This series, by the producers of Samurai Champloo, is set in a futuristic utopian (read: dystopian) city, Romudo, where humans and robots (called autolaves) coexist and where peace and harmony are ensured through a system of central management that essentially discards emotion from society. However, a homicide shatters the regulated peace of the society, and Lil Meyer, a young and ambitious investigator from the Citizen Information Board, is assigned to unravel the mystery behind the murder, and as she uncovers more and more information, she stumbles upon a secret that threatens to change Romudo forever.



Credits: shinsengumi

Story & Characters

Anybody but me come to the realization that animes that revolve around future Earth are always depressing? We're either under attack from aliens or have completely destroyed civilization as we know it. I guess anime takes a page from American cinema a la Mad Max and just figures that the future is going to suck. Well here we go again with Ergo Proxy.

Through mankind's actions, black skies and barren wasteland is all that is left of the Earth. All remaining humans have all taken up residence in the last beacon of civilization; Romdo. Romdo is a society completely controlled by it's government. The government controls the destinies of its citizens from their place in society all the way to birth rates. Romdo is a dome that houses not only humans but AutoReivs, the servants to humankind. AutoReivs aren't like normal robots but are instead assigned by the government for certain tasks. There are ones for defense, maintenance, companionship and ones known as Entourages which are nothing more than personal sidekicks. Romdo slowly starts to fall apart as a virus known as cogito begins infecting AutoReivs. The cogito virus essentially gives the AutoReivs a soul and free will. Since this usually ends up with AutoReivs going rogue, they are usually killed soon after contracting this virus. But even that isn't the worst of Romdo's problems. The Proxy they held in captivity has escaped.

Follow the lives of Re-l Mayer and Vincent Law. Re-l is the granddaughter of the current leader of Romdo and a member of the Citizen Information Bureau. She has been tasked with solving the mysterious murders that have recently been going on. After finishing her days work, she is confronted in her home by the escaped Proxy. She starts to investigate but finds that the government isn't too keen on her snooping around. Something much more sinister is going on. Enter Vincent Law. Vincent is an immigrant from a land outside of Romdo. Because of that he is known exactly as that, an immigrant. Immigrants must work for the government doing any kinds of tasks to gain "fellow citizen" rank. While Vincent is trying to achieve that status, he finds himself constantly being chased by a Proxy himself. What is the connection? What is the government hiding? What are the Proxies?

After reading those two paragraphs you may be scratching your head. When watching Ergo Proxy that isn't an uncommon reaction. The show tends to presume that you are easily keeping up with the random and all out confusing plot that it is trying to shell out. You don't get straight up story telling but instead get a labyrinthian story that you need to somehow figure out how to navigate. The point of the story is to go to Vincent's home town, figure out what the Proxies are and figure out his past. It could be that simple. Instead we get episodes with a game show that you either score 1,000,000 points on or you die or an episode of a city that is a giant amusement park where you smile from birth til death... uhh what? I'm sure they were trying to make some kind of point with this but it ended up being distracting more than anything.

Initially I loved the show. It has a fantastic atmosphere and a very interesting story. The potential of finding out what the Proxies are, how the world is outside of Romdo, the true nature of Vincent and Re-l... they all seemed intriguing. But once the main characters left the city on their journey to find those answers, that's when it went south. A confusing plotline and at times dreadfully boring doomed this series not long after. Even in the end I still felt a bit confused and felt as if it was all a bit anticlimactic.

Rating: 5

Art

Review equipment: 29'' Sony Bravia LCD HDTV and Sony Playstation 3. DVD upscalled to 1080i.

I remember wanting to see this show because it was being touted as the first anime ever filmed in HD. High definition anime... oh finally my TV purchase will be justified. Thankfully, Ergo Proxy pulls through big time in the animation department. The first thing that should be addressed is the character animations. Humans characters are all animated in a very lifelike manner. There are no crazy hairstyles or colors. No gravity defying breast physics. Very dark hair and skin untouched by the sun is the norm here. Basic character designs on the whole are quite plain and not that of the typical anime, which works for this kind of atmosphere. AutoReivs animation varied based on the type and the age, which was a nice touch. Newer models were less distinguishable from human beings while older ones were obvious to be robots. But, the thing that stands out most is the background animations and the few action sequences. All backgrounds gave you feeling of that hopeless and virtually lifeless world. Lots of grays and blacks were used in creating that sterile, futuristic atmosphere. The world outside of Romdo was much like looking at an endless dried up lake where no life is thriving.

Is Ergo Proxy worthy of a 10 in animation... not quite. I do have one minor gripe with an overall superb presentation. Character detail and definition really suffers when not shown up close. When a character is shown in a full body shot and away from the camera, they lose almost all detail. Faces become barely distinguishable aside from a poorly drawn mouth, eyes and nose.

Rating: 9

Sound

The music in Ergo Proxy can best be described as, appropriate. The opening and closing songs are both English songs which fit quite nicely and do a great job setting the atmosphere. The opening is "kiri" by MONORAL and the closing is "PARANOID ANDROID" by Radiohead. While instrumentally they both fit well I think the opening suffers a bit with it's overly redundant lyrics. Aside of that, the background music is quite good although very infrequent. There are only a few BGM's that ever play and they don't play all that often. They are really only used when there is a tense scene or an action scene. They do the job well but for the most part you have to depend on character interaction for your ear candy.

Which brings us to characters. Primarily you will hear three voices; Re-l, Vincent and Pino. Re-l is voiced by Rie Saitou and does a spot on job portraying the conflicted Re-l. Ranging from outright BeeItch (clever eh?) to conflicted, Rie makes Re-l an interesting character to follow. Vincent is voiced by Kouji Yusa, a name I don't recall ever hearing. Vincent ends up sounding much like an older version of Shinji Ikari (Neon Genesis Evangelion for the uninitiated) in that all he likes to do is whine to others and argue with himself via internal monologue. Kouji voiced the character well, even if the character kinda sucked. Pino... oh Pino. Pino was voiced by Akiko Yajima and proved to be the light that shined through the darkness. Pino was a cogito infected AutoReiv that escaped with Vincent and traveled with him. She is a young companion type AutoReiv just acting like an innocent child and discovering the emotions that come with her new soul. She's always playing hide and go seek, throwing snowballs and coloring. Her innocence and playfulness brightens up any scene and Akiko makes that happen.

Rating: 7

Presentation

When watching Ergo Proxy you'll find yourself going through three phases:

1. "Oh that was cool!"
2. "Umm, what the hell just happened?"
3. "Oh now I get it... I think... wait, no I don't"

Needless to say it's confusing throughout. I'm sure there are some reading this who are thinking I'm an outright idiot, which is fine. But I personally enjoy coherent story telling with twists and confusion throughout that all come together nicely in the end. I don't want psycho babble and episodes that just seem to exist for no other purpose than to extend the life of the anime. There was a good story hiding in there somewhere, but the dear creators hit it over the head with a shovel and buried it deep within the Earth. You get great animation, good music and a few great scenes here and there, but the overall experience just leaves a bad taste in your mouth.

Normally I try to recommend this to a certain type of group, but I can't this time. Honestly this show is going to be a craps shoot. Some will love it, some will hate it... it's just hard to tell where everyone falls on this one.

Man this one was hard to write...

Rating: 5

Final Verdict

6.00 (average)

Reviewed by shoujoboy, Jan 08, 2008

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