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

Yajima, Akiko 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

Proxy, Monad Supporting

Kojima, Sachiko Japanese

One, Proxy Supporting

Ootsuka, Houchuu Japanese

Proxy, Kazkis Supporting

Inoue, Kazuhiko Japanese

Matsuda, Akio Producer

Kouchiyama, Takashi Producer

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

Momose, Keiichi Sound Director

Reviews

Jan 18, 2026

AndreiCotos

Recommended

*Insert Evanescence reference here*

Most people that have watched Ergo Proxy either like it or they don't, no in between, I fall in the first category

This is is one of those animes that had a lot of potential but sadly didn't live up to expectations for a number of reasons, be it lack of resources, financial or whatnot. It might be one of the most philosophical animes, venturing into the realm of gnosticism, the meaning of life and other mumbo jumbo. Everything this show wants to tell is executed in a mediocre way, but with good intentions.

The plot is a bit messy at the first watch, ... you need to pay extra attention to all the hidden messages and the post credits scenes, and also carefully asses the bits and pieces in the Nightmare Quiz episode. If you're a big nerd like me, you'll opt for a rewatch, and everything will make sense.

The characters are the strong point, mainly Re-L Mayer, one of the main characters in the anime. Her and Vincent Law make up for a semi-good duo, they have their ups and downs but in essence I think they get the job done and they make it aesthetically pleasing.

So if you want a cyberpunk, esoteric, post-apocalyptic, a lot of monologue, Paranoid Android experience, this is the anime to watch.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Sep 21, 2025

RemanTheArchean

Mixed Feelings

I'm giving this a 7/10, but this is not a typical 7/10 show where my thoughts would be that it's decent enough to be fun as I'm watching it, but that it's nothing special. Rather, this is an *extremely* ambivalent 7/10 indicating that I think this show hits more than it misses, but man did it get on my nerves at some points.

This is an extremely pretentious show from start to finish. It seems like whoever created this had a goal to "show that anime can be just as worthwhile as any other medium", sort of like if Ghost in the Shell got a ... full 23 episodes to flex itself rather than <90 minutes. One one hand this is a good thing since many anime are just utterly unambitious, but on the other hand this really overdoes it at some points.

My biggest issue was in just trying to understand what's going on. This show involves a lot of mysteries that eventually get answered, but in the first episode we're just dumped into the story in medias res, and Ergo Proxy really doesn't seem to care if we're managing to follow along. At some level I can respect not belaboring simple plot points like some anime do, but if a show is too reticent with details then it can become disorienting. This show definitely veers hard towards underexplaining, and at times almost seems blatantly obscurantist. I'd say nearly half of the dialogue is either riddles, philosophical gibberish, or both. We get quotes like “It’s not ‘I think, therefore I am.’ It’s ‘I think, therefore you are.'" I'm sure people can do something similar to what Youtubers do for Dark Souls item descriptions, weaving a coherent narrative out of the small patchwork we actually get to see. But watching this firsthand is just aggravating at times. It's like someone took a word salad of famous philosophers, existentialism, solipsism, metaphysics, and put it all in a blender called the 2deep4u 3000 and sprayed it all over the walls.

I was unsure how to watch this show. It was very unclear to me whether gaps in my knowledge were due to my own inattentiveness, or if they would be mysteries that were revealed later. It didn't help that there can be big jumps between episodes. Watching them back-to-back on a streaming service in 2025 as opposed to once a week on TV made me feel like I was accidentally skipping entire episodes. I'd start the next episode where they'd be a completely different situation, and I'd be left wondering "wait, how did they get here???". I vacillated on whether I should look up episode details on the wiki to ground myself a bit at the risk of spoilers, or if I should just lay back and vibe with the show in a state of semi-obliviousness. I went the "vibing" route for the first 8 episodes or so. The show is OK like this -- it does a good enough job in the cinematography and the characters that I found it pleasant enough, although it was of course let down somewhat by the fact that I didn't have a clue what some scenes were about. Eventually I gave up and started looking up details, which let me have a solid grasp on what was going on, although it cost me through some spoilers. I found that there was still too much vagueness for me to really enjoy the overarching plot even when I did finally start to understand. In the end, I'm not sure what I should have done. It seems like at least some of the vagueness is there to get you to rewatch it, but I don't like feeling forced to do that. A show should be at least a 90% complete package on the first run through, but this felt closer to 70%.

Re-l is a charismatic protagonist. I mean, she's clearly a total bitch, but she's still interesting to watch. I'm sure some people like her simply for being a hot goth chick with blue eye shadow, but the animation style made her look frumpy and awkward about half the time in my eyes. What I really enjoyed was her driven, relatively calm demeanor -- it reminded me a lot of Serie from Frieren. Vincent is far less charismatic. Just a typical Joe Average protagonist in terms of personality, he's arguably the real protagonist which is disappointing. He's constantly whining and complaining, which is obviously justified given his predicament, but which is still annoying to watch. Pino is alright. I normally don't like kid characters, but she kind of grew on me.

The cinematography is quite good, although it can go overboard like every other part of the show. There's an artful use of "camera" angles to drive in the emotional undertones of scenes, and I found the presentation to be enjoyable a majority of the time. That said, a few scenes were so dark I could hardly tell what was going on. There's also a lot of close-ups and weird angles. A bit of that to make a point can improve a show, but Ergo Proxy overuses it to the point of parody. Many episodes feature a single proxy serving as the antagonist, and they each have their own special power. It just happens that almost all of the proxies have powers that coincidentally manifest as the ability to cause severe hallucinations, which the show's creators then use to go down whatever rabbithole they wanted to. Sometimes that's just an artsy mindfuck episode with lots of abrupt camera cuts, while other times we do a full genre-shift and become a Saturday morning cartoon or a goofy game show.

In fact, the game show of episode 15 encapsulates my feeling of this series as a whole. It comes out of nowhere, as episode 14 ended on a completely different note. Looking back, the point of the episode is to serve as the lore-dump of what happened to humanity, why the world is post-apocalyptic, the backstory behind the proxies, etc. Bad shows would tell you all this with a character just doing a bland straightforward explanation. Good shows would show rather than tell, probably with a detailed flashback. Ergo Proxy chooses neither option, and instead goes completely batshit crazy with a hallucinatory game show, and then tries to slide in the relevant details as trivia questions. This is the type of thing I appreciate more in hindsight than when I was watching it. It wasn't *awful*, but the execution was a little over the top and I was a bit exhausted by that point of the other crazy tricks the show had been pulling.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Jan 18, 2026

kymaros

Not Recommended

The first half is good and simple, with potential to have a meaningful end. Second half defenestrated the plot.

The dynamics between characters end up being shallow at best.

There is a gradual lack of motivation and emotion that makes the story boring.

At least 10 episodes of: "WTF is happening, oh it was a dream." Who thought this was a good idea?
I understand that not understanding may appear to be cool, but anyone with the gift of reason will tell you this is either a psychedelic trip, the ramblings of a madman, or the super-ego of an author who thinks they are writing a millennium masterpiece while ... not knowing the basics of writing and philosophy. Or maybe they had too much budget for the anime and had to add filler to match the expected duration. Heh.

In general, it is just another work that screams:
"Look how DEEP and PHILOSOPHICAL this is!
"Only the essence of it being backwards in the sight of the mere self can allow it to see itself as the reflection of our eyes in the shallow shadows of the mirror.
Thus, the cause of everything is Kwyjibo!""

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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	Poll: Ergo Proxy Episode 3 Discussion ( 1 2 ) xel - May 31, 2008	99 replies	by RaFzVTI »» Jan 20, 4:14 AM
	Poll: Ergo Proxy Episode 19 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 ) Metty - May 28, 2008	186 replies	by fast2611 »» Dec 25, 2025 6:26 AM
	Poll: Ergo Proxy Episode 11 Discussion ( 1 2 3 ) TuzoAnime - Jun 19, 2008	126 replies	by SD86 »» Dec 13, 2025 3:35 PM
	Poll: Ergo Proxy Episode 23 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 5 ... Last Page ) BUD - May 19, 2008	331 replies	by Konatose »» Nov 18, 2025 2:45 AM
	Poll: Ergo Proxy Episode 22 Discussion ( 1 2 ) Ranivus - Jun 24, 2008	95 replies	by Konatose »» Nov 18, 2025 2:41 AM

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