Congo Gum

In the future the world has come to an abrupt halt. After a severe nuclear apocalypse the seas have frozen over and the sun is blocked out by thick dense clouds. Unable to survive in such inhospitable conditions a new dome city called Romdeau was erected, allowing humans and their robotic servants or autoreivs to live in harmony. All is not what it seems in this new age utopia. After a spree of mysterious murders inspector Real Mayar from the Citizen Information Bureau and her autoreiv partner Iggy are handed the task of solving these cases.

After very little progress Real is attacked at her home by neither an android nor human, we later find out it was a PROXY. Something that the government of Romdeau believes holds the key to the survival of mankind. A connection is made with Immigrant Vincent Law, an average Joe trying to become a model citizen in order to live in Romdeau and the chase begins.

Ergo Proxy was released in 2006 under the direction of Shukou Murase. This intense psychological thriller is hard to put into words as it covers a wide range of topics and to really give it a good explanation would take a good few pages of this blog. Those who have already seen some or all of Ergo Proxy should understand what I mean. This show has several different layers that you can talk about, it’s one of its big talking points but at times it can also be seen as its downfall.

Ergo Proxy was undertaken by a fairly new Animation studio Manglobe Inc. Founded in 2002 a few other notable shows from them are Rozen Maiden and Samurai Champloo. But suffice to say what they lack in quantity of titles they sure do make up for with quality. The style in Ergo Proxy is aimed more towards the adult market, there are no cute bubble eyed girls in sight and it fits right in with the serious tone of the show.

The animation quality varies depending on the setting and scene. The wide panoramic views are a bit lacking in detail, but at the same time this ties in with the view of a bleak efficient dome city such as Romdeau. There are no beautiful landscapes for the animators to draw because the city doesn’t have them. It is bland and bares more resemblance to a laboratory than a city. The futuristic dome city of Romdeau was done brilliantly in my opinion it really lays out the point of what the post ecological disaster would look like.

But again with Romdeau and its model citizens there are also those that are cast out of the city either by choice or by force. Living of the scraps disposed out of the city there is a another community of people which our male protagonist Vincent Law comes into contact with. It’s a great addition to both the story and the show. Manglobe have done well to capture the styles and emotion that contrast between Romdeau and the outsiders.

Another worthy mention is the outside environment. As the story goes on Vincent and his autoreiv companion Pino they travel back to Vincent’s original home, another domed city called Mosque. Getting there is no easy task though, in this future world the seas have frozen over and with the sun blocked out the landscape is desolate and extremely harsh. Vegetation has all but disappeared and the climate is extremely cold and snow is not uncommon. I must say I was impressed with its development and execution. The only problem I have is with the animation style. As I said earlier the level of detail is very minimalist but extremely well done, there are sometimes however that I would really like to have seen some wide angled shots with a great amount of detail. But granted in a post nuclear war world, there wouldn’t be much to draw would there!

A couple of other points I would like to do before I conclude this article are the characters, music and the script. As with any show those aforementioned topics are essential to convey the authors point across and move the story along. I was worried that with such a high level of detail and thought into the drawing and detailing of the show these would be neglected. How wrong I was.

The character designs are simple, unique and well drawn. Real Mayar looks like the cold hearted inspector she is. Vincent Law fits the description to the tee, given the description and a police style line up you would point him out in a second. Then we have Pino, the companion autoreiv. While she is more of a vehicle for comedy relief I’m going to make the assumption she plays a bigger role in the episodes to come.

Ergo Proxys script was penned by the excellent Dai Sato and it really is flawless for this type of physiological show. I haven’t had many problems with it other than episode 12, which was more of a challenge to watch. The soundtrack really is a cracking piece of work though. The intro and ending songs are fantastic and every piece of music in the show itself adds to the atmosphere. There are several pieces that just build the tension brilliantly.

I’m only up to episode 13 at the moment, I can kind of guess where its going but obviously with this type of show there are going to be some twists along the way. So far I have been really impressed with Ergo Proxy and in a few articles time I’ll cover the next part of the show. Who knows what will happen!

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 20th, 2007 at 3:41 am and is filed under Environment Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.