Ergo Proxy Review

I watched Ergo Proxy. All 23 episodes in two days.

I streamed the first episode on a whim, based on a screenshot with art I admired. All through it, I was thinking, "Oh neat, another beautifully hard-boiled post-apocalyptic dystopian cop drama with goth girls, robots, religious symbolism and a mysterious clumsy dork who doesn't open his eyes! It's pretty, though, so whatevs."

Having been burned numerous times by atmospheric, high-premise shows (Hacksign and Noir come to mind) I tend to be pretty skeptical of moody, dialogue-driven, style-heavy anime. I find a lot of it pretentious and annoying, and to be totally honest, I probably wouldn't have taken the time to check Ergo Proxy out if I had heard anything about the show's premise beforehand.

And how sad that would have been! Luckily, I liked what I saw and decided to stay tuned.

Right around Episode 3, something clicked in a big way. Finding a stopping point so I could get on with my day suddenly became a struggle for my soul that didn't resolve until I got to the end of the series. And then I started watching it over again from the beginning! And I never do that.

I kind of had to, just to pick up the plot points and hints I'd missed the first time through.

Ergo Proxy is one of those dark, gloomy (sometimes outright standoffish) mindfuck series that doesn't want to give up the goods to the casual viewer, so its miniscule web fan presence is understandable.

I know this because I myself am a casual viewer. I spent several episodes inking my comic and paying half-attention to the dialogue, and while this led to getting the pages done within a month of the deadline, I still paid for it later when plot revelations were flying all over the place. Also, I accidentally skipped an episode that turned out to be more or less pivotal, and didn't notice until the second viewing. Whoops.

The first main character to be introduced is a woman named Real Mayar. Real is the grand-daughter of the leader of their domed city, and something like a cop. She's investigating a series of murders believed to have been committed by robots infected with the Cogito Virus (which of course gives them AI and makes many of them insane). Real reminds me of Prince Zuko from Avatar in many ways--stern and angry, but quite often fumblingly good-natured. She's also SMOKING HOT.

Then there's Vincent Law, the aforementioned clumsy dork who rocks the Chichiri face for quite a while. Vincent's job is to find and destroy infected robots. He is working hard to prove his worthiness to become a true citizen of the dome, but at the moment he is still immigrant scum. But Vincent has problems. For one thing, a Spooky Something is following him around and killing people, and Big Brother decides it's all his fault and comes after him. He wears the most bizarre work costume ever. Think Vash's coat as a tunic that wraps around the crotch and buttons on the ass. Vincent is a barrel of neurotic laughs.

And then there's the little android girl, Pino. Pino is infected with Cogito, but instead of making her insane, it makes her AWESOME AND CUTE. She is, in fact, the most adorable little-kid character in anime history. She heals the wound left in my heart when Radical Ed didn't get her own series. The show can get almost stiflingly gloomy at points, and Pino does what Misao did for Kenshin during the Kyoto Hen, without being annoying and shrill.

And the plot? I am SO not going there. It starts with a simple "some monster is rampaging in our fair dystopian city, and only our plucky heroes can stop it" premise, makes a hard left around episode 2, and quickly plunges into an epic treatise on the topic of fate, dependence on God, abandonment, and the meaning of identity--with a hearty scoop of thermonuclear bombs, gunfights and game shows in case things get too monotonous.

A major concept in the show itself is that the journey is as important as where you end up, and I think this applies to the audience as well, so I'll leave it at that. If you want a synopsis, there are much better writers than me out there who have laid everything out like a thesis and can tell you what every philosophy namedrop entails.

Here are some spoiler-free screenshots from Ergo Proxy, since they are sorely lacking on the web:

















(God that last one kills me.)

Ok, review ovar. Back to work with me! Six more pages by Monday, or I'll die in the attempt.