Favourite Quote-What a boring Utopia-Re-L
What I like-unique setting and complex plot
What I dislike- can be quite slow and hard to follow at times
Other info-recommended-Gilgamesh for art, Serial Experiments Lain for mind fuckery.
Ergo Proxy is a 23 episode anime from 2006, produced by Manglobe. It has a dub and sub. It's comprised of normal animation, along with 3d animation on occasion.
The story is based in Romdeau in the distant future. This is a seemingly immaculate utopia, but is domed and isolated from the outside world due to some sort of mass extinction a thousand years prior. In this city, AutoRieves have been made to assist humans with daily tasks, but just before the beginning of the anime, some of these androids became self aware and began murdering others and humans. Re-L mayer is assigned, along with her AutoRieve(Iggy) to investigate this by her grandfather-the all powerful leader of Romdeau. However during her explorations, she is attacked by two inhuman creatures-Proxies. While all this is going on, an immigrant named Vincent is being hunted down as he attempts to return to Mosk,his home city. He then just so happens to run into Re-L.
ART/ANIMATION; The art style of this is similar to anime like Death Parade and Gilgamesh. Unlike Death Parade though it doesn't have a wide range of dark colours, it's just dark. It's designed to make the world seem dull and drab even though it's referred to as perfect and.it does this very well. The majority of shades you'll find are grey, black and more grey. However, Re-L's eyes are intentionally outlined with purple eye Liner in order to show she is unique and does not follow the government system.
The animation follows a similar style in that it tends to drag along and is rarely flashy(except during fights). Everything done by the art and animation is to show is things are not always as perfect as they seem, and a world of order is not necessarily a good one.
SOUNDS/VOICES; The soundtrack of Ergo Proxy is equally as dismal. They're there to add to the generally dreary atmosphere(once more with the exception of fight scenes). Even the opening- Kiri by Moneral-has a hopeless tone to it with lyrics like 'Come and save me'. Literally almost everything emphasises just how terrible this world is. The voices are exceptional in the sub and dub. I watched a mix of both because I heard Crispin Freeman did Vincent's voice at episode 11 and had to switch over. The voices once again follow suite. Everyone sounds very pessimistic and unhappy....with 1 exception-Pino. I believe this has to do with the idea that even afyer an apocalypse, there's still hope in the form of a child's innocence. Nonetheless I very much like the voices in that Re-L sounded powerful, iggy sounded obsessive and Vincent's constantly seemed surprised(dubbed and subbed).
CHARACTERS; Overall, the characters of Ergo Proxy are good, not amazing. Re-L never seems to develop past being slightly more tolerant people. She sees a little more hope for humanity towards the end too, but otherwise, nothing. It was refreshing having a realistic, strong, female protagonist to a non-fan service show though(basically it doesn't use her body to attract watchers). Vincent too seems to never fully comprehend his situation until very near the end. Although he does have a little more development, it's like a child adapting to the world-he just goes along with things. The AutoRieves are the most fascinating by far. These supposedly soulless machines show more humanity than the characters that are human. It symbolises that humans thought that logic is perfect is wrong. Emotions are natural and even in an item designed to work for precision, they are needed. It also creates the question of whether humans should play God(as does the whole show-but no more or else spoilers). Pino(am AutoRieve designed to be a daughter) is the manifestation of the above statement in a good way, others take on the darker human form.
CONCLUSION; This is rare in that it's the story that brought me in as well as the setting. The characters are good, but are more of a method of portraying what the story is saying to us. The philosophy in this and constant mystery may put some people off but it's really worth it in the end, if you can overcome the slow pacing too. If you're easily invested in anime, this is for you.
