anime|otaku

I’m seeking to improve – I tried my best in giving you a cogent summary of Ergo Proxy as early as possible, and pretty sure to its consistency unless someone proves me otherwise.

Any anime that you’d suggest me blogging? I could blog all the rarities like Black Jack, Gintama, Digimon Savers, etc. I’m pretty sure my attitude towards blogging is more or less humble, and if it is quite arrogant, I ask your pardon.

I hope you could comment on my posts, start and lengthen discussions, give feedback – I am welcome to improvement, so that my blog can also etch itself on your hearts (no joke).

Comments to all posts are very, very welcome, even disagreement or digression. I’m totally welcome to it, as long as there’s no flaming and one doesn’t try to be arrogant.

Thank you for reading this. I hope for your replies.

I still don't understand enough Japanese; that isn't learnt in a day or week, or even month, but I can have the value of diligence and conscientiousness. I used Systran, a passable language translator and delved into Japanese blogs on Ergo Proxy. From there, I build I up what I write. Of course I also watched the raw and meshed my common sense from the episode with the writings.

The show starts to be a power play between Raul and Daedalus: Raul has obtained information about Monad Proxy and wants to do something with the city, and Daedalus I think has obtained the key to controlling the flow of electricity to the city. Chief Writer Dai Sato's grave appears, and panning out reveals a live and healthy Real Mayer.

Because of its decadence, Romdeau is slowly torn apart, and Raul and Daedalus seek to take over. Before this, by the way, Raul is irate at the council and Donov, because he punches a mirror and injures his hand. Going down an elevator, he talks with Kristeva, and a blackout occurs. The time: two minutes, seventeen seconds, and 23 milliseconds.
If the blackout continued past the three-minute mark Romdeau surely will be put into danger.

Guess what Daedalus's citizen number is: 021723 … one could almost say it's a sign for Raul to keep off his back.

Real then finds herself in a city filled with robots performing the myriad of duties in that town. It is less crowded, however, and the only thing striking about it aside from the robots is the fact that it is filled with a whole lot of graves.

Real, in a dream, then talks to herself – and in this dream she finds resolve to seek who Ergo Proxy is, perhaps to defeat him (she has anti-Amrita bullets, by the way, courtesy of Daedalus). With Iggy, they fly away – and screen fades to Paranoid Android.

What's wonderful this episode is that they added more depth to Raul, and aside from the philosophy involved the politicking of real life. That's good – I'm getting to like this series again. However, what amount of the story is redeemed is removed by the animation – by gosh, it was subpar … except until the last part, where Real really, really, looked great.

Click for a larger image of Real, by the way.

a brief summary of Ergo Proxy – 10
[BS doesn't mean bullshit, it means brief summary]

As I can't understand Japanese for now, kindly pardon for my more or less summary based on the action of the characters. At least I'm not lying about how much I know.

It starts with Raul talking to Kristeva about paradise … I can't figure out much … I'm a dumbass. Anyway, Real appears, so fanboys like me can praise the Lord that she has appeared once more.

However, this episode is generally an explication episode, so there are a lot of talks, this time mainly occurring between Raul and Daedalus, somewhat challenging one another on the control of Romdeau. Real appears in a mysterious town run by robots, and has Iggy with her. I assume it's because Daedalus sent her there. From what I can glean from the Japanese bet. Raul and Daedalus, D has an obsession over the Proxy, and they talk somewhat mainly about the proxies.

There isn't any Vincent this episode, but I was laughing my ass out when this appeared:

You can view the large picture here: http://img134.imageshack.us/my.php?image=bscap00057ze.jpg

Yes, that's Raul and Daedalus. Yes, I was laughing my ass out …

Here's some of my educated guesswork.

Remember this?

14 Someone Else That Looks Like You 貴方に似た誰か/ophelia 2006-06-10

(I've set Ophelia in bold. That will mean something, as you will discover later on.)

Have you ever read Hamlet? If not, Ophelia is a prominent figure in that Shakespearean play as the lover of Hamlet. After an evil plot by her father, whom she loves so much, made her meet with Hamlet, she discovers that Hamlet was insane, as was insinuated by her father. This depresses and saddens her to the extent of madness, and afterwards, she drowned herself in a stream. She kills herself because she loves Hamlet so much that it tears her apart. Familiar?

Sparks and fireworks fly in my head. This is mainly because Vincent could be taken as an allusion to Hamlet. Of course, there are significant differences, but I've noticed that both heroes have gone down the path of madness. (If episode eight wasn't an indication of Vincent slowly losing it, I don't know what is.) If Hamlet could be taken to be Vincent, I'm pretty sure Ophelia is either Monad Proxy or Real. The conversation between Kazukis and Vincent revealed through Kazukis's words that Monad loved Vincent to the extent of offering herself as storage for all the bad memories of Vincent/Ergo. It was then noted that she disappeared afterwards, or perhaps 'died.' Hmm …

We all know that the literary allusions to these kinds of anime have some sort of meaning, so I'm banking on the fact that if it isn't Monad that will appear by this episode, it will be Real.

Real can also make a case as an allusion to Ophelia: first, it is her grandfather, Donov, that doesn't really allow Real to move around or to investigate Vincent, much like Ophelia's dad limiting her. Second, about the love part, once Real discovers what truly happened to her (that she was saved by Vincent, that he has gone away, that he has sacrificed going back to save her life … ) I'm pretty sure that cold character of hers will do a 180 and realize that Vincent IS the man she loves. It may not be as probable as the Monad hypothesis given the data that we have now, but I'm pretty sure it is plausible.

Besides, if you could see a Real or a human Monad like this,

Who wouldn't be a happy camper? I certainly would. Besides, if that is animated, it would look really great.

If anyone knows William Faulkner, one probably remembers him for his difficult works, for his The Sound and the Fury, perhaps for his alcoholic and arrogant nature, or perhaps that he has won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1949. He's that great of a writer, but even he himself said:

"Before I began, I said, 'I am going to write a book by which, at a pinch, I can stand or fall if I never touch ink again.'"

This was his description of As I Lay Dying, among the classics in the Faulkner canon, and as some sources say, his own personal favorite among them.

I can say the same for Ergo Proxy. After the roller-coaster ups and downs, I can firmly say that what I have waited for is this tenth episode.

'I am a going to produce an episode by which, at a pinch, I can stand or fall if I never scriptwrite again.'

I hope Dai said that to himself. It's quite urgent for them to gain back the trust of its lost followers (like us). And we are not alone. Many Japanese watchers, who pay for Ergo, are disgruntled too. They seriously should pull off nothing less than a masterpiece in this episode, and I'll be watching. 

That, however, shouldn't really be expected much. 

Synopses from Newtype don't let us expect much:

Episode 11-13 synopsis
(obtained from Aniki Meiski)

http://pc.webnt.jp/anime/disc_base.php?oid=605638

10 Existence 存在／cytotropism 2006-05-13
Inside, the perfectly managed Romdeau, also known as the Paradise, the management system is starting to come apart. Realizing this, both Daedalus and Raul advocated reforms, without revealing their hidden agenda. Regent Donov dismissed their opinions without listening to them.

11 In the Mist 白い闇の中/anamuneshisu 2006-05-20
Script: Dai Sato
Storyboard: Satomi Deai
Without realizing it, Vincent was surrounded by a thick fog and lost his way. He came upon a second-hand book shop. To ask for the way, he entered the bookshop with books piling up everywhere. An uncanny bookshop owner recommended Vincent a book with Vincent's own name carved onto the title.

12 If You Smile 君微笑めば/hideout 2006-05-27
Script; Yuko Kawabe
Storyboard: Iwao Teraoka
While continuing their journey, Vincent's party was resting deep in the forest. Pino hated helping Vincent and instead ventured into the forest. There she saw a girl picking flowers. The girl disappeared into the forest as soon as she noticed Pino.

13 Conceptual Blindspot 構想の死角/wrong way home 2006-06-03
Script: Yuko Kawabe
Pino followed the girl into the forest and discovered a cave. As she entered the dark cave, there sat the girl along side with a mysterious giant. Who is this giant? At the same time, Vincent is searching for Pino. Then a mysterious shadowy figure approached from behind. Each and every encounter that thwarts the path forwards spins out unforeseeable fate.

14 Someone Else That Looks Like You 貴方に似た誰か/ophelia 2006-06-10

15 The Pure Nightmarish Quiz Show! 生悪夢のクイズSHOW！/Who wants to be in jeopardy! 2006-06-17

16 Dead Calm デッドカーム/busy doing nothing 2006-06-24

I will be terribly happy if they do pull it off, however … the show for some of us is reflected by the title of Faulkner's book, As I Lay Dying. 

There's something terribly wrong with another show when you find out that a show for kids is more entertaining than it. Case in point: Ergo Proxy and Digimon Savers.

The series breaks open with an alarm ringing in a secluded quasi-military base (or so it seems) announcing that some Raptor has broken loose. The scene then changes to a cute girl (no joke, guys, she's cute) who's about to enter a sealed-off police scene. Inside the scene there are fifteen guys spread around, lying on the cement. A Raptor-like monster then engages a teenager into boxing. 

They fight; they collapse later on.  What then happens is that the dinosaur-like monster recognizes the strength of the human, and the human, reciprocatingly recognizes the monster's. The monster then pleads allegiance to the human, whose name is Daimon Masaru. 

Yoshino (the cute girl) then comes out and plans on confiscating the monster, whose name is Agumon. A battle ensues, and a cute monster pops out and throws nuts at both Daimon and Agumon, but they escape with the return-fire of Agumon (Baby Flame).

Daimon and Agumon then disappear, and Daimon brings Agumon to a building (their place, perhaps?) Agumon shows signs of hunger, and laughs ensue when he tries to eat Daimon. Agumon then receives a punch in the head from Daimon; Daimon then tells Agumon to stay and wait for him.  Daimon then goes out to buy food, but meets up with Yoshino, who plans on capturing Agumon with the help of Daimon. Daimon disagrees: he would rather go to the DATS office than give Agumon up.

The head officer with his Digimon (yes, that's what they call the monsters here!) then explains that Agumon or the raptor was a rogue, and that he has to be recaptured to preserve the balance between the Digimon and humans. Daimon then explains that he wouldn't give Agumon up, because he believed that Agumon went to the human world to discover more about it. He also recognizes the responsibilities he has to face, and admits that if Agumon did something nasty, he'd be the one to blame. 

An explosion then rocks the DATS.

Daimon runs away, and comes back to his place finding no Agumon. Concerned that Agumon burned buildings because he was hungry, he looked for him only to find him covered in a trash can. It was because Agumon was hungry, but he wasn't the culprit.

 It was the COCK!

Yes, it was another COCK monster that looked even uglier than Agumon. Fights ensued, but in the end, Agumon transforms (majestically, I might add, and SO fitting to the plot of this story that I was really content and filled with happiness watching this scene.) andsaves the day. Oh, and by the way, Daimon also gave the COCK a beating. (XD) 

The next episode is about flies … I think.  

I have this weird hypothesis (based on fact) why I think Real and Vincent should end up together. (This is what keeps me watching the show: the thought that, one day [in the final episode perhaps], they'd end up together despite their shortcomings.) I'm banking on Daedalus to have done something with Real already, so I'm pretty much just picking between her become a fembot or another proxy, the first because of the fact that she was critically wounded on episode seven and would need a miracle and maybe some artificial parts that would technically make her t3h h0tn355, and the second grounded on the fact that she was implanted with some Amrita cells to allow her to recover and hasten her recovery.

In either episode ten or eleven we'd probably see a new Real. (I'm going to be happy if I see her after a long time xD) What lets her avoid being attracted to Vince will now become the reason why she will be attracted to him: they will be both oddly bizarre organisms if that happens.

Also note that Real is a repressed girl. In all of Romdeau, the only one that looks acceptable to get laid with is Vincent. Others are old people, Raul (who looks old), and Daedalus (who looks too young). Vincent has the right amount of cool and handsomeness to be the only one practically acceptable to Real. And one must admit that there has been something attracting Real to Vincent, but more noticeably, Vincent to Real. Eventually, we discovered that he really likes her: he's really besotted with her. I mean, he risked his life just to allow Real to be saved by acceding to the trade proposed by Queen. That's love.

Real is the one who does not reciprocate. She has seen too many quirks with Vincent and probably knows in her gut that he's something out-of-this-world. So she doesn't get too close, although we know he really did a lot for her, especially in the Commune episodes.
She will though, once she realizes that she's also become another being like him, and thus will probably develop love for him and eventually sexual desire.

She's repressed. One – there aren't any boys in the first place to be desensitized with. Two – there aren't even any girls shown – and a whole lot of humans are simply apices of genetic engineering. She's probably curious about this desire, and realizes something unique in Vincent. (This is based on cleavings of psychology: I'm just piecing them together to support why I think they probably will be together with Vincent.) She's simply afraid because she 'seems' normal. That's her sole barrier from being 'interested' in Vincent. Technically, she already *is* interested in him.

Discovering that she has become another quirk, another not-human like him will allow her to get closer to Vincent because the barrier is already broken. They will get close; do something, and probably end up together dying like most of these SF-genre anime or literature.

I've really only read Fahrenheit 451, and Guy Montag becomes infatuated with this girl whose name I have already forgotten because she reads books (thinks differently). In the future, as equality among every people is promoted even free thought is disallowed. He realizes there's something special about her, but she eventually is killed because the gov't wanted to remove weeds like her. You just twist the stories, and it's going to seem to become Ergo Proxy.

Of course, like the title of my blog says, this is purely speculation. I'm just making it something more concrete so that there seemingly is a reason why I believe that a love story will occur.

I could have posted on introducing myself, blah blah blah, but this is an anime blog and I have to talk about anime. Because the anime I'm most emotional and feverish about is Ergo Proxy, I'd rather talk about it on this first post.

To be honest, when I started watching this anime I was absolutely convinced that it was going to be the best anime of 2006. The animation was simply neat; the character designs unique and beautiful, not to mention a hot heroine in a futuristic, post-apocalyptic world is just always ftw in my books. After watching the first episode of the show by virtue of an advanced screening, I was head-over-heels in fanboying for this show: I was totally besotted.

The second episode detracted a little of the love and admiration I had for this series: it *was* only the second episode and there were Speed Grapher moments already. (In case you didn't know, Speed Grapher was a hyped anime that fell flat because its animation and character design was fugly.) Still, I watched on and enjoyed the portentous mood it brought to anime, and everyone always enjoys archetypical actions. The second episode was realistic in the sense that a baby was murdered along with adults. It is most definitely a no-no in most anime series, but it just showed me the show's grit. All was good.

Episodes three and four got back to business. With a thrilling storyline, and once-more normal animation I enjoyed how the main characters acted – as of then, there were still no definite villains. Even now, there still aren't.

Episode five and six were weak episodes. Banking on viewer-response than on content, the creators of Ergo Proxy managed to kill two unimportant characters, and save for the fact that it was the trigger for Vince's journey to his hometown, Mosk, it wasn't really much, both animation-wise and plot-wise.

That's two strikes already. I'm pretty harsh to this series because given the all-star crew it had to make it, the crew could only make those? The producing company was Manglobe, responsible for Samurai Champloo and Rozen Maiden: Traumend. The director was Shukou Murase, of Witch Hunter Robin lore, and the scriptwriter was Dai Sato, also among the scriptwriters of Ghost in the Shell: Stand-Alone Complex. I couldn't see why the animation had to be so ugly despite these people.

But here it comes: episode eight, but more particularly, nine. The viewers discover that Ergo Proxy is Vincent Law by virtue of some transformations that occurred. That's strike three – you DO not do a henshin/sentai transformation in a serious, futuristic, realistic, post-apocalyptic potboiler anime. In fact, henshin is for most mecha anime only. One may argue that mecha anime are also SF anime, but this is supposedly true SF anime: one that portrays the problems of the future ala Zamyatin or ala Orwell. Not ala Power Rangers or Chikyuu Sentai Faibuman! Or Voltes Five at that.

To add to the situation, they have purported or implied that Real will be the heroine of the series. With the many shots of many different sites having her tote a shotgun, fanboys like me assumed her to be the main character, and the one featured in most episodes, just like Motoko was. Instead, her airtime gets taken by Vincent Law, seemingly a shy guy, with eyes almost always closed when in the city, and with a past. We then know that he's Ergo Proxy in the 9th episode and a whole lot of questions are answered with that. Just like 'poof'.

No deeper meaning, no theories on science, just pure, unadulterated henshin scenes and transformations, WITHOUT Real at that, who I've been waiting for since the seventh episode. One could argue that there are still many questions to be answered. I agree, there are. But to answer a major one with an absurd plot twist? With a high-budget? Can't they think of anything more than pulling a rabbit out of their asses?

I simply try laughing things off. Henshin will look funny especially if played to the OP of Voltes Five. If people don't agree with me, so be it. But one has to admit that although good, it probably isn't the best anime of the year, or even near the best.

(Real must come out. It isn't fun having to watch an adventure between a monster and a rabbit. At least PLEASE show some girls. Or just Real.)