You can't just look at the female lead and go "oh, she is the tsundere of the show", they are all original characters, and that already sets this show miles ahead of most other anime
This is especially reflected by the character Pino. Normally a child is the worst offenders of generic no personality, but Pino is portrayed so well, it is impossible to watch ergo proxy without feeling for her.
The setting is awesome. Dystopian low-science fiction. Setting wise, what anime can do better than "real life" tv shows is going large. You can create shots that would be impossible to create, just by drawing it. This is where I feel the show comes in a bit short. There are so many large beautiful back pieces. The art is amazing. But it is rarely utilized. A large part of the story will take place in a desert wasteland or a dark corridor.
Much of the "action" will take place through conversation or a monologue in a characters head, so many of the fantastical elements of anime are wasted on this show. Sure they do so in an incredible beautiful world, but they rarely interact with it. This show could easily be recreated with human actors, and would probably even be accepted in western culture.
I am not really going to blame it for not living up to the potential anime as a medium has to offer, since it is very clear ergo proxy tries to go in a different direction, focusing on psychological and existential elements.
This is where the show falls short in my opinion. I watched it with English dubs, so it is very possible that a lot of the content is lost in translation. Like a lot of other shows I have watched with a lot of talking (ghost in the shell, katanagatari) the characters will make weird leaps of logic, which I am sure makes sense in the original text, but in English you will kind of have to "translate" the translation. Through a lot of the existentialist stuff you will have to think "what is the sum of what this person is trying to communicate" instead of taking it in word for word.
Now for the actual psychological and philosophical content, it is actually a bit uninspired. What you will learn is somewhat limited. You get to deal with alot of characters whose existence is sort of in debate, but it has been seen before. There is a great analogy where humans are "created" just like the adroids whom are declared broken or virus ridden if they develop personalities. The main characters are "broken" as well, even though mostly human. It touches a lot of great stuff, but there is really nothing new, at least for an atheist / agnostic western audience. Whether or not the show has a message that is relevant for Japanese society is beyond me
This show is a 7 for me. Almost everything is perfect, the characters, their interactions, the setting, the art.
The story content itself drags it down from a 10 though. Very little actually happens in the show. Lots of action in the beginning and the end, but most of the show is very slow. The end develops too fast, and I am certain most people will have to look up what they actually saw.
There is a lot of unused potential from the setting, which could have lead to great stories, I feel the story with the androids gets way too little attention, some episodes about this (maybe with some action even) could have helped make the show more tolerable for the people who don't think a great monologue while watching a ship sail through a desert for 5 episodes is enough.
