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Anime de jour is Ergo PROXY. This is a nice, moody, post apocalyptic humanity living is a dome kind of thing. It is rife with sci-fi cliche and odes to dead philosophers. However, it's also has a number of clever ideas. It has a lot of potential. It fails.
Humans and androids (called autoreivs) live in harmony in a domed utopia, safe from the poisonous outer world. That is, until some of the autoreivs get infected with the "cogito" virus and start getting murderously violent with their former masters. Our hero, Lil (or Re-l) Mayer is an investigator, a babe with a black body suit, a gun, kung fu moves and the makeup sense of Tammy Fae. Your standard anime protagonist.
While the series has no intentional comic relief, there is some cute relieve if the form an infected, self aware autoreiv, surrogate daughter to the elite, Pino. Ironically, Pino is the closest thing to normal human emotion the entire show has. The third major player is a wishy washy Hamlet type who's somehow very important, named Vincent Law.
This is one of those overly self important messes that indulges in a large volume of classical references in the belief that this will offset it's lack of plot. Of course, the previously mentioned computer virus and the title come from Descartes' famous, "Cogito, ergo sum." While cogito does make sense in context, the ergo of the title is meaningless. There are ramblings taken from other Western philosophers, both modern and classical. How such senseless soliloquies advance or even deepen the plot is the true mystery.
There are lots of little homages to "deep thought." This is presumably to impress us and make us believe this is somehow intelligent. For a few episodes, all the big players wander about, musing about their "raison d'être" (which sounds kind of amusing in Japanese.) It's almost an unintentional running joke, by the end. If quoting and ripping off others was a sign of intelligence, parrots would be geniuses.
There is a character named Daedalus. I thought the inevitable appearance of some Icarus element might be subtle; I needn't have worried. The realization of Daedalus' Icarus is so contrived reduces this character to a painful one joke wonder. Perhaps the show is being very clever, emphasizing some Greek notion of fate and futility. I doubt it.
In the end, the story is lacking and not even as close to smart as it believes itself to be. It's not horrid. I've seen worse. I watched the first few, then shelved it. Later, by episode ten, I was interested again. However, the number of filler episodes increases toward the end, with one being particularly bad. The end, episode 23, was unsatisfying.
In spite of all it's flaws, there are many good little idea nuggets presented. It's just, every single one of them is left to wither on the vine. None is nurtured or given any kind of descent care. They're just thrown out, as if a good idea is enough in itself and needn't be cultivated. We see so many fulfilling paths that may have been taken, only to find the storyteller lacked the imagination to take us there.
Final verdict, not awful, but I would not go out of my way for it.
Humans and androids (called autoreivs) live in harmony in a domed utopia, safe from the poisonous outer world. That is, until some of the autoreivs get infected with the "cogito" virus and start getting murderously violent with their former masters. Our hero, Lil (or Re-l) Mayer is an investigator, a babe with a black body suit, a gun, kung fu moves and the makeup sense of Tammy Fae. Your standard anime protagonist.
While the series has no intentional comic relief, there is some cute relieve if the form an infected, self aware autoreiv, surrogate daughter to the elite, Pino. Ironically, Pino is the closest thing to normal human emotion the entire show has. The third major player is a wishy washy Hamlet type who's somehow very important, named Vincent Law.
This is one of those overly self important messes that indulges in a large volume of classical references in the belief that this will offset it's lack of plot. Of course, the previously mentioned computer virus and the title come from Descartes' famous, "Cogito, ergo sum." While cogito does make sense in context, the ergo of the title is meaningless. There are ramblings taken from other Western philosophers, both modern and classical. How such senseless soliloquies advance or even deepen the plot is the true mystery.
There are lots of little homages to "deep thought." This is presumably to impress us and make us believe this is somehow intelligent. For a few episodes, all the big players wander about, musing about their "raison d'être" (which sounds kind of amusing in Japanese.) It's almost an unintentional running joke, by the end. If quoting and ripping off others was a sign of intelligence, parrots would be geniuses.
There is a character named Daedalus. I thought the inevitable appearance of some Icarus element might be subtle; I needn't have worried. The realization of Daedalus' Icarus is so contrived reduces this character to a painful one joke wonder. Perhaps the show is being very clever, emphasizing some Greek notion of fate and futility. I doubt it.
In the end, the story is lacking and not even as close to smart as it believes itself to be. It's not horrid. I've seen worse. I watched the first few, then shelved it. Later, by episode ten, I was interested again. However, the number of filler episodes increases toward the end, with one being particularly bad. The end, episode 23, was unsatisfying.
In spite of all it's flaws, there are many good little idea nuggets presented. It's just, every single one of them is left to wither on the vine. None is nurtured or given any kind of descent care. They're just thrown out, as if a good idea is enough in itself and needn't be cultivated. We see so many fulfilling paths that may have been taken, only to find the storyteller lacked the imagination to take us there.
Final verdict, not awful, but I would not go out of my way for it.