Ergo Proxy

Title: Ergo Proxy Genre: Adventure, Drama, Horror, Mystery, Psychological, Science Fiction, Supernatural Rating: 7.5/10

Summary: After the explosion of the methane hydrate layer, the remaining members of mankind are forced to live in isolated domed cities scattered across the arid and inhospitable planet. They live in a controlled society and are assisted in daily life by autonomous robots called AutoReivs. In one of these cities, Romdo, Inspector Re-l Mayer, granddaughter of the regent, leads an investigation concerning AutoReivs that have gone mad after being infected by the Cogito virus. In the process, she comes in contact with a monster called Proxy. Elsewhere in the city, immigrant Vincent Law is on the run after being framed for involvement in several Cogito cases. Together, along with the adorable child-AutoReiv Pino, they set out on a journey to the dome city Mosco in order to unravel the mystery of the Proxies.

Review: Ergo Proxy was one of those mind boggling animes. The only way to describe the stages of Ergo Proxy is: (Step 1) Ok I got thrown into the story, but I think I can catch up pretty quickly. (Step 2) Alright things aren’t too bad, I believe I pieced everything together, seems pretty straight forward to me. (Step 3) -Fall on the floor twitching from information overload-. The anime really makes you feel like you have it all figured out until the final 4 odd episodes. That’s great, and I do love a good twist, but following the final episodes was extremely difficult. Personally I figured the creators changed the style of the anime to avoid traveling episodes as found in earlier episodes. When I say change the style, the producers had thrown what felt like filler episodes, since they were so sudden, at the ending half of Ergo Proxy. Most episodes were not filler, in fact I can only consider three that were, but they weren’t placed very well in my opinion. The information gathered from the episodes probably could have been done in a much more tactful way. Despite this fact, the storyline was rather interesting. I wasn’t sitting at the edge of my seat, or dieing to know what happened next until the final episodes. However, they used the style of conversation to understand the situation rather than flashbacks, which is a plus in my book. That being said, anyone who is looking for an action anime, this probably isn’t for you. Ergo Proxy is heavy dialogue. It can get boring at times, but it does answer any plot related questions from what I could tell. The action scenes are short and not bad. Without giving too much away I can say that watching a Proxy fight is entertaining. Bringing us now to the art style, which I was a little disappointed with. As I watched the series I felt as though the style slightly changed. Shading wasn’t up to par and the facial structures seemed  to shift when viewing them from the side. Ergo Proxy did keep a consistent, dark atmosphere; a fitting setting when dealing with the psychological aspect of the anime. Finally, I come to the best part of the anime. The soundtrack. I loved the soundtrack to Ergo Proxy, both the opening and ending theme were in English. I don’t mean like the new Bleach ending “Stay Beautiful”, but songs like Kiri by Monoral. The ending of Ergo Proxy, “Paranoid Android”, is by the famous UK band Radiohead. I was honestly surprised to see such a popular band, let alone British, appear in an anime opening/ending. Nevertheless I enjoyed the soundtrack immensely, and give major credit to the sound team.

Final statements: Ergo Proxy isn’t for everyone. Anyone who doesn’t enjoy heavy dialogue, and slow paced development, then I wouldn’t pick this anime up. Story wise it did a great job making sure all plot twists and holes were filled. The soundtrack was beautiful, whereas the art was lacking. After some long thought, I still considered this a preferred watch because of the solid story and great soundtrack.