Ergo Proxy

Within the domed city of Romdo lies one of the last human civilizations on Earth. Thousands of years ago, a global ecological catastrophe doomed the planet; now, life outside these domes is virtually impossible. To expedite mankind's recovery, "AutoReivs," humanoid-like robots, have been created to assist people in their day-to-day lives. However, AutoReivs have begun contracting an enigmatic disease called the "Cogito Virus," which grants them self-awareness. Re-l Mayer, the granddaughter of Romdo's ruler, is assigned to investigate this phenomenon alongside her AutoReiv partner, Iggy. But what begins as a routine investigation quickly spirals into a conspiracy as Re-l is confronted by humanity's darkest sins.

Elsewhere in Romdo, an AutoReiv specialist by the name of Vincent Law must also face his demons when surreal events begin occurring around him. Re-l, Iggy, Vincent, and the child AutoReiv named Pino will form an unlikely faction as they struggle to uncover Romdo's mysteries and discover the true purpose of the mythical beings called "Proxies."

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Mayer, Re-l Main

Saitou, Rie Japanese

Pino Main

Uechi, Aki Japanese

Law, Vincent Main

Yusa, Kouji Japanese

Ergo Proxy Main

Yusa, Kouji Japanese

Iggy Supporting

Mizuuchi, Kiyomitsu Japanese

Creed, Raul Supporting

Hanada, Hikaru Japanese

Yumeno, Daedalus Supporting

Kobayashi, Sanae Japanese

One, Proxy Supporting

Ootsuka, Houchuu Japanese

Proxy, Monad Supporting

Kojima, Sachiko Japanese

Proxy, Kazkis Supporting

Inoue, Kazuhiko Japanese

Matsuda, Akio Producer

Kouchiyama, Takashi Producer

Murase, Shukou Director, Episode Director, Storyboard, Animation Director, Key Animation

Yamamoto, Sayo Episode Director, Storyboard, Assistant Director

Reviews

Apr 23, 2007

That1GuyTim

Recommended

After watching Ergo Proxy completely and thoroughly, I must say that this is one of the most enjoyable series I've watched yet. The story is so complex and can at times be very agonizing because you are just so clueless as to what is going on. Then, usually, by the end of the episode or by the next episode all of your questions and doubts about what is going on will be answered.

Why did I enjoy this series so much? First, this series is a real psychological mind boggling experience. I haven't see too many series that make me question what is going on or ... going to happen until the very end, yet Ergo Proxy did it. Even during the last episode, I was still asking myself the same question as I had been throughout the entire series, "what the hell is going on?!" This kind of experience kept me wanting more and left me trying to fill holes myself, which is exactly the kind of thing that I enjoy. Something that makes me think for myself and makes me WANT to figure out whats going on or say, "Hmm, I wonder what that meant..."

The setting of the story is another thing that made me enjoy this so much, a post apocalyptic world where everyone is being kept in the dark and left wondering whats just beyond their grasp. Theres not much that I can say about this plus for me, it's just something that I enjoy. If you enjoy stories set in this kind of environment, you'll like this aspect of Ergo Proxy.

Ergo Proxy makes use of a lot of different aspects of psychology and history, which is a good thing. I believe it was only the first fourteen episodes, but at the end of each respective episode there would be about two minutes when they would reflect back on things throughout what you had just seen. It was a very nice touch that I felt was something more series should do. It basically would tell you things that the author of the series/story used as a reference or what something that occurred in the episode was based on. I thoroughly enjoy history and psychology so this aspect of Ergo Proxy really appealed to me.

The character development didn't fall short of my expectations either. It was done quite nicely. I wish I could go into further detail about it, but apparently I'm not supposed to say anything to spoil the series and I'm not quite sure how to go about this aspect without doing just that.

The animation was extremely well done. The way some of the faces are drawn may look a little odd at first, but I didn't mind it at all. It matches the show quite well and really compliments everything around it. Everything that was done in this series, animation wise, was completely believable. Sure, there are somethings that you just know can't be true/made from something real, but it just feels true/real with everything else about the series combined.

Oh, don't let me forget Real Mayer. She's one sexy woman. Not sexy in the stereotypical way with an out of proportion body and an annoying voice. She is more real (pun intended), she's not overdeveloped, her voice isn't annoying, she doesn't have any super human powers, she isn't a amazing when it comes to combat, and her feelings/emotions are that of a real woman/girl. It just makes her character so much more believable and real, which is why I love her so.

Overall, Ergo Proxy is the complete package in terms of story, animation, sound, character development, THE characters, and the enjoyment of everything put together. If you don't enjoy this show, then you either aren't human, don't like anime or are too stupid to understand the story.

I hope you enjoyed my review, this is the first one I've ever written. If you like it, then please leave an comment letting me know so I'll be more encouraged to write more. See ya kiddies.

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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Jul 4, 2008

Darkmage530

Mixed Feelings

As far as I know, there are no Spoilers or Summaries here.
-There is one thing I need to point out about my scoring. The enjoyment of a show is weighed heavily by me. If I can't enjoy a show then what's the point of watching it?

Now without further ado.

Story:
The actual story and plot of the show isn’t bad other then being a bit confusing. It jumps into the plot right away for the first few episodes. The story progresses rapidly at first before coming to almost a complete stop. For about 7 or 8 of the episodes between 10-20, ... I felt like nothing happened nothing really changed and that the story and plot crawled by very slowly and in some cases made no progress at all. And then at the end when I expected things to pick up and everything to come together like in the movie Fight Club or Donnie Darko. It just didn’t happen. I felt like the ending was throwing answers at me that didn’t add up, like a puzzle where the last 5 pieces don’t fit at all.

In a general wholesome look the plot makes sense. But on a detailed level I felt the story was just pulling ideas out of a hat and tried to make things work that really didn’t. The idea was good but it was executed poorly and fell short of its intention.

Animation:
This is where the show really shines. The visuals in this show are easily some of the best I have ever seen. Many of the visual angles used were unique, fresh, and quite artistic without taking away importance or detail from the scene. The animation was very fluid and realistic. The colors and lightning were also done well. Scenes in bright places were done quite well almost in a blinding way. While the darker scenes did a great job representing the destruction and despair throughout the rest of the world. The art/animation is the best thing about this show. Although there was a lot of dark scenes, so be prepared.

Sound:
Well I’m not much of a Radiohead fan so the ending theme didn’t do anything for me, I skipped it every time. The opening theme didn’t do much at first but it wore on me and near the end I actually started to enjoy it. Although the OP didn’t fit real well, it was to “active” to really relate with the show. As for background music I can’t really think of any of them specifically which I guess means it wasn’t great but it wasn’t bad either and did a good job of blending into the scenes. The sound effects were good at doing what they were supposed to, adding to the scenes and the detail of the world. The voice actors did fairly well I felt like for the most part the voices fit each character fairly well. I didn’t watch the English dub so I can’t say too much about that.

Characters:
One of my biggest problems with Ergo Proxy which also greatly lowered the enjoyment as well as overall score was with the characters. I simply did not care about them. The two main characters Vincent and Re-l didn’t do anything for me. I wouldn’t care if they died, or if they fell in love, or if they disappeared never to be seen again. Maybe I might have liked them more if they turned into slugs or something. Re-l’s bright blue eye shadow/mascara whatever it is bothered the heck out of me the ENTIRE series as well. All I wanted to do was wash it away. Also there were a few instances where the producers wanted the viewer to care or get emotional over different things between the characters, all it made me do was yawn.

The one and ONLY character I liked was Pino. Pino was used many times as comic relief and did a decent job of it too. When she dressed up in her costume, it was very cute as well. Although even then, there were times when Pino just didn’t evoke any emotion from me except boredom.

On an objective level the characters were well developed. You get a good understanding of their story. You even occasionally get a good analysis of their psyche and mental stability. They were fleshed out and felt like completed beings. Some of the supporting characters were well done as well. Although some of them were much more unstable than you originally think and act in ways you wouldn’t have expected.

Enjoyment:
To be honest, I did not enjoy this show at all. I frequently thought about dropping it but I told myself to get through it. I was hoping that everything would click in the end and I’d end up loving it, but that didn’t happen.

To put it simply there were a few times that I’d be watching and suddenly start nodding off in the middle of the episode. The next day when I tried to watch the following episode I couldn’t remember what happened and had to re-watch the previous episode a second time. None of the episodes really grabbed me and held my attention like it could have.

My sleeping problem seemed to occur more frequently during some of the middle episodes, 10-20. Some will disagree with this, but I felt many of these episodes were pointless filler episodes. Yes some of them did give a little bit of back-story or history of the world but none of it really had any major impacts on the series as a whole. They could have been reduced to 2 or 3 episodes that could have presented the same information in a better way. Some of those episodes also felt extremely out of place. Many times an episode would start off in a completely different totally unrelated location from anything else in previous episodes. And at the end of the episode you are left scratching your head asking what the hell had just happened. Many times I felt I had wasted 24 minutes of my life which could have been spent on an episode of a different show.

Conclusion:
From some of the other reviews and from the score, I had some decent expectations for this show. I went in knowing that it will require some philosophical reasoning which is fine with me. But nearly everything about the show seemed to fall completely short of what I anticipated. Even after seeing the “surprises” near the end, I was left feeling uninterested, a “So what” expression hanging around me.

Because it is highly regarded by some people I can’t completely say you should stay away from this anime. If you understand that this will be a confusing trip and don’t mind experiences resembling the last two eps of Neon Genesis then it won’t hurt to give this show a try. But if you are like me, and by about eps 8 don’t care about the characters or about the story, just stop before things get really ugly.

In my opinion if you don’t see this show you aren’t missing out either. Although I do think if I re-watched it, I might respect it a little more. But the first time through was miserable enough and I couldn’t watch it again. So if you do plan to watch this you probably should re-watch it to fully enjoy the show. If you cant imagine yourself re-watching it then you should stop where you are and move onto a different show.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Jul 1, 2015

MaelstromSpark

Not Recommended

I am not a fan of this Anime.

The show starts out with great promise. The Artwork is beautiful, the world is atmospheric and the characters seem full of potential. However very quickly the story begins to take an unfocused long path toward an ever weakening storyline, slowely revealing each character to have almost no depth beyond their basic neurosis. Even the art style weakens only a handful of episodes in.

This Anime includes some pretty painful filler, some full episodes but even more offensive are some of the episodes that contain one or two moments of "main story" plot, but are mainly filler in the form ... of characters rehashing old ideas or questions we the viewer has already figured out the answers to.

The show spends a lot of time dabbling in questions of existentialism and theology, this comes off as simplistic and childish as the characters indulging in these ideas are so one dimensional and unfleshed out that the viewer ends up with no interest as to what conclusion they come to.

By the end of this anime, i found myself watching just to be able to say that i hadn't given up on it, i no longer cared about any of the characters, and i no longer cared about the out come.

my advice is to give this one a miss

Reviewer’s Rating: 3

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	Poll: Ergo Proxy Episode 13 Discussion ( 1 2 3 ) BUD - May 5, 2008	131 replies	by BlaizeV »» Yesterday, 12:57 PM
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