man in an attempt at immortality. Ice-Man awakes and meets his dog eared wife to be. They escape the scientists for the surface and have a child. Scientists capture his wife and is dissected. Ice-Man becomes so angry he splits into two persons. Cursing humanity with immortality that the scientists want. Turning them into jelly. These two entities would sleep and awaken but not at the same time bringing civilization and war. The last cycle both were awake. One of which is Hakuorou who is the emperor of the new nation Tusukuru and Kuon's father. He merged with his other half and had his girls seal him so he won't bring destruction to the world.

The rest of the details were explained here.

Yamato's emperor wants to wake him up for the sake of humanity. Tusukuru's position is it is a bad idea.

It probably really is a very bad idea, even if Tuskuru is not fully aware of the Emperor's plans, which is likely.

While the Hakuoro half could maybe agree to restore humanity to some degree, his other half (the bad one) in all likelihood would oppose it, and this could lead them to separate again. Now just imagine what kind of mess this could lead to. Suffice to say that I think Vurai and the Dii half of Iceman would probably get along like a house on fire.

Hakurorou would probably definitely agree as long as he doesn't have to change certain scientists back.
As you already said the other side is the problem. (Although i believe the reason he is sealed is that he still fights that side)

----
on another node... Hakurou was called Ouro instead of emperor, any reason for that? Cause I am rather sure he was the Emperoro of Tsukuru, with tsukuru by now spanning all over Japan.

Well to the general there is only one emperor.

After all this time - and the pain caused by the curse - he might agree to just kill them after they go back to human.

Though given Human technology we have seen it is rather possible that something lke a genetic resequencer, seen in so many SciFi stories, could reverse it without Hakuroros help - too bad there is no one around anymore to develop one, eh :heh:

Oh wow, they put all the cards on the table in this episode. I'm a bit rusty with the lore since it was 9 years ago but I remember the curse was because of something the humans did to Hakurou's family.

P.S - That Oboro pornstache...

I know, right?

Thank you both for the explanations. That explains why when telling Haku about the Decoys there was a picture of a man in a mask as well. I guess this is where watching the first anime or playing the first game might have done me some good. Well, I could still play the first game.

Man I'm really in love with the new ED.

That's why he's the boss.

Ah it's all coming back to me now...

Where is it said that he wanted to wake him up? I thought he only wanted to go in the lab for the data.

What it sounds like is either that they risk waking him up just by entering into the complex, or that the whole complex has been sealed (becoming his "tomb"), and that they cannot enter it unless it is "unsealed", thus automatically waking Hakuoro/Iceman/Witsu up.

What just got into my mind:
Hakuoro is a god, so he will kinda live forever. Whats about kuon? :D

And thats why you should play with ancient iceman DNA else you turn to Jelly~