Ergo… vis-à-vis… concordantly!
August 6, 2007
Ergo Proxy is what the Animatrix should have been. It's a brilliantly realized vision of the future where an ecological collapse has forced mankind into idealistic domed cities. Robots walk among us, not invisibly as in Blade Runner or grotesquely as in The Matrix, but as helpers with an impossible-to-miss white mask over their faces. On top of this it's stylistically sharp, beautifully animated and full of likable, interesting characters. It even has an awesome intro song done by Radiohead. If I had any kind of "Anime of the Year" contest this would be fighting with The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya.
First up is the bad stuff. For Ergo Proxy this is a short list (and no, the tricky title doesn't count). I'm not sure I like the main character's name. What does "Re-l" sound like to you? A man, woman, or... uh, murloc? It's actually a woman's name, pronounced "ree-luh," and she's the only one with such a bizarre label. The other guy whose name you'll be hearing a lot is Vincent Law, and even Re-l's robot companion (called an "Entourage," awesome!) is named Iggy. You also have the doctor Daedalus and my personal favorite, a completely human-looking robot girl named Pino (shown at right in her adorable pink fox outfit).
Oh! I guess I was in the middle of complaining about Ergo Proxy there. Anything else? Humm... not really. I guess the ending song is boring. And the animation takes a sharp drop in quality after the first episode, though even at that level it's still far above most other shows. Clearly that first one was done well to get you hooked. It worked, although my pet name for the show is "Too Much Eye Shadow."
I'm starting to think that a sign of a good show is how it lulls you into thinking you know what the show's about, then jerks you for a new one halfway through. On the surface Ergo Proxy seems to be about Re-l's search for whoever or whatever broke into her apartment in the end of the first episode. It was too big and scary to be a human, but too fast and powerful for even the most advanced robots. Why was it crying? And why did it leave behind a pendant belonging to Vincent Law? Is Vincent a Proxy, a word you hear over and over again without anything resembling an explanation?
So far it seems rather simple. Vincent has a crush on Re-l, can transform into Mr. Freaky, and was trying his own particular form of mutant intimacy when some other psycho in S&M gear dropped in and kicked his ass. The problem is that Re-l figures out most of this before the first disc is over. So what else is going on... aside from the Security Bureau tampering with Iggy, Re-l's ailing grandfather and the other old folks who inhabit floating renaissance sculptures? I'm confused but very entertained. Thank goodness there are three discs of this thing out already.
So I don't go thinking the world is all kittens and sunshine I've been slogging through Solty Rei and Moon Phase. I really can't tell you which one is more annoying. Let's discuss Solty Rei, just because I actually had hope for that series. By "hope" I mean Solty's character design. She has not only that impossibly bent green hair and green eyes, but green ear things and an outfit that looks like it came from the Goodwill next to a roller derby. And the most bizarre personality of any robot I've ever seen (what, you thought a human could apply that much hair spray and not suffocate from the fumes?).
Although Solty's the main character we come across her through the troubles of Roy Revant, a monotone bounty hunter who must have grown up on a diet of Lethal Weapon and Die Hard movies. Roy wears a big brown jacket with a high collar and likes to rough up his targets before he turns them in. Can you guess that he just might be a total softy inside? And that he puts on this gruff persona to cope with the loss of his daughter twelve years ago? Give yourself a cookie.
Roy meets his new unwanted android stepdaughter when she crash lands on his latest target, naked (and an amnesiac) but concealed by a billowy brown cape. Of course she bonds to Roy instantly, but he doesn't want anything to do with Solty. He tells her to go away. She follows him. He tells her to go away. She follows him. This repeats for ten minutes and then Solty busts out her super android powers and saves Roy's life. And then Roy tells her to go away.
I want to grab Roy by the shoulders and shake some sense into him. Then I want to plug Solty into a USB port and tell Norton to go to town on her. The girl's shy and demure, doesn't know how to eat a hamburger but does know how to window shop and protect people from assassinations. She turns a deaf ear to Roy when he tells her to get lost but cherishes the moments when he names her and picks out that insane wardrobe. Compare this to Ergo Proxy, where Re-l can actually turn off Iggy's personality (he's "Turing compatible") with a voice command and you can see where the talent went in that country.
My birthday comes up this Friday. As I've warned you many times in the past, there shall be no singing waiters within earshot on that day. But otherwise things will continue as normal. If you're looking for gifts, may I recommend a large size shirt, such as like these below? They don't let you in the door to PAX without something witty to wear, you know.
