P.S. I feel I should warn you that if you don't like reading long reviews, you should drop this one right now. As a very pedantic and analytical person, I tend to write almost obnoxiously long reviews.
P.P.S. I shall also write several spoilers, for its hard for me to thoroughly review the story without giving some things away, especially when discussing the plot. But I promise I will warn you each time a significant spoiler is incoming.
"Ergo"'s greatest potential turned out to be its greatest weakness. You must have already read the synopsis, so I won't repeat it here.
I came across Ergo Proxy on this very site, and the premise of the show had me so intrigued, so much interested, that I downloaded all 23 episodes immediately, impatient to see more of it. And the very first episode had me hooked up completely. The quality of the art and music, the interestingly designed characters and the environment, the show's dark and stylish visuals, and most of all, its on-the-edge-of-your-seat plot brimming with mystery and suspense... I couldn't wait to start the next episode. The second and the third episode were just as brilliant, as the story brought more and more ( but still not too much ) mysteries, and the plot captivated me completely. And it continued to be good, albeit paced a bit slower, until episode 7. This is where the show lost it, and even though it tried from time to time, never managed to find it again.
Apparently, the Manglobe's producers of the show approached the director Shukou Murase with "bare-bones vision for a futuristic detective thriller, which included the title, a plot outline for episodes 1-3 and a design concept for Romdeau." And, unfortunately, they allowed him to do as he pleases from there.
What did Murase do? He threw the concept of a "futuristic detective thriller", that could have challenged Death Note for the title of the best suspense series, and decided to make it a more "philosophical" show. This forfeiting of the already established genre and plot, and opting for something else altogether would be disastrous in itself, but the story might have survived, had the replacement been better ( or, a cynic inside me would say, good at all ).
Now, many people who have reviewed this show praise it for its "philosophical issues" and its "depth", and good for them if they see any depth in this series, but I, and I flatter myself to be a very rational and objective person, can see none. Make no mistake, Ergo Proxy is no "Ghost in the Shell" ( and I'm talking about Mamoru Oshii's feature film, not the S.A.C. series ). The philosophical "questions" are neither new, well presented or debated, or have any real depth. We have Vincent's search for his memories and finding his real self, but apart from ( SPOILER ALERT ) his nature as both a human and a Proxy, it's nothing new or particularly mind-stimulating. ( END OF SPOILER ).
The director also tried with the symbolism and metaphors about Romdeau's slow decay and final demise, but it ends up more confusing than though-provoking, and is not built upon enough. There are many more "metaphors" and shallow symbolism present throughout the series, but the problems with them is that they aren't elaborated enough and that the show tries too hard to show you how "deep" it is, whereas the golden rule is that the depth is in subtlety, and this show doesn't have as much as it should, given all the questions and issues it tries to address.
Probably the only highlight of the "philosophical aspect" of the show is Re-L's search for the truth; her determination to seek and face the truth no matter how ugly it might be adds a lot to her character, and she does advance the "plot" more than most other characters, and I give the show the credit where it's due. Unfortunately, this isn't enough to save the overall story.
After episode 7, the plot became incoherent and confusing, with the show refusing to ( at least partially ) solve its already established mysteries, instead piling up more and more of them, and had neglected its existing plot lines ( like the origin and spreading of the Cogito virus ).
There were also several completely unnecessary mind-fuck episodes that did nothing to advance the plot or develop the characters, as well as a couple of episodes that went beyond conventional mind-fuck, and just left you asking: "What the hell is going on? I mean, what the hell is going on?!!" I'm talking, of course, about the ( SPOILER ALERT ) episode no. 15, the "Quiz-show episode", and the ep. no 19, the "Disney episode" ( END OF SPOILER )
In the end, the show tried to redeem itself by pulling a Deus-ex-machina that was supposed to tie up all the loose ends, but ended up opening more questions than it answered. The ending scene(s) is epic, though.
Overall, I find Ergo Proxy's cast of characters satisfying.
Re-L Mayer, one of the two main characters, is the granddaughter of Donov Mayer, the regent ( or, as his official title is, Administrator ) of Romdeau. She's bored with the sterile utopia that the city is, and sometimes wishes for the city to come to an end, just for the sake of breaking the routine of her life as an inspector for the city's Intelligence Department.
She's portrayed as somewhat of a loner, barely communicating with anyone except her Entourage, Iggy. Hand in hand with this comes her independence, individualism and strong will. She also possesses great emotional strength, displayed in her determination not to run from the reality, no matter how harsh or dark it might be. On the other hand, as a granddaughter of the regent, she's quite spoiled and arrogant, and has little concern for the emotions or the needs of the others. She's also something of a badass, being quite handy with guns, especially the shotgun, her trademark weapon.
Vincent Law is also quite a good character, albeit not as interesting as the Gothic princess Re-L. He's much more realistic in that regard, having very little impressive skills or extraordinary psychological traits. He's inner struggle to come to terms with his past and ( SPOILER ALERT ) double identity as both Vincent and Ergo is psychologically convincing and interesting, but could have been less drawn out. ( END OF SPOILER )
His character changes a lot over the course of the series, from being a timid man ( and, if I may say, a bit of a coward ), always bowing his head down and obeying, to become a determined individual that comes to terms with his nature and realises that it's who he is now, and not who he had been prior to losing his memories, that defines him.
Pino, a self-conscious Autoreiv and arguably one of the cutest anime characters ever ( especially considering the realistic style and animation of the series, with no chibi ) could have been way better developed, and used to explore the concept of a machine gaining a heart much deeper. She does little for the plot after episode 3 when she helps Vincent escape from Romdeau, and is basically there only for the cuteness and keeping Vincent company on his journey.
Raul Creed is one of the most interesting characters in the story, and the one that changes the most over the course of the series. A law abiding model citizen of Romdeau, he's the new Chief of Public Security at the beginning of the series. Pino was his surrogate daughter, and his wife was also given a human baby by the city's authorities. ( SPOILER ALERT ) In the ep. 2 both his wife and baby are killed in the shopping mall by Monad Proxy while chasing Vincent Law, and Pino is infected with the Cogito Virus. ( END OF SPOILER ) After that, he gradually becomes obsessed with Vincent and the Proxies, and simultaneously becomes destructive and strives to break the humanity's shackles of dependance on the Proxies. He wants to see humanity free of any gods determining their fates, and conspires with doctor Dedalus Yumeno in order to biologically enhance humans in Romdeau so that they can survive in the outside world, thus no longer being dependent on the Dome created and sustained by the Proxy.
Dedalus Yumeno is the Chief of the city's medical center and Re-L's personal physician. He's supposedly a child genius, appearing to be only 14-16 years old, but already a renowned doctor and scientist. It is gradually revealed that he's obsessed with Re-L, and wishes to posses her. He's also quite a schemer, changing sides when it suits him best and repeatedly withholding information from people if it doesn't serve his interests. He's also revealed to be psychologically unstable and destructive, and is ( SPOILER ALERT ) later manipulated by Proxy One into destroying the dome protecting Romdeau ( END OF SPOILER )
There are three categories that, combined, give a final score for the visual aspect of any animated series: style, graphics and animation.
The style alone gets a full score of 10. The beautiful style is one of Ergo Proxy's highlights, and its mostly thanks to great character designs and, most of all, interesting and meticulously drawn post-apocalyptic environments and cities.
Character designs were clearly given much thought and work, and all of them are unique and memorable, especially Re-L, with her resemblance to Evanescence's leading singer Amy Lee.
The graphics don't get the same high score as style. While they are top quality for most of the time, especially for the show that was only meant to be released on DVD, every now and then the graphics are strikingly sloppy and cheap, lowering the otherwise high visual quality of the show. Normally highly detailed characters and backgrounds can get downgraded to being painfully simplified and plain, with most of their features and clothes barred to the bones, not to mention getting anatomically incorrect and/or inconsistent ( mostly it's the angle and the length of the nose, shape of the face etc. ) So the graphics get 7/10.
The animation is somewhat better than the graphics, but still not worthy of a straight "A" like the style. Again, it's fluid and high-quality for the most part, but the motions occasionally get a bit weird or unrealistic. The show is a bit static, but seeing as it's a suspend, and not an action series, it's not relevant to the animation's final score of 8/10.
P.S. The opening for this series is one of the best ones I've ever seen, combining the staggeringly detailed images with well-chosen music in what can only be called visual art.
The soundtrack is very good, serving its relatively limited purpose of setting the mood, due to the lack of more epic scenes. It achieves this with a combination of haunting vocals and modern instruments to paint the both grim and sterile world of Romdeau and desolate wastelands outside of it. Combined with stylish and dark visuals, the music delivers the almost sublime feel that really gets you immersed with the post apocalyptic world of Ergo Proxy.
The opening and ending theme songs are both great; the OP is "Kiri", a song in English performed by the Japanese band "Monorail". I was surprised to find out that the band is Japanese - the singer's English is that good ( far from your typical "Engrish" ). The ending theme is a popular song "Paranoid Android" by "Radiohead". Both songs suit the opening and ending, as well as the series as a whole.
Voice-acting is very good in both the Japanese and English version. Both the seiyu and the voice actors in English do a great job and each voice feels like it's made for the character. The greatest achievement of the voice acting, though, is Pino, who manages to be cute without having the annoying high-pitched voice those types of characters are usually graced with.
I could go on with each category ( and add some more ) and go into more detail, but that would require lots of spoiling and besides, I think the review is long enough as it is. So I'll wrap it up. Ergo Proxy had the misfortune to be assigned a director that was probably high for the whole time the series was made, and screwed the story that could have propelled it the prestigious club of anime classics. Instead, much of the show was pure mindfuck that left me almost angry at it for wasting my time. Does that mean Ergo Proxy is a bad anime? Of course not. There was still enough good bits of the plot ( mostly in the first 7-13 episodes ) for viewers to get some top-rate suspense, as well as high-quality visuals ( for most of the time ) and a number of great characters who just had the misfortune to finding themselves in such a shit-storm of a plot. Overall, Ergo Proxy gets a median rating of 6,4.
Would I recommend this anime to you? Not really, at least not watching all of the episodes, because if you're a reasonable person with a capacity for critical thinking ( unlike the people who gave his show 10/10 ) you won't enjoy the show because of the awful plot. Sci-fi and cyberpunk fans could like it ( to a degree ) and should give it a try, and as for everyone else, stay away from it.
