[Review] Ergo Proxy

[mDuo13]

(Crossposting this from another forum where I post lots of reviews. Tell me if you're interested in seeing more of my "formal" reviews of series - I've done several dozens.)


Episodes: 23
Animation: Manglobe
Real Mayer (alternately, "Lil"; officially "RE-L") is the granddaughter of the councilman in the domed city of Romdeau, a carefully-controlled utopia in the midst of a ruined planet. With her autoreiv assistant Iggy, she is investigating a series of murders possibly related to the cogito virus, which supposedly gives souls to autoreivs... but she wasn't prepared to find a monster.

Plot & Characters: Ergo Proxy initially seemed like it would be one of the best cyberpunk anime out there, with the amazing set up for the plot and the great main characters (Real especially is cool). The problem is, the writing is sort of disjointed, and after the first six or eight episodes, it starts to go nowhere. Tons of time is spent on mess-with-your-head filler episodes while the main plot is not really developing, and when it does, it seems sudden, like they skip over all kinds of important bits in between episodes. That's too bad, because the ending is pretty solid (if overly confusing) and there was certainly material to make a good story. The characters aren't too bad, though I got tired of Pino after a while. They manage to keep the number of important characters down, though at first I was worried (it is a little hard to keep track of them all at first). Overall, it's a pretty decent plot but if it were structured better it'd be amazing, and that's disappointing.

Art & Animation: The animation of the first episode is amazing (though overly dark), and it's pretty good for many others... but it slips pretty bad on occasion. Basically you can tell that after a while they get lazy. That's really a disappointment after the wonderful style of art in the first episode. Real in particular is a damn sexy design, and the autoreivs are also very expertly done. The movement and whatnot is also very stylish and interesting. The entire anime is basically all browns and blacks and washed-out colors, but for the type of show it's supposed to be, that works very well; at times it would've been nice for them to make it at least a little brighter so it was easier to see, but to some degree the dark is part of the style, too.

Music & Sound: The background music in Ergo Proxy is all sort of dark, choir-laden orchestral stuff. Heavy drums, minor key strings, and that sort of thing. There's also a heavy electronic influence, which is only appropriate. However, the show doesn't have much in the way of action themes (maybe one song and a half); most of the bgm is more like ambient, actually.The cool thing about the music is that it's not too cliché, and it fits the scenery perfectly. Very solid soundtrack, though not as good for listening on its own. As for the opening and ending themes, the OP is a cool rock song (a little bit like "Shell" from WHR) with actually pretty well-pronounced English lyrics. The ending is Radiohead's Paranoid Android, which is... just weird.

Comedy: No. Just... no.

Viewing Considerations: There's nothing in particular that could be a viewing consideration for Ergo Proxy; there are some violent and frightening images, a little bit of sensuality but not much overt, and vaguely adult themes... it's obviously not a kids' show, but as for most teenagers... no problem at all.

Overall: Ergo Proxy is a show with a great style and what could've been a great plot. The writing jumps around kind of unpredictably, though, and the animation (while amazing at the beginning and pretty good near the end) drops in quality partway through. The music is very solid all around but doesn't stand out too much. This could've been a better show than it was, but it's still worth watching, if just for Real alone.

[LordKefka]

Well I was told by a few people that this show was really good and how it's a must watch but I'd have to admit it really left me confused. It wasn't really just the plot about spoiler[ how to take revenge on one's own creation after realizing how that Creator itself had it's own desparing fate of death.] but it was more on the level of how Ergo Proxy would have done better with the pacing and the overall characters.

While I really liked the idea and how it was similar to a bunch of things including books like "Do Andriods Dream of Electric Sheeps" or movies/series like "Ghost in the Shell", the way it was carried out wasn't as well executed as it could have been. In some episodes you had nothing but.. well.. nothing and the viewer is just there wondering "why am I wasting 23 minutes of my time". For example, the episode where spoiler[ Vincent, Pino, and Real were all stranded because the wind couldn't carry their ship so it was basically an episode of observation based on Real's point of view.] Then we move into episodes where spoiler[ crap is just thrown at you from all sides noteably the episode where Vincent had his conflict with his other self and where everything in that episiode revolved around the "id, ego, and super-ego" type of structure.] Mentioning this, I think the most disagreeble fact for me was that Ergo proxy went from being an overall well balanced plot with mystery, conspiracy, murder, and psychological conflictions to an almost episodic Kino's Journey type of thing where what you watch the episode after the previous has really nothing to do with the overall plot. Sure, you get really creative episodes like spoiler[ the "Happy Land" episode with Pino and the episode where Vincent was "living" in a fabricated reality created by the jealously of another Proxy.] But when it comes down to it, those minor events that were spent using an EPISODE really takes away from this elaborate plot that is developing in the previous half of the series. The fact that we find out spoiler[ Vincent was a Proxy at around episode 10] really made it feel anti-climatic. I think the efforts of trying to create a "mind ******" really took away from what people can get out of this. I mean, really. The plot isn't hard to understand to begin with. Yeah sure, we hear it all the time over and over: " I think therefore I am". Good for you. No need to get into a bunch of mumbo-jumbo on the purpose of existance by making it more complex to understand. That also took away from the characters.

The characters didn't fair too well with this Anime and it's sad to say because they all started off really well. We get into this nonsensical crap and go into philosophy trying to cover certain areas such as to understand the purpose of existance, how to determine your existance, id vs ego vs super ego.. etc etc. It's fine and all, but when you spend so much time getting the viewer engulfed with this "idea" that is made more complex than it needs to be, it really takes away the value of the characters. In the end, I really didn't give a damn for any of them (minus Pino). spoiler[ Vincent was probably the only person who had any (if any) character development. Daedulas went a-wall and died a stupid death. Real seems to just be there in the end, serving no other purpose than for Ergo Proxy to meet up with this "other self" in their eternal psycological struggle to find meaning in existance even if there wasn't one other than the one given to begin with.]

All in all, I guess I would have liked it better if some of the less necessary episodes ( like the spoiler[ Wal-Mart episode, the getting-stuck-without-windcurrent-so-we-will-spend-24-minutes-doing-nothing episode, the "dream within a dream" episode... etc etc]) were used to develop the characters and maybe even the plot better. But I would say spoiler[ revealing Vincent as the Proxy so early] might as kind of left the creator saying " oh ****, now that people know spoiler[ Vincent is the proxy and we are not even half way done with the series,] what do we do now?" type of thing. but to be honest, I really did still like this series.

[Sijy]

The only problem I have with your review was your lack of critiquing/commenting on the voice acting. Above everything else, this show had some of the best voice acting I've ever heard. Having a robot torn between his wants and his duty come across as realistic was one of the most moving scenes in this show, and it was only because the voice acting was stupendous.

So yeah, only cause I loves the voice acting do I notice that you left it out.


(do you post your reviews in forums, or in places like animenfo or animedb where they have a structured review format? link?)

[mDuo13]

The only problem I have with your review was your lack of critiquing/commenting on the voice acting. Above everything else, this show had some of the best voice acting I've ever heard. Having a robot torn between his wants and his duty come across as realistic was one of the most moving scenes in this show, and it was only because the voice acting was stupendous.[/quote]
I only comment on the voice acting when it's exceptionally good or exceptionally bad. Generally, anything in the middle doesn't attract my attention.

(do you post your reviews in forums, or in places like animenfo or animedb where they have a structured review format? link?)

I post them on Anime Remix's forums. Though, I haven't reviewed anything lately.