Ergo Proxy

85/100

TL;DR: it’s good. It’s a bit pretentious and is a mismatch of a bunch of concepts and themes, but it is fun to watch and well written.

Synopsis: Android AI agents and humans coexist in a post-apocalyptic city, and suddenly some androids get infected with a virus and start killing people. ReL, a young upper class girl, is brought in to investigate the murders, and in the meantime, she accidentally encounters some humanoid beings with superhuman powers. She draws a connection between them and a recent immigrant, Vincent, who quickly becomes infatuated with her. Things happen and both of them are exiled from the city and now travel around the rest of the world looking for answers.

Older fans of mine may remember that I used to have Pino as my avatar on both substack and twitter, I am indeed a fan of this show; I’ve watched it about three to four times. It’s difficult to describe, as the details of the story are largely dependent on events and facts that are not revealed until later. The best I can do is this:

I don’t really have a narrative to sell here as I did in the Re:Zero post; this is such a multifaceted work that reviewing it that way cannot be done. Instead, I’ll make a few disconnected comments on the series:

1. The series is definitely left wing coded. A swarthy, young immigrant pairing up with a very attractive upper class White girl, gender differentiation is attenuated, cognitive elitism… Which is fine, really; it’s not obnoxiously or overtly political like modern television, but it will be noticed by somebody who knows a lot about politics.

2. Some people have compared Ergo Proxy to Russian science fiction on the grounds that it’s not straightforward and unashamedly complex; I have no idea if this comparison is accurate, but I can certify that Ergo Proxy is like that.

3. It’s well-directed. Shots, scene transitions, and whatnot are all on point. There are a few fanservicey camera angles, but the series is fairly nonsexual.

4. A lot of people really like the atmosphere, that is to say, the series has good vibes. It really does, though I would say they are secondary to the plot and characters in terms of importance.

5. There’s some fillery episodes in the middle. Some of them are bad, some of them are good.

6. The worldbuilding of the universe is solid, but the central setting, Romdeau, needs to be fleshed out much more.

7. Ergo Proxy is definitely pretentious. Constantly namedropping philosophers, AIs in stone statues discussing amongst each other, lengthy pseud philosphy conversations, unnecessarily using foreign words… This definitely detracts from the series, but I would say it’s more of a mild annoyance than a fatal flaw.

8. Ergo Proxy, philosphically speaking, is not that deep and does not have a cohesive theme. Most of the “depth” it has comes in the complexity of the narrative and worldbuilding.

9. It looks good for the most part; the animation quality was a bit wonky in a few episodes.