May 21, 2017
Initial TLDR - If you like thought-provoking, somewhat serious anime, you'll likely find Ergo Proxy enjoyable. If you don't like doing a lot of analysis when engaging with your chinese cartoons, you'll probably hate it. No ecchi battle scenes or moe schoolgirls here; meet Shingeki no Kyojin's melancholy cousin.
At first, I thought maybe this anime would be a bit boring and stereotypically dystopian as at the beginning, but the meat of the story picks up within the first handful of episodes. A number of people seem to dislike or drop this anime mid-season as it starts getting super deep and analytical, or even pseudo-philosophical to
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some. Personally, this was interesting to me and I really enjoyed thinking about and analyzing the deeper meanings of aspects of the plot: the game show episode in particular is one that may initially feel like a weird-as-hell filler episode but once you dig a bit deeper and begin to really follow along, like the rest of the episodes, only reveals a lot more truths about the world Re-L and Vincent live in.
Truth and revelation are both strong themes focused on throughout the anime and I can understand why for some, it might feel a bit tacky or pretentious – and I can admit that occasionally it did for me, too. In spite of the at-times confusing and overbearing intellectual aspects, it didn’t necessarily seem insincere or pretentious to me, and I often walked away after an episode binge thinking about the concepts that were brought up. However, due to the heavy-handedness of these concepts, it’s definitely not going to be for everyone. Even for me, some parts were quite complex - there will be folks who find it just too hard to follow and not easy to understand. The way parts of the plot are not immediately clear may be frustrating or confusing. Some people just don’t like to think this much while watching anime and that’s fine. Nevertheless, like most futuristic, dystopian stories, this anime comes with a plot that is intended to be thought-provoking. If it’s your first time watching, this isn’t an anime to put on while half-asleep or in the background while getting work done. You’re going to need your full attention in order to follow along.
In terms of the story overall, I felt that the writers did a really good job intertwining character development with progression of the plot. Things moved at a pretty good pace - it was fast when it needed to be, and the slow parts accentuated areas of the story line accordingly (such as when Vincent and company are travelling through the decimated Earth). There are moments of the story where there are these interesting switches between POV and setting and even consciousness. It can be confusing or jarring at first but in relation to what is going in the story, is generally used effectively to get feelings or points across. The animation is fluid and the art style itself is nice. It’s pretty similar to what you’d see in other mid 2000’s anime. Cool character designs and aesthetics. The color palette and various settings do a nice job at building that futuristic, dystopian, post-apocalyptic atmosphere, although sometimes it felt a little muddy and could’ve used some variation. It reminded me a lot of the palette in Witch Hunter Robin. Although I thoroughly enjoyed this series, there’s still some imperfect aspects one could pick apart at. Every now and then there’s inconsistencies in the animation and art. The plot can become too much to handle or confusing at times if you don’t stop to get your bearings straight. Sometimes things feel a bit too slow or even too fast. Acknowledging all that, Ergo Proxy gets a 9 from me. The visuals were wicked cool, the plot was thought-provoking, and I was very much entertained for 23 episodes. A highly enjoyable series if you’re looking for something different, but as you can see from other reviews, this is definitely one of those anime series that people either "get" and enjoy or don’t.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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