TwiddleGeek

This has all the makings of an instant classic for me. It’s exactly suited to my tastes — exactly my type of anime, story, and art. It’s dark, it’s deep, and it’s subtle. It’s the type of show where if you don’t pay attention, you’ll have no idea what is going on. The type of show most people have to watch twice in order to see once.

Ergo tells the story of a dome city where humans live alongside robots. It’s another of those futuristic “model citizen” utopia gone bad scenarios. Re-l Mayer is an inspector from the Citizen Information Bureau, and is tasked with investigating a murder case, which quickly becomes something very strange. Something that could change her life forever.

The art in the first episode alone is absolutely beautiful. The pacing of the story, the 5.1 sound, everything about this series screams quality so far. The first episode is so mysterious I’m not even sure I can describe what happened. Basically, Lil and her autoreiv partner, Iggy, are on the trail of a series of murders they believe linked to an autoreiv virus. The real problem, however, seems to be a mysterious experiment that has gone horribly wrong. It has escaped, and is and now running amok among the city.

I sincerely hope Ergo Proxy can keep the high standards. So far it could be called Ghost in the Shell meets Witch Hunter Robin, and that’s one great combination in my book. I picked it up mainly because of the dark art and Re-l holding a shotgun type weapon looking very deadly, but I’m glad to see the story matches the style.

Left confused and disoriented from her attack, Re-l struggles to recall the details as she faces a complete information blackout all around her. Iggy has had his memory of the events wiped, as well as the investigation. If that wasn’t bad enough, reports have came down that she’s suffering from delusions after the attack and she’s been removed from her case.

Realizing the conspiracy and information cover-up going on around her, she pays a visit to her grandfather — the Regent of Romdo city. She asks directly: What is a PROXY? Getting nowhere and under strict watch however, she swears to give up the investigation. Meanwhile, the PROXY continues to tear a hole through daily life in Romdo, killing many as the higher ups struggle to contain it.

So many aspects of this episode were gripping, but perhaps the best moment was the slow motion scenes in the mall. They had real weight, real emotion as the proxy ripped through the crowd, Vincent struggling to fight back and firing his gun in slow, terrified motion. The AutoReiv and the stroller was, of course, a really powerful moment. If Ergo Proxy continues like this, I’m hooked.

Vincent, having survived his encounter with the PROXY in a yet unknown manner, now finds himself on the floor of a subway train. He’s having the same apocalyptic dream again, struggling to make sense of it before he wakes up, trying to see just a little more. He spends the rest of the episode on the run, trying to figure out why everyone is after him and lamenting his failure to become a model citizen. Re-l, having found his pendant in her bathroom, is close on his trail.

Ergo Proxy is the kind of anime I don’t so much watch as I anxiously soak in. Every new detail leaves me sitting on the edge of my seat, and there’s always little hints and clues spread about that, while seemingly random now, may make sense later when the big picture is revealed. For example, in Vincent’s cereal in episode one, the order of the letters that float to the top spells “AWAKENING”.

One thing I haven’t touched on so far are the really impressive computer displays in Ergo Proxy. I especially love Re-l’s book-like laptop, its digital pages “flipping” with a wave of the hand, able to be slid to the side or casually manipulated. It was equally impressive when Iggy casually passed information on his screen over to Re-l’s simply by tapping the side of the virtual screen.

The first half of this episode is spent in mind bending surreal dreams as Vincent struggles between life and death, his mind trying to work out what has happened, where he is, and who’s voice he hears. It’s a confusing, yet hint laden series of events that are extremely well executed. I’m tired of all the whining about shows like Evangelion and their confusing psychological scenes. We need more anime like this, more deep plots and misdirection, and less dumbing down to the least common denominator.

In the second half, Vincent comes to terms with the fact that he’s still alive, and outside of the dome. Thanks to the help of an old man, he has managed to fight off a virus of the outside world. He and Pino meet others like him who are surviving outside the dome, living from the extreme amounts of waste and scrap simply tossed out by the city.

One other thing I want to mention is the awesome intro sequence that started as of the last episode. It’s something I haven’t really seen done professionally before: grunge. It’s a beautiful series of sequences from the show and etc set to various grunge Photoshop-like effects. While it’s been done by amateurs for ages, these professionals easily school them on proper usage. I sure do love the age of HD anime.