Customer Reviews

Ergo Proxy, Volume 1: Awakening

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

"Ergo Proxy" is one of the most beautiful anime ever made. It's also very complex, filled with allusions mysterious and even more mysterious, obscure, opaque, a story about the search for self and meaning in a bleak post-apocalyptic world of domed cities, androids ("autoraves"), warfare, and death. The heroine, Real Mayar (also Re-l Mayer), is stunningly beautiful as she undertakes to unravel the mysteries of a killer freak as she befriends an oddly lonely immigrant named Vincent Law.

But, a warning: if you want cartoons that spell out all the details a la "Hamtaro" or "Cinderella", you will be bored witless and irritated by "Ergo Proxy." The premise is that the *viewer* also participates in Ergo Proxy's search for self and meaning. It is distinctly intellectual, in the sense of thoughtful: the viewer is *expected* to ponder over meaning, especially the meanings of identity and memory. Entire scenes exist solely to create analogies between what Real and Vincent do and the viewer's consensus (although false) beliefs about reality. "Ergo Proxy" operates in the interstices of such realities, in sepia, gray, and icy blue images of radical incompleteness.

Visually, Ergo Proxy has only rarely been equaled in animation. It has a hard-to-describe kind of lyrical bleakness offset by Real's beauty - which is just one of the contradictions that suffuse the story. If you want everything telegraphed by the middle of episode 1, watch something else. But for a depiction of what used to be called "existential" search, "Ergo Proxy" is superb - vivid, gorgeous, lots of action scenes, all in a world that we recognize as our own.

Ergo Proxy is a very interesting start to a new science fiction anime. I ended up enjoying these first four episodes a lot more than I thought I would, but I find it hard to give this a complete recommendation. Series like this that try to be all philosphical and deep, and with a title like Ergo Proxy how could it try to be anything else, have a tendency to fail spectacularly in the end because their storylines end up being crushed under the wait of philosophical mumbo-jumbo that the creators clearly have only a superficial understanding of.
This story takes place far in the future. Earth is all but uninhabitable thanks to ecological disaster. Domed cities exsist where people, the chosen few called Citizens, can live in a comsumers paradise. In one such domed city, Romdo, humanity lives in comfort with help from AutoReivs, robots that serve as companions, walking PDAs, and 24-hour spying devices for the central government. The city currently has two problems. A terrible monster called a Proxy has escaped the government's confinement and is rampaging through the city. The second is that AutoReivs are being infected with the cogito virus, a rogue program that makes the machines self-aware and unruly.
Inspector Re-l Mayer, a rather gothy looking policewoman and granddaughter of the city's overlord whose use of eye-shadow makes Tammy Faye Baker's comestic use look moderate in comparision, is investigating an incident where infected AutoReivs have killed civilians. At the crime scene, she runs into the Proxy. When her superiors try to make her think she hallucinated the incident, Re-l starts putting the pieces together between the Proxy and a man named Vincent Law.
Besides an interesting plot-line, Ergo Proxy has a very striking dark look to it. It does make some of the scenes hard to see, like the first couple minutes of the first episode, but over-all its very attractive. It's all complimented by an atmospheric soundtrack.

I've been watching the fan-subs of this series since it aired in Japan Spring 06, and haven't been disappointed with it in the least.

Here's why:
The setting is like a cross of Ridley Scott's film and the movie Dark City.
if you liked either of those films, you'll enjoy this.
Music is top-notch; even features a Radiohead closing song.
Animation is consistently great. Some scenes come off scetchy, but maintain an edgy style.
Lots of visual metaphor literary references give you something to chew on.
A really unique heroine, with depth and some intense internal struggles.

there're more reasons I'm sure you could find if you gave the first few episodes a chance.

Be warned, though, if you don't care for a lot of exposition, then Ergo Proxy might come off as dull at times. Also, some of the literary elements might cause some confusion with some viewers. It's handy to write the stuff down and refer to it later online. It's worth learning that stuff anyway. :D

bottomline: As far as cyberpunk animes go Ghost in the Shell's finally met its match.

As a 23 year old anime fan (been a fan since i was around 13) there is very few titles out there that catch my attention anymore. Most lack substance and story. Music is sometimes an issue, as well as animation. Very rarely can a show or movie pull off all of these categories. I'm happy to report that Ergo Proxy delivers them all. The animation is crisp and full of life.. an occasional 3d CGI scene is used (what shows don't now a days?). The music is also outstanding. Very minimal and ambient at times, often with an eerie edge to it. Other times its fast paced and techno-ish. The story is the true winner here.. exploring areas of man and machine not yet done in anime. The lead character, a woman, is interesting to watch and her character design is pretty unique. I would sum this show up best as a cross between Witch Hunter Robin and Ghost in the Shell. Thats not too surprising though considering Ergo Proxy has the same director that Witch Hunter Robin did.

Check this one out, thats all i can say.

Romdo was a domed city, a place where humans and robots lived together, in peace and love. A utopia of the future, with complete government control and happiness for all. Yeah, right. Mix Blade Runner, Ghost In The Shell and Witch Hunter Robin into a big bowl and you have Ergo Proxy.
It seems that robots are going nuts, even praying, and Re-I Mayer of the Intelligence Bureau wants to know what's going on. Is it a virus, a man made plot or is God really doing something to the robots? Why do all the robots try to flee the city using the same pathway? And why are humans being murdered? Is everything linked or is there something else going on in the background?
Four interesting episodes and some lame extras in the form of boring previews. That's the only problem with the disc. Not much in the way of anything extra. Is Geneon getting cheap on us? But the story, artwork and character design is enough of a reason to at least check out the first DVD. On the other hand, if the second disc only has three episodes and no extras I might think twice before buying it.

just checked this vol. 1 series anime and i just can't wait until the next volumes come out. its just like the other reviewers said, alot like ghost in the shell but with maybe a little less dialog. i wouldn't say its like witch hunter robin b/c its just darker than that, and witch hunter robin was a different story in each episode, while this series is continual with the character/story development. i really enjoy the darkness of it though, watch it with the lights off at night to see all the detail. there are no bouncy outragous overly animated characters here, just very serious stick-to-the-story in a mystery/sci-fi way. highly recommend this one!

This might be the most refined (post-)cyberpunk anime I have seen to date. Take all the best aspects of Iria, Battle Angel Alita, Ghost in the Shell, Silent Mobius, etc... Amplify the quality of art, city design, technology design, and character design in all the best ways possible. Don't even hesitate. The collector's box is really slick, too.

I broke down and bought the first three volumes of Ergo Proxy (the first volume was in the box-set that has the Bonus Volume), even though I swore to myself I was going to wait until I finished completing Tokko and then got Heat Guy J and The Last Exile in my collection.

I knew I was going to love ergo Proxy, and I was right, From the very beginning I was stunned by the artwork and animation - and the computer animation surrounding is absolutely gorgeous. I actually started Episode One over and watched it in Japanese without the subtitles just so I could look at the animation and not let the story get in the way - this didn't spoil much because the first episode is basically set-up anyway.

I rewatched the first episode two more times - once in Japanese with the subtitles and then in English. Though the English voicework is capable, it should be noted that Re-L's personality is a lot different in Japanese than in English. If you watch the scene where her auto-reiv Iggy is driving her to work near the beginning of episode one in both languages, you'll see. In English, when Iggy tells Re-l that her grandfather thinks of her as his 'little princess' (or something akin to that), she agrees with her andro-chauffeur; In Japanese however, Re-l responds by giving Iggy a small warning by saying his name in a chastising tone... she knows that Iggy is just a machine and treats him as such. "I can't take it anymore!" she cries, growing quickly tired of the upgrade that auto-reiv's have that makes them chit-chat about recent events, weather, etc. Installed to make them seem more human, Re-l doesn't seem too thrilled with the component so tells Iggy to disable the program for the rest of their ride.

Though I generally only watch anime in the language it was born with, I always watch my DVD's in English too (if I pay for something I want to get all that I can out of it!) and sometimes the voicework is on par to the original (like Azumanga Daioh, Fulmetal Alchemist, and even Eureka Seven) but in Ergo Proxy, the Japanese version is far superior, because Re-l simply has a darker, more pessimistic tone to her voice. This fits in with the amazingly bleak world this anime is - it's as if a Dickensian ironworks factory went and swallowed up modern-day Los Angeles. But having said that, the English voice actress Megan Hollingshead is still very good (and light years better than the English voice actress in Ghost In The Shell, who makes me want to jam kabob sticks in my ears), as are most of the others in the cast (at least so far -I just finished episode three).

The big flaw of the DVD though is that the subtitles are sometimes up for like 1/4 of a second and you need to go back and pause the episode in order to read what was being said. That's just inexcusable and a rookie mistake - hopefully they get that fixed in future volumes.

All I can say now is that if you've been waiting for another dark and dreary - yet comfortable and fascinating - universe to immerse yourself into, then this is it. It's just amazing to look at, and Re-l makes for one hell of a guide. She's beautiful, mysterious - and tough as hell while still being feminine.. and unlike the Major in Ghost/Shell, she doesn't need to dress like a porn star. Re-l has an innate femininity that shines through without being obvious. And a big plus is that the episodes can be seen several times without boring you - Seeing the first few episodes two or three times, I discovered things that I had missed, learned more from parts of the dialogue I hadn't understood the first time through, and also quickly became more comfortable and familiar within the world of Romdo. Even though I'm still early on in the strange story that makes Ergo Proxy, I dread the moment that it comes to an end. Worth every penny - and worth getting a few months before I planned to!

Ergo Proxy is a fairly dark, slow paced and moody anime with a very cryptic storytelling style. It takes place in a post apocalyptic future in which the main characters seem to be caught up in a plot involving virus infected robots who gain self awareness and the unknown force that seems to be behind it. It sounds simple, but trust me, it's not. It's just a bit hard to explain.

What this title does best is atmosphere. You have a cinematic style that somewhat resembles that of the Mothman Prophecies and a world and music and look that is very similar to an MMO by the name of Neocron. This creates a very rich and dark atmosphere to the anime that mirrors its shadowed plot.

This particular release will leave you with many questions however, the stage is set and a lot of events take place but at this point very little of it is actually explained. We know basically what the characters know and nothing more, a storytelling style that I actually love but might be something to watch out for if it's not a style that interests you. The english voice acting is also quite good as is the sub so both schools should be pleased. The title and ending also have very good tracks, the title(starting on ep.3) is an english song by the band Kiri and the ending is a song by the band Radiohead.

This anime has so much going for it, it's not thick with action and is fairly slow paced but it seems to really be setting up a great story and the cinematic style and atmosphere to it is almost unmatched in the anime world. If the subject matter appeals to you then I highly recommend giving this series a shot.

I have just finished the series.All I can say is one must watch this.It has so many meanings, that its hard to say where you will land.But i think everyone will find meaning in this story to match there own lives.Sounds strange but it is true.It means to open your mind to what is and wonder.I know I have giving it powerful meaning but it is there if you see it and want to.Ergo Proxy asks questions we have asked our selfs.And only you can answer it.Everything one could want in a good story.