Texhnolyze

In the dark underground city of Lux, people live in fear and despair under the rule of various criminal factions. Almost secluded from the surface, the gangs' only interaction with the outer world is their mining operation of "raffia," which is the raison d'être of the city.

Available only in Lux, this rare substance is the basis of "texhnolyze" transplants that permit humans to replace parts of their body with cybernetic prostheses. The latter have the particularity not to trigger an immune response in their hosts and the "Class" has the privilege to conduct research on them. This elusive organization, also in charge of the raffia production, delegates its executive authority to a group called Organo led by Keigo Oonishi—a self-righteous man with texhnolyzed legs who is rumored to hear the "voice of the city."

The fragile balance of powers in Lux is disturbed when a mysterious visitor named Kazuho Yoshii begins committing a series of crimes that puts the gangs at each other's throats. In the midst of the chaos, new actors emerge: Ichise, an ex-boxer mutilated by Organo and recently texhnolyzed by Eriko "Doc" Kamata; and Ran, a young florist who can see the future. While Lux steadily plunges into insanity, both Ichise and Ran find themselves involved in the greatest crisis the city has ever faced.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Ichise Main

Haga, Satoshi Japanese

Ran Main

Itou, Shizuka Japanese

Yoshii, Kazuho Supporting

Inoue, Takashi Japanese

Oonishi, Keigo Supporting

Tsuchida, Hiroshi Japanese

Kamata, Eriko Supporting

Niki, Shizumi Japanese

Shinji Supporting

Kitade, Shinya Japanese

Kano Supporting

Tanaka, Kajirou Japanese

Tooyama, Haruhiko Supporting

Hoshi, Mitsuaki Japanese

Sakimura, Tatsuya Supporting

Tonosaki, Akihiko Japanese

Kimata, Motoharu Supporting

Nakata, Jouji Japanese

Ueda, Yasuyuki Producer

Gotou, Hideki Producer

Ide, Mie Assistant Producer

Hamasaki, Hiroshi Director, Episode Director, Storyboard, Key Animation

Reviews

Dec 18, 2024

RacistCat

Recommended

Yet another amazing show with Yoshitoshi ABe's involvement. Great character designs, as always from him. I LOVE Ran's design. The art work for this show is amazing. The world building is incredible in this show. It gives you one of the most bleak feelings I have ever experienced in an piece of media. They want the world to be bleak in the show, and you really feel it. There is really never any point where you think "oh wow, what a happy place" or anything close to it. So if you're a fan of desolate feeling dystopian atmosphere's, you'll love this show. Story is very ... rich, and like many of the other shows I have highly rated, it requires a good amount of thinking and interpreting metaphors and such to fully enjoy the story. Took me a little to fully understand everything, but thats just because im stupid LOL. Highly recommend.

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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Apr 6, 2024

itzswxzy

Mixed Feelings

By Far The Hardest Anime to Ever Complete for me.

Out of 100, 200, 300 animes I ever tried/watched. Texhnoloze might be the hardest and longest it ever took me while only being less than 2 seasons worth of episodes (22).

Major reasons for that could be how it is in fact hard to watch with how subtle the narrative is and how it drowns you with utter silence (literally the first episode there was no dialogue till 12 mins in) and lot of dark tone background imagery and music. The reason why pointing this out is important to me is because by far is this ... not my first encounter with psychological thrillers yet alone my first experience with the creators work. I seen Serial Experiments Lain, Haibane Remnai, Pretty much every Satoshi Kon work, Evangelion, Devilman Crybaby, ghost in the Shell, and Ergo proxy (surprisingly is the closest in comparison to Texhnoloze when Ergo Proxy is by a different person.) none of which came close to how long it took me to get through this show.

By all means Texhnoloze is not bad at all, in fact it’s one of the more Unique animes out there, and lot of the times “unique” isn’t always a good or bad thing, really depends on execution however with Texhnoloze it doesn’t really seem to be an issue here for me as you come to understand why the story seems so pessimistic and despairing. Really tying it to its themes of Theseus Paradox, Dehumanization, nihilism, and existentialism (that being in its more hopeful elements that are near the ending tho).

Even though it took me about 2-3 months to finish this 22 episode show, I really do not feel that negative about it and in fact rated it 9.2-9.3/10, it really does what it’s supposed to as a post apocalyptic world and it’s psychological element regarding the human condition and human evolution and limit of existence, the narrative itself has a hard to grasp plotline because the storytelling is very much on the “show don’t tell” side where it is subtle and leaves lot of interpretation towards the audience rather than spoom feeding every detailed event which I like about this show. The biggest pros of the show is it’s show dont tell storytelling and themes/concepts and the biggest con of the show is it’s lack of entertainment and bleakness but again it’s a more justified issue.

Give it a watch if you want.

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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Oct 12, 2024

Recynon

Not Recommended

Informative

If I were to review Texhnolyze on its own merits, I can’t really say much other than, “OK, that just happened”. Or to put it more critically, it’s a big nothingburger. That’s because 1) the events in the show seem to be directionless and 2) the series likes to go out of its way to give you as little information as possible on what’s going on, in a “blink and you’ll miss it” fashion. As such, I don’t know what significance any of the payoffs in the series carry with respect to the series itself, if they can be considered payoffs at all, and there ... is not enough information nor coherence within the context for me to even say that the events carry any significance through real world parallels. And so the most neutral thing I can say is that it does not do anything for me. If I were to be negative, I would say that the lack of meaning doubly means that the lack of compelling characters and slow plot progression cannot be excused, altogether amounting to a terrible viewing experience.

But that’s not the general consensus on Texhnolyze. Interestingly, the general consensus is positive, but for wildly different reasons. Some say Texhnolyze is good because it’s a good illustration of pure nihilism. Others say it’s good for the opposite reason; that it promotes finding meaning in the face of a meaningless world. Some say it illustrates how current trends will lead to societal collapse (e.g. BadRespawn’s video about Texhnolyze’s relation to the behavioral sink). Some people even find Ichise inspirational because of his supposed character development. Lastly, some advocate for something closer to what I took away, which is that Texhnolyze generally doesn’t push an idea in any one direction but is simply an illustration of how different people with different perspectives react to a doomed situation.

See, it’s not just me that had trouble figuring out what Texhnolyze was about. Even the people who liked it like it for wildly different reasons. Clearly, the series offers no clear authorial intent that I can use to evaluate it with respect to itself. And since I don’t think it accomplishes anything, in order to support my stance, I’d have to state why I disagree with all the perspectives that say that it does accomplish something.

Basically, I don't think Texhnolyze should be attributed meaning or thematic excellence because it supposedly shows how individuals assert themselves and their meanings in the face of of a meaningless, doomed world. The characters are too immoral to be held as inspirational or a good example of the triumph of humanity over apathy, and the motivations of the characters are too undetailed, nonsensical, and/or radical to be said to represent anything about humanity on the thematic side. The worldbuilding is similarly too thin for one to make any parallels with society, where society is headed, and the potential impact of technology on society. And Texhnolyze definitely does not successfully argue for or illustrate nihilism, because it's not clear that that is even what it is purporting to do.

However, owing to Texhnolyze's ambiguous nature, which allows room for many interpretations and thus many counter arguments, my arguments would take too long to cover in this review. You can visit my blog for my actual evidential arguments: https://myanimelist.net/blog.php?eid=905870

Reviewing Texhnolyze as a piece of entertainment by itself, with my natural reaction and assumptions after watching the show, I found that there was no reason to care about or root for the characters because they almost were all violent, selfish criminals with few redeeming qualities. The direction and atmosphere are designed to immerse you into a bleak setting but it disengaged me because it simply made the show drab. The pacing is deliberately slow, which when combined with a lack of characters or plot points to hook me, and the fact that Ichise's animalistic behavior is agonizing to watch, made the viewing experience very unenjoyable. And well, the world and characters are written to self destruct by the ending, so there is not a lot of payoff to reward me sitting through those 22 episodes.

Reviewer’s Rating: 3

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	Poll: Texhnolyze Episode 22 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 5 ... Last Page ) tounoyaboys - Jul 1, 2008	331 replies	by Karkov05 »» Dec 21, 8:52 PM
	Poll: Texhnolyze Episode 11 Discussion ( 1 2 ) hznu - Jan 5, 2009	55 replies	by Neostorm_Y »» Nov 25, 3:19 AM
	Poll: Texhnolyze Episode 10 Discussion ( 1 2 ) Franswa - Dec 9, 2007	88 replies	by Neostorm_Y »» Nov 25, 3:00 AM
	Is there any talking in texhnolyze? AnimeDownUnder - Sep 29, 2020	18 replies	by Neostorm_Y »» Nov 25, 2:49 AM
	Poll: Texhnolyze Episode 9 Discussion ( 1 2 ) Veebs - Jan 14, 2010	53 replies	by Neostorm_Y »» Nov 25, 2:17 AM

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