Ramblings/spoilerific musings/personal review of Ergo Proxy. Read at your own risk if interested in the series. If not, then skip this post entirely.

If you like the type of show that generally keeps you utterly lost with a giant WTS IS HAPPENING! feeling throughout and only having it mildly put together at the end, then this might be right up your alley. For those who have read my previous musings about these types of anime (Evangelion, Revolutionary Girl Utena, RahXephon, and to a small degree Un-Go) I clearly am not a fan of these. I don’t mind philosophical anime with a good amount of symbolism or anime with complex story lines. My problem is with the execution of these types of anime and 9 times out of ten they fail miserably. Utena beats the viewer over the head with symbolic images and Evangelion/RahXephon philosophically mind-fuck the viewer into a state of abject submission (which is then called “Art” for lack of any reasonable way to explain what they just saw) or as in my case, a state of I-want-to-punch-you-all-NOW-for-making-this. Ergo Proxy is no exception.

EP has a great plot, but the execution of it leaves a lot to be desired. It’s the type of show that’s best explained backwards because the bulk of understanding with regards to the whole series shows up towards the end. This is not a bad thing. However, the show does a poor job of trying to point the viewer in a logical progression towards the ending, which when explained should give the viewer that wonderful “A-ha!” moment – but doesn’t. The series starts strong with several episodes building up events I thought would become more intriguing and entertaining. However, the train suddenly stops. The perspective and style of episodes drastically changes from thriller-suspense-mystery to philosophical clap-trap. The change is so jarring I wondered if the writer lost the script and made up shit in an effort to keep the series going and be unique about it. The result is completely rubbish. Not only does the focus entirely shift, but so does the animation in several episodes going from bad to worse. By the time the plot gets back on the tracks, I could barely give two shits for where it was going. The ending, which explains some of what the hell was happening all along, doesn’t entirely feel satisfying. It raises as many questions as it answers. That, in itself, is also not a bad thing and usually most good shows do succeed at it. EP does not because of the train wreck in the larger middle section of the series obliterating most of what I cared about.

To be honest, I felt bored with the majority of this anime. The only thing that kept my interest long enough to see the train wreck to the end was Vincent Law.

Although Re-l, the gothic-esque Evanescence looking heroine, was set up to be The Main Character with Vincent as a second-in-place-but-equally-plot-important minor, his role out-shined hers by miles. [I've since learned Vincent Law is the main character and Re-l  or Real or Re-al or however the hell you spell her name is the secondary character.] He starts off as a goody-two-shoes by-the-book type of guy, desperately trying to become accepted as a true citizen of Romdo because he’s a foreigner from Mosk. As a foreigner, he’s looked down upon, but that doesn’t stop him from making every attempt at being a humble, law abiding person one day worthy of citizenship. Basically, he has the backbone of a jellyfish. When shit hits the fan and his character skyrockets from minuscule to INCREDIBLY IMPORTANT CHARACTER RIGHT HERE, he was the only one not getting the memo. ALL other characters go after him as he runs away completely perplexed. [It's ok because for the most part the viewer is left in the same boat with Vince but has a couple of incoherent clues.] As a result of him not knowing what the hell is going on he’s prone to whining a-la Shinji Ikari style. But what makes him intriguing is the fact that unlike Shinji, Vincent makes an attempt to understand what the hell is going on around (and within) him. He’s more proactive than Shinji and his moments of simplistic blind optimism makes his whining less annoying. His desire for understanding propels him at all costs. He is a sad character, but not so sad as to be crippled by it, yet has his emo moments. I can’t say I entirely liked him, but he definitely made the show worth watching.

The next best character was the Autoriev, Pino. Pino is a child companion robot who was infected with a virus called Cogito, allowing her to obtain the equivalent to a human soul and become free-thinking outside of her programing. [Get it COGito, as in COGnati...yeah, you get it. Play on words of the series!] Because she was programmed to be a “child” her behavior after the infection truly depicts the simple innocence of a child. She mostly acts as comic relief for the series and someone to help put everything into perspective particularly in episodes with a dearth of plot progress or positivity.

As mentioned before, Re-l Mayer is the heroine of the story. Aside from stylish looks Re-l Mayer is bratty, arrogant, dim-witted, selfish, vain, and as her personal robot Iggy pointed out – a bitch. As the granddaughter of the dude running the city of Romdo she’s kow-towed to wherever she goes. She starts off the series as being completely BORED by her life as an investigator for the intelligence agency, which is a joke in itself because I really don’t understand how she’s considered smart enough to work for an intelligence agency. The only thing she can do is use a shotgun and look badass. Throughout the series she changes very little or rather very little too late for me to bother caring about her anymore. When forced into somewhat dire conditions outside Romdo, she cares less about what is important and focuses more on who will brush her hair. That episode of her vanity is quickly followed by an excellent one where I was hoping I’d see a change in her character for the better. Her robot, Iggy, becomes infected with the Cogito virus, abducts Re-l and gives her a very much needed verbal bitch-slapping. During the whole episode he calls her out on her worthlessness in life because he’s always done everything for her, which I take it the writers really wanted to emphasize. The emphasis on him being necessary was two-sided, or so I think. It calls out how pathetic Re-l is as a character, but also generalizes how humanity as a whole becomes dependent upon technology to do everything. [Note: The whole series has several generalized messages like this which were well done half the time.] The episode is wonderfully refreshing because it gives a not very likable character an eye-opening chance to understand herself and hopefully make gradual changes for the better. Unfortunately, the episode twists at the end into a cliched damsel-in-distress routine and days later Re-l appears as brow-wrinkly-moody and pathetic as ever. A few episodes after that and she’s given center stage again when she does some “investigating” on her companions, Vincent and Pino. She’s clearly a control freak and when direct answers aren’t immediately before her tends to wrinkle her brow, frown a lot, and generally give up. Meanwhile, Vincent and Pino come across as completely normal, happy functioning people making the best out of a bad situation any way they can. [Note: Irony since Pino isn't a human.] Again, I’m sure Re-l’s moody no-nonsense attitude was deliberately pointed out as the “wrong” attitude to have, but it doesn’t endear her or make insights to her character meaningful in any way. Vincent and Pino endear themselves more in the episode than Re-l’s glacially slow character change into a more relaxed and open-minded being, which was mostly propelled because she had no choice against Vincent and Pino’s shenanigans. Her heartless response to Vincent’s declarations of love towards her make her all the more hateful as well. The only emotions she does display include: fear, irritation, shock, irritation, anger, and more irritation. She and Vincent could’ve been a good romantic couple for the show but fail because she’s a heartless bitch and he’s a bit of an idiot for liking such a heartless bitch to begin with. Re-l eventually comes around to Vincent’s aid/point of view in the end, but as I mentioned – far too late for me to care. Meanwhile Vincent’s acceptance of himself and his predicament change him for the better as a more assertive being with a purpose.

If there is one thing the show has going for it, it is visuals. They are quite spectacular. The character designs are good, the backgrounds are detailed and interesting, the fluidity of animation remained mostly steady throughout. As a post-apocalyptic series with dark landscapes to the set the mood it wins, big time. However, there were TONS of inconsistencies in the still graphics, particularly with character designs. I know what the characters are meant to look like because 60% of the time they do look good. But that 40% of stills where focus was placed on a thoughtful Re-l or a happy Vincent had me wondering if rookie illustrators were used every other episode. The glaring differences between what the character looks like and HOW that character should look in a different camera angle were mind-bogglingly BAD. Also, the several annoying “fluff” episodes meant to be different for philosophical reasons or… whatever, threw such a wrench in the style I nearly skipped them entirely because of how sloppy and out of place they looked. I didn’t skip them because I thought they might hold key plot points, but they usually didn’t, which pissed me off even more. Some backstory or character development usually occurred, but nothing to really merit those episodes (and shitty animation) worthy of being included in the series.

Overall, it was an ok anime. I don’t think it’s great, but it could’ve been a lot worse.

More anime reviews/ramblings….  Oh and btw, I’m making a separate category for all these on my site.

Natsume Yuujinchuo (Natsume’s Book of Friends): Viewers will either love this or be bored by it. From what I’ve seen so far online, most love it. As a huge fan of Miyazaki/Ghibli films I tend to like the quiet, simple styled anime as well as the action-packed. Natsume falls in the former category. It reminds me a lot of My Neighbor Totoro and Whisper of the Heart: very low-key slice-of-life style with a simple plot and well developed characters.

Natsume Takashi is an orphan (aren’t they ALL orphans in anime?) passed around from one disinterested distant relative to another. He’s kinda quirky, which makes his relatives not want to keep him for very long. He sees ghosts. Ever since he was little Natsume could see youkai, which is the Japanese word for spirits/ghosts/demons. Since Natsume always sees these ethereal creatures, he’s seen doing odd things by other humans who can’t see them: talking to himself, swinging arms/bags/whatever at thin air, randomly breaking out in a sprint, and spacing out when someone is talking to him. He knows he’s a nuisance to his relatives for this oddity and is aware that he’s not normal. Eventually two kind samaritans – the Fugiwaras, who are very distant relatives from Natsume’s father’s side, offer to take care of him. For the first time he feels the true warmth of a loving couple who honestly want to make him their son and take care of him. Overwhelmed by their kindness, Natsume resolves to be as good as possible and to never worry his new family.

That proves a bit problematic when he realizes he’s living in the exact same area where his late grandmother, Reiko, lived. Through an encounter with a youkai, who can take the form of a regular house cat, Natsume finds out his gran also saw ghosts. Reiko was a take-charge kind of woman whose sassiness got her into trouble, but her kindness usually won the youkai over. She made a book of names of spirits she’d bested in various confrontations and having the names meant she could control those spirits. Over the years the spirits became restless with waiting for Reiko, who none of them knew was dead since human lifespans are very short compared to a youkai. Since Natsume looks a lot like Reiko, the spirits go after him and decide they want their names back, or worse, they want control of Reiko’s Book of Friends so they may become all powerful and have many underling spirits at their beck and call. Natsume, who isn’t as action-seeking as his gran, takes a different approach to youkai and gives them back their names – or at least the ones that ask politely. The house cat youkai endears himself to Natsume, who then promises the book to the spirit after his death. The spirit could very well eat the boy, which seems to be what all the spirits want do do with humans, but decides he prefers to be amused for a while and promises to be Natsume’s bodyguard.

The episodic series shows the progression of Natsume as a person and with each season the subjects become more serious/darker in nature, but so does all the FEELS. Holy crap does this series go through emotional mountainous landscapes. One episode had me smiling and laughing all the way through it and the next would have me in a puddle of feelings so heart wrenching it’s difficult to put into words. Basically, I LOVE THIS SERIES. The characters are amazing and entertaining, especially the youkai bodyguard/ house cat Nyanko Sensei. His comic relief in the series is always welcome and usually puts a hard-to-feel-through scene into some perspective with a few well placed quips. The animation is also something fantastic to behold. I was thoroughly amazed with the beauty of each episode and impressed the animators would dare to use articles of clothing with so much detail. The use of light is incredible. Lots of golden sunsets and fantastic speckled streams of sunlight through trees in forests drew my attention to the quality of animation in this series more than it has in others I’ve watched. Awesome eye-candy!

There is no dub for this series, so english speakers will have to deal with subs, but that’s fine. The two voices of Nyanko Sensei (one for his cat form and one for his spirit form – I think) are well worth it. The twangy, nasal-y tone of Nyanko is really half the fun in his lines. Here is the ever adorable Natsume and  Nyanko Sensei, who is highly disgruntled more people haven’t watched this series!

Un-Go: This is a detective series – or so it would have you think. The “detective” part is a bit underwhelming since usually the culprit is made blatantly obvious half the time. I’m struggling to find a way to really describe this series because most of it was odd. Not necessarily in a bad way, but not in a good way either. At 11 episodes it suffers greatly from trying to pack a good punch in far too short amount of time. Each episode is crammed with so much information and weird twists (especially the first couple episodes) I was left shaking my head and thinking WTF did I just see? What is going on?

So here is a slightly spoiler-ific attempt to explain it. Dude is told the best way to pay someone back is by doing a good deed or being useful/helpful to others. So in an effort to be selfless/useful he goes about the world(?) bringing entertainments to impoverished children. He comes across a group of people traveling in a van doing the same thing and joins them. This is all done in a war zone, but what war and where is not necessarily explained. You just know BOMBS AND GUNFIRE ARE HAPPENING! Hippies in van careen into a cave and apparently activate some spirit creature thingie by touching it. Main dude looks to be DEAD – only not? Spirit takes over and says Lunchtime! stealing the souls of fellow van people and revealing their true “altruistic” (hint: NOT) feelings about what they are doing. Dude wants to live and spits out spirit. They create a contract saying spirit will help dude in doing whatever dude does and in return spirit gets to eat a lot of souls, but is not allowed to kill people. Both go back and Dude – now by by the name of Shinjiro Yuki – goes around solving cases with his spirit sidekick Inga, who is a boy. Sort of. However, whenever a case is “solved” the credit ends up going to a super smart electronics dude helping to rebuild Japan’s electronic infrastructure – kinda?… I guess?… – by the name of Kaisho Rinroku. By the way, Japan was in WAR! but you don’t really know what WAR! it was or why it happened, but this is Alternate Universe Modern Japan so things don’t need to make sense, right? Rinroku is known as being Teh Awesome and Shinjiro is known as being The Defeated Detective because his glory is always taken by Rinroku, who also likes to change up how the public/media/world sees the case – i.e. never revealing entirely the truth of what happened, but more along the lines of military-style “cover-ups”. [Think Iron Man's "it was a Training Exercise incident" type of thing.] Inga’s role is to help Shinjiro, but is usually only there for comic relief and then on a somewhat seemingly random format to the events in each episode takes the soul of some culprit by sprouting into a voluptuously buxom female who looks more Alice-in-Wonderland styled sex kitten than spirit. He/She asks the culprit one question pertaining to the case and the person has no option but to truthfully answer her.

The show becomes formulaic, but the reasoning behind Inga pulling out her Jem routine to solve cases makes no sense at all. The show doesn’t try to be compelling as a detective series, but rather focuses on what people’s inner thoughts/feelings are, which makes one wonder What Is Truth when dealing with EVERYONE around you. Are people as nice and true as they say they are or are they like the 99% of bullshitters we KNOW they are because we ourselves are of that percentage. That in itself is compelling as an idea for a series and I get the feeling Un-Go originally tried to do this, but fails in nearly all aspects. In order to even care about what truths lay behind people’s motives you have to want to know and care about the character first – to a degree. Even a small degree is fine. Maybe a teensy one? Like, say… 5 degrees? Nope. Sorry. Characters are mostly flat and boring throughout. Even the main dude is plain vanilla. The only interesting character is Inga, whose she-male antics are amusing, but usually given far too little time on screen. This is a shame because the show itself is beautiful visually. I’m not a huge fan of the pointy-looking character design for the main dude, but most other characters look ok and general animation is awesome. What also irks me is the fact that I REALLY LIKE the opening and ending songs to this series. I love a good piano riff and the ending song gets me every time I hear it. It’s just a shame the show isn’t as good as the songs. Here is Inga, up to his/her weird antics.