Ergo Proxy

… is a lousy, well-produced series. I was quite literally suckered into watching it because of the production value. The animation is top-notch. In fact, the files I got were encoded in a whopping 1280×720 (HDTV resolution) screen size in 5.1 audio – which is ridiculous if you ask me. But again, while everything about this anime suggested high-quality, I truly wish that I could say the same for the actual content.

Ergo Proxy is a science fiction anime, taking place in a post-apocalyptic future earth. The main characters, Vincent Law and Re-l Mayer find themselves outside the protective dome-city Romdeau to discover what the Proxies are, and what they mean. Other minor characters include Pino and Iggy, autoreivs (robots) who become “humanlike” through the virus named Cogito. In Romdeau, Daedalus experiments with the Proxies, while Raul Creed and his autoreiv Kristeva attempt to keep the city under control.

taken from http://ua.sorrowind.net/Ergo_Proxy

Having just described the general plot (or at least how it started), I think the problem was more on how the story was revealed rather than the actual concept/plot. I’ve definitely enjoyed watching anime with simpler plot-lines.

For me, the last few episodes of Neon Genesis Evangelion still holds the crown for the-most-confusing-20-minutes-you-can-ever-watch-in-anime. However, Ergo Proxy seems to be giving it a run for it’s money as far as “confounding presentation” is concerned. But at least NGE still made sense after everything.

The series is only 23 episodes and a whole bunch of the latter episodes are pretty absurd. One review described it as “fragmented storytelling” – which I would have to say is the most articulate description of how this series is presented. It takes too much brain cells to keep up with the entire puzzle that is the story – that most people (myself included) would probably get turned off halfway through.

All in all, I think watching this was an utter waste of my time. And unless you specifically want the challenge of watching something extremely confusing just to prove your comprehension skills, then I suggest you skip this series as well.