Denkyu: Anime Webzine

by tonyadpx

Picture a grade-school ruler, those wooden things that were generally so beat up that tracing a straight line along the edges were impossible. Remember how one side of that ruler had inches and the other had centimeters? Now, let’s consider Ergo Proxy as that ruler, with the dual sides, except the inches-side is actually the questions-side, where as the centimeters-side is actually the answers-side. As all of us know, inches are bigger than centimeters. And so is the case in our metaphor of the Ergo Proxy ruler: the questions are just so much bigger than the answers, and lines on either side are never going to be straight.

To be completely honest, I’m at a loss as to how to best describe the plot. You see, there’s this guy named Vincent… he’s got kind of a baby-face innocent look yet he has some dark and mysterious secret in his past… Oh, and there’s this girl, Re-l, who looks remarkably like the lead-singer of Evanescence, who has taken her own interest in the baby face guy. Both of these people live in a domed city where robots sometimes go crazy and start wrecking things. But at the core of everything (I think this may be the central antagonist) is something(s) called a Proxy who changes both Re-l and Vincent’s current lives by crashing into them, figuratively, of course. Those closest to Re-l make it a point to disbelieve everything she says about the Proxy, while Vincent is being hunted by the Intelligence Bureau for being a witness to this Proxy…

See, it’s just too hard, but here it is in just a few words: a dark thriller where the idea of creationism is questioned yet again by science (note: this is a conclusion presented after viewing the first disc and reading the back DVD cover—I could be wrong once Ergo Proxy unfolds in later releases). Eventually, I expect the questions to slow down and for the answers to catch up. Plus, the questions presented are as intriguing as the eventual answers that will come later.

In similarities there are few anime or manga that can compare to what Ergo Proxy is. This is science fiction in the vein of Asimov or Heinlen, the classical guys who just knew how to do it right, you know. And as a lover of the classics, I feel no guilt at comparing Ergo Proxy to these grandmasters of storytelling. What Ergo Proxy presents itself as is nothing short of intelligent.

In the other aspects, Ergo Proxy does well there too. The music, while not to my tastes, is definitely unique to other anime, opting for alternative from none other than Radiohead, so if you enjoy alternative music (or what I call whine-rock) then I’d suggest searching out the soundtrack whenever it releases.

The animation is identical to Samurai Champloo in style, with the wild style character design, the intense scenes of action, and the detailed background animation. Only much, much darker. This isn’t strange, though, since Ergo Proxy is made by the same folks behind Samurai Champloo. My personal opinion is that Samurai Champloo carried some of the best animation of an anime series since Cowboy Bebop, so Ergo Proxy is tops on my list in terms of quality of the animation.

Recommending Ergo Proxy is difficult, though, namely for how intelligent, and how ambiguous in its intelligence, it is. Younger or lesser developed minds won’t find much here in the way of entertainment. Many may actually yawn their way through the first few episodes. But for those of you who actually found some meaning in the Evangelion ending, or those of you who understand that the namesake of the anime masterpiece Akira is still the hero of the story despite only appearing twice in the entire film, will find a lot within the episodes of this first disc of Ergo Proxy.

What Ergo Proxy isn’t also kind of hurts; it just isn’t what anime is. Science fiction is perhaps the most stereotypical genre in all of the many anime sub-genres: you know, giant-robots, beautiful robotic warrior-women, and intergalactic and often melodramatic drama. Ergo Proxy has none of this, instead opting for a Matrix mixed with an I-Robot (the novel, not the movie) kind of feel. Sure, this make Ergo Proxy more universally appealing, but not for the normal fan of anime, who generally prefer the stereotypes over the unique.

In the end I’ll recommend Ergo Proxy this way: if you prefer the weaving plot-lines of Ghost in the Shell over a rather more straight-forward plot found in, say, Full Metal Panic, then Ergo Proxy is your kind of anime. Get Ergo Proxy and enjoy puzzling your way through the story.


Licensor: Geneon
Production: Manglobe
Length: 100mins
Retail: 29.99/ 39.99 for Limited Edition
Availability: Already out