what is this?
I just saw an add for the dvdrelease on a website but it didnt say anything else - I just thaught the character on the photo (my guess the main character) looked hot!
So i came here and itreally dnot say what this show is about. So my question is really simple:
Whats this show about?
What genre? eg. sci-fi? cyberpunk? horror?
How many eps?
Is it as good as it looks?
is at animé? cause the pics Ive seen it doesnt look like much of a manga-style characters.
-- > Synopsis from Anime News Network:
In a world where humans and androids, known as autoraves, live in relative peace, there exists a domed city named "Romdeau". Under the implementation of complete management control, it is a paradise where feelings are literally discarded, and the governing council dictates the way of life the citizens should live. But this utopian landscape is soon broken by a series of mystifying murders. Real Mayar, a female inspector from the Citizen Information Bureau, along with her autoreiv partner Iggy, are tasked to solve the murder cases. She is soon attacked by a creature drawn to her which is neither human nor android, and learns about the mysterious phenomena called "Awakening", an event which draws her further into the case...and to the world beyond the limits of Romdeau.
-- > I hesitate to assign it a genre - it appealed to me for its more cerebral aspects plus some really solid action sequences.
-- > There are 23 episodes.
-- > I adore this show. I only found out about it recently and within the span of about 4 days I'd watched the entire series twice, and then some. However, the show isn't quite what it seems, nor is the plot terribly clean-cut, so I'm not about to recommend it to anyone. I'd compare it to Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, if anything.
-- > It's released by a Japanese animation company. Isn't that anime? They experimented with new animation styles for this show, however it is still distinctly anime-ish.
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I personally loved this anime. The style of the art was very cool and dark without making it seem too gothic (besides Re'ls sense of fashion). It is an awesome anime but I have to say some of those later epesodes made my head feel like an union slowly and painfully being peeled one layer at a time. As some of my friends like to put it; it has a "mind *beep* effect". If you want a more simple story line to follow I would stick with, say, Bleach. But if your like me and just crave stories that really get you thinking then this is a must see. You will literally spend all night watching it just to see the ending, which I might add is well worth it. very few times do I see an anime end so well. And dispite a few of the later episodes seeming to not really fit the last episode's ending makes up for it by a lot.
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It's cyberpunk
shareIt is NOT cyberpunk! Show me any cyborg in there! Show me some hackers! Show me megacorporations! It's mostly pseudointellectual sci-fi series, boring like hell in the second half. If Ergo Proxy is Cyberpunk I wonder what's Star Trek then? Cyberpunk, too?
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I dont get how an intellectual show is labelled Emo... given the fact that majority of anime on the market is trash like Naruto, One Piece, FMA... there are some people that cant really sit down and be continually bored by the lack of intellectual stimulation in something with so much potential as anime.
Granted that this sort of thing has started to blur the anime definition purely because it doesnt follow alot if any of the stereotypical anime preconceptions. I think you have to look at this show in particular as being anime incidentally... as a means to tell a story, not for the sake of making something animated.
You think FMA is trash?
(although I agree with the Naruto and One Piece being trash)
Going on a little tangent here...I think you should seriously consider re-evaluating FMA because I thought for as long as it was, it was actually amazing!
(I was skeptical at first, but after I watched the entire series, I couldn't believe that I thought it was terrible without watching all of it)
As for Ergo Proxy, as confusing as it was sometimes, I thought overall that this series is definitly one of the different ones...making it so great!
EP story is fine with me, problem is the way the story is told, I think.
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I watched maybe 2 episodes, its so slow to me, but I guess I would have to watch ,more to really understand..I think
i used to like NARUTO in the manga, but after the anime was on for a while... it just pretty much sucked, and i stopped buying the manga (i still watch the anime at time to time) though it kind of makes me cringe on buying ANY of the dvd's. plus FMA was good to a point. but hey ERGO PROXy is the shiznet! plus for all you people... the intro song is pretty good (i got the free mp3 of it) besides the ending song is RADIOHEAD'S PARANOID ANDROID! come on people, besides the show isn't some *beep* japanese-emo movement... i think the show is a great stand to STAND ALONE COMPLEX. though i wish it was a little longer. though the somewhat growing relationship of Re-l & Vincet would be nice to see fully complete ^_^
ps: for the note of everyone questioning Iggy in the series I THINK HE'S GOOD COMIC RELIEF ALONG WITH Pino ^_^
Just because something doesn't resemble Neuromancer, Deus Ex or Shadowrun doesn't mean it can't be cyberpunk. You can't just go "Oh, theres no hackers in it or some kind of omni-present corporation." and say it's NOT cyberpunk. As for cyborgs in it... just watch a few episodes.
shareThere is NO cyborg! Unless you think of androids (robot which resembles a human) like of cyborgs. I've seen all the episodes. Show me at least one cyborg, then I say I'm stupid and I humbly apologize.
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* possible spoiler*
Cyborg simply means CYBernetic ORGanism. All it takes for a machine to be a cyborg is to be autonomous, self-programming. It is shown from the very beginning of the show that this is in fact what the Cogito virus does, turns androids into cyborgs with lives of their own. Same thing happens to all of the humans in the series, as they grow out of living in controlled dome societies.
It was only in the early 80s with "The Terminator" and its imitators becoming popular that the term cyborg became synonomous with humans and implants or fleshy robots.
It doesn't make Ergo Proxy cyberpunk.
BTW, wtf is the cyberpunk? Let's ask Wiki.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberpunk
Ergo Proxy is mentioned in there between subgenres as: "Another series with both steampunk and biopunk elements in its script is Ergo Proxy."
As for Cyborgs
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyborg
"The term was coined in 1960 when Manfred Clynes and Nathan Kline used it in an article about the advantages of self-regulating human-machine systems in outer space"
"Fictional cyborgs are portrayed as a synthesis of organic and synthetic parts, and frequently pose the question of difference between human and machine as one concerned with morality, free will, and empathy."
Here's some similarity to entourages after they're infected by cogito. The Cogito virus is IMHO simply bulls...t as there is no explanation, not even a try, what it is nor where from originates. It has no deeper meaning in the story except for 13th ep. which was the best in the whole show.
BUT
"The cyborg is often seen today merely as an organism that has enhanced abilities due to technology but this perhaps oversimplifies the category of feedback."
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i'll take your weapon of choice:
Wiki: Cyberpunk first sentence:
-"Cyberpunk is a science fiction genre noted for its focus on "high tech and low life".
so we have a high end society with ubertechnology in EP but all in all the life is Dystopian and we see that though the technology is so much developed the life is sad.
Another quote form the wiki article:
-"They tend to be set in a near-future Earth", in EP it kinda does
-"Ghost in the Shell is an excellent example of cyberpunk anime (which was in turn based on Masamune Shirow's manga) ,as is Katsuhiro Otomo's Akira, based on his manga,..."
Hell in Akira, there are no hacker nor cyborgs....
so i'll point out again:
Cyberpunk is a science fiction genre noted for its focus on "high tech and low life".
in the case of labeling a genre 'Cyberpunk' the word Cyber doesnt stand necessarily for Cyborg but just for Cyber!! meaning highendtechnology and Punk for chaos, in EP's case, a dystopian future, as in Ghost and Akira
and Punk to show chaos, in this case Dystopian future.
To really understand what a cybernetic organism is, one would first need to be familiar with the concept of cybernetics. Twiki says:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybernetics
"Cybernetics was defined by Norbert Wiener, in his book of that title, as the study of control and communication in the animal and the machine. Stafford Beer called it the science of effective organization and Gordon Pask extended it to include information flows "in all media" from stars to brains. It includes the study of feedback, black boxes and derived concepts such as communication and control in living organisms, machines and organisations including self-organization. Its focus is how anything (digital, mechanical or biological) processes information, reacts to information, and changes or can be changed to better accomplish the first two tasks."
"For a time during the past 20 years, the field of cybernetics followed a boom-bust cycle of becoming more and more dominated by the subfields of artificial intelligence and machine-biological interfaces (ie. cyborgs) and when this research fell out of favor, the field as a whole fell from grace. Recent endeavors into the true focus of cybernetics, systems of control and emergent behavior, by such related fields as Game Theory (the analysis of group interaction), systems of feedback in evolution, and Metamaterials (the study of materials with properties beyond the newtonian properties of their constituent atoms), have lead to a revived interest in this increasingly relevant field."
Saw this reply and the others, even though im like, 10 years too late, but couldn't not reply...
Big Cyberpunk fan.
Ergo Proxy is pretty much as close to cyberpunk as cyberpunk can be. There is a misconception about 'cyberpunk' and what it means, and many associate it with the things aforementioned
"Show me any cyborg in there! Show me some hackers! Show me megacorporations! It's mostly pseudointellectual sci-fi series."
So... cyborgs, hackers, megacorporations with a little sci-fi makes something cyberpunk?
Only saw a few of those things in Blade Runner.
OK, let's clear this up with enough information to end this discussion and give people a true understanding.
What is cyberpunk?
Cyberpunk as a genre focuses on the effects of high-technology and it's ever closer interaction with mankind. These can be positive or negative, but most cyberpunk themed stories tend to explore the realms of possibilities and the detrimental effects they have on day to day lives. This creates an atmosphere of an existential crisis, what it means to be human, are humans completely pointless in the face of the rising possibility of AI? These are common themes running in all cyberpunk stories. A selection of references outside of the 'blade runner, GITS, matrix, hacker' type repertoire I would recommend would be movies like...
bicentennial man~
AI
CHAPPiE
9
Black Mirror
Gattica
Transcendence
The Machine (or Ex Machina, similar movie but I prefer the former)
well the list goes on.
Anyway back on topic, is ERGO PROXY cyberpunk?
Actually, no. It isn't.
It is a rare example of a GOOD 'post-cyberpunk' story.
The effects of technology and the fall of people has already happened, the current 'utopia' has been salvaged from a dystopian era.
Other similar situations (in fact I think it is one that influenced Ergo Proxy a little)
Appleseed.