Ergo Proxy Eps 15 & 16 Review

It's been hard for me to avoid making impoverished fangirlish pleas for episode fifteen's release here. Having seen the occasional episode title on Toshokan and recently discovering that the series has ended in Japan, trying to avoid spoilers has become a bit of a gauntlet. Plus, I love Ergo Proxy and having wait so long for a fix was causing numerous crack whore-like twitches in my special places. Still, we get a double whammy now and the sense of relief is palpable (especially in my pantsu). At least we can continue watching at a reasonable pace . . . assuming there's no more text-heavy episodes in the running. If I have to deal with another delay again I am going to be so pissed. Wicked pissed, in fact.

Anyway, ep fifteen presented us with the infamous Jeopardy episode. Not so much hard to follow than just incredibly random. It was some kind of Proxy mindfuck, in a similar vein to previous experiences, but it was also loaded with lots of covert incidental detail about the world that Ergo Proxy takes place in and provides labels for some potential origins (Project Proxy, you say?). We also learn there's three-fooking-hundred of the bastards [Proxies] occupying the wastes of this devastated planet. Immediate questions of how Vince and his crew are going to deal with this alarming amount of foes, or even if they have to, spring to mind. They obviously exert a strange amount of power, with this game show host Proxy controlling (or even creating?) a satellite to broadcast the event back to Romdeau for Raul's viewing pleasure. Perhaps this Proxy was the emissary of general knowledge? Who bloody knows. I hope we get some finer details on the purpose and reason for these encounters, though. They all seem to be vying for Vince's downfall while showing a degree of resentment for Romdeau. I suppose being the Proxy of death/abject pwnage would cause such a reaction, and the mystery of how Romdeau factors into all this is gradually wearing away. Failed creators? Successful survivors? Both? At the moment, seemingly just living proof that Humanity is more irritatingly parasitic than crabs.

For all its bizarreness, I quite enjoyed episode fifteen. We got an extra surge of activity to the drip-feed method of fleshing out and explaining the current state of affairs, and all in an uncharacteristically quirky fashion. The same old criticisms of 'tell us more, tell anything FFS' still stand, but expecting anything less than the series' traditional teasing behaviour is naive.
Episode sixteen, on the other hand, is surprisingly candid. Real, Vince and Pino are stranded with Rabbit due to lack of wind and begin to suffer from diminishing supplies and acute boredom. With this we get a full twenty-four minutes of pure character development - mostly from the perspective of everyone's favourite co-protagonist (urgh), Lil. The daily routines of herself and Vince are revealed, with insight into Lil's growing agitation over Vince's minor foibles and subsequent affection for them (and even Pino). It's surprisingly humourous and endearing stuff from a show notoriously stoic and emotionally guarded. It felt actively weird laughing out loud at all the little bits of fun they had. It turns out that even Proxies have issues with leaving the toilet seat up, much to Lil's dismay (and our amusement). The amount of heart-warming moments was curiously high, reaching its peak with Lil curling up to Pino and finally having a decent night's sleep. Severely out-of-character, but a beautiful moment nonetheless. Perhaps the writers felt they needed to normalise things after the prior wackiness, but personally I found it hard to decide which extreme was stranger. Don't get me wrong, though: this newfound humanity is more than welcome and was fantastically done. I'm just worried of what it may portend. These sweet, human moments in anime often represent the calm before the storm with lots of earth-shaking drama and tragedy just around the corner. Especially when it's so out-of-character. I just hope Pino comes out of it unscathed. She really is the shining light of the series and kicks insurmountable amounts of arse.

The animation for these two episodes was its usual slick self. Ep fifteen had less opportunity to show off, but it presented the generic game show mannerisms with a lot of entertaining success (those artistic impressions were hilarious). Ep sixteen, on the other hand, was distinctively beautiful. The meandering, thoughtful plot allowed for lots of stunning shots of Lil looking lovely and not-so-lovely (with and without the notorious make-up respectively) and took every quiet pondering stare as a golden opportunity. The scene with Pino and Vince fooling around with Lil's slap-on is fantastically presented and proves anyone can look ravishing with that lovely blue eye-shadow. Really, all three characters got ample moments to shine with this ep and the animation doesn't betray them by being sub-par. Gorgeous, gorgeous stuff.

Conclusion
I think it benefited to watch these two episodes back-to-back. Ep fifteen is very much an oddity, and while entertaining, left much to be desired by being so god damn obscure. Ep sixteen offers just the opposite by being so warm and fuzzy (in a gradual, cautious Ergo Proxy sense of course). Both of them had definite merits but the latter is clearly stronger and more purposeful. I mean it gave us opportunity to kinda like Real; that must be worth something, right? Who would've thought that callous bitch could develop pathos. And Vince is growing all the more in love with her, much to Pino's glee. It's been a long wait but I'm so glad this awkward favourite of mine is back. Let's hope the R1 DVD release is forthcoming so I can drool over it all the more (and indignantly slag the dub).

Comments

[Skane]

Twas amusing in Ep16 when Real began obsessing over Vincent's single strand of unshaven beard hair, and Vincent misinterpreting her stares at him.

[Chris]

That was a beard hair? Hell, I thought it was a crack in his face mask.

I thought "they put a satellite up just for this" was a joke. I mean, they really do shoot satellites into space just for television of which 90% is pure crap. I thought it was meant to show that they had forgotten about the past of mankind. In any case, I found episode 15 quite horrible despite a few funny or interesting moments. I expected a twist any moment but it never happened. This is not what I consider a well-designed, thoughtful "mindfuck". There seems to be a habit nowadays that whenever a director creates something "odd" that it will be considered as satire, homage or whatever. I think it's just a very cheap trick, just throw something strange at people and they'll read whatever they want into it. To that I say "The Emperor Has No Clothes".

Episode 16 was much better but a wee bit too bold about its intention. It was like "aww crap we forgot about a ton worth of character development. Well, just cram it all into a single episode". It was entertaining sure but it didn't feel like Ergo Proxy anymore. Also I cannot quite agree about the animation quality. Their faces are heavily simplified - which is completely alright. Nonetheless, they look like completely different characters in *every single* scene. I think the inconsistencies are far beyond Suzuka level and Suzuka put the bar quite high. I prefer consistent animation over fancy character designs any time.

Episode 17 puts Ergo Proxy back on track. I hope it stays there.

[fa_pa]

I thought that epsiode 15 was pretty weak especially after the good episodes before that 13 and 14. I also would not consider it as mindfuck the only reason it makes it look like one is the few seconds of Rufus and the sattelite. That all that is just a Proxy fight is pretty clear from the beginning of the epsiode. Episode 16 is pretty weak too I don't really think its funny i think most of the jokes are just pretty dumb. It is also quite hard to watch since the animation is totaly screwed up. Lil and Pino look different in every scene. Very often they look like characters from cheap shows not like the pretty awesome style from the first few episodes. It was definitly on a quite bad level. I hope the animations get better because the cheap/bad style really bring down the quality of this great show.

[arkon]

I'd agree with Skane and I'd have to wonder if we were watching the same episode 16 as the blogger because I thought it was awful in places and again Skane pointed it out but one of the first things that came to mind was Suzuka which had loads of inconsistencies. Pretty much every single scene in ep16 they looked like totally different characters. The scene where Real is curled up by Pino's feet for example. There's a closeup of Pino's face and then I think there's a closeup of Real and then back to Pino again. Pino looked quite different in both of those closeups. It's not just the faces either sometimes Real's body looks out of proportion and their hands and fingers look like they were drawn by me(and that's not a good thing.)

Certainly I wouldn't be caught referring to ep 16 in the following manner: "the animation doesn't betray them by being sub-par. Gorgeous, gorgeous stuff."

The actual content of the episodes I've enjoyed but just thought I'd voice my disagreement with those statements on the animation.

Ep15 I can't really remember anything that bad with regards to the animation but I was too busy getting my head round the whole thing. IMO the animation has been like that the whole series, bar one or two outstanding episodes. Episode 1 immediately springs to mind. "The animation for these two episodes was its usual slick self" so yeah I'd disagree with this statement also

[Chris]

Hey arkon, I believe you rather agree with me. Skane didn't write that. The nicks are below the posts here which I find a bit confusing too. ;)

[arkon]

whoopsie, guess I should pay more attention when posting comments.

[Hige]

Chris: My use of the word 'mindfuck' related to the Proxy's actions within the show. I never called it well-designed or thoughtful, or related the word directly to external technical aspects (i.e. the direction/writing); because to Vince and Lil it was a total mindfuck. How would you describe suddenly appearing on a game show that could result in your death? Either way, it was a fairly average episode that I still had fun with, as I mentioned in the post. I ain't heralding it as EP's opus or anything just because it was bizarre, and I haven't read anything else that suggests other people are doing the same.

"Nonetheless, they look like completely different characters in *every single*" scene."

A slight exaggeration, but I get your point. :P Still, I never had issues identifying who's who and those changes seemed more like facial expressions or strange angles than bad animation. Grab a mirror and move it around and see if your face looks exactly the same at every angle. Couple that with us seeing these characters in unusual states (eg. Pino powered down, Lil sans make-up) and it seemingly provides fuel for this vendetta people have against EP's animation. I'll be the first to agree that its animation/design has been dodgy in the past but episode 16 just wasn't one of those times, in my opinion.

arkon: Pino did look strange in those scenes, but I think that was for artistic reasons. She was powered down and it was meant to look odd and creepy. EP uses its animation to express emotion and tone, and people often don't 'get' this and write it off as inconsistent. I'm not using that as an excuse to defend some of EP's previous offensives with its animation, but with this ep it's a legitimate explanation.

Otherwise, EP is a very slick-looking show to me. I respect your disagreement, but I'd say that relates more to preference rather than one of us being definitively correct.

[arkon]

06:34-36**, 08:54, 09:01-09:04, 09:19, 09:24, 09:26, 09:41**, 09:49, 10:53-57**, 11:03, 14:39**, 16:11**

Some times that I pulled from the episode where I thought things looked particularly bad, stuff with two stars are what I think very good examples of what me and chris were talking about. You don't even have to look at them all just check that first one. If you can honestly sit there and tell me that that's because of some weird camera angle or because the animation is trying to express emotion or whatever other thing you mentioned and not down to poor animation then I believe we will just have to agree to disagree. Just looking at 06:36, does that look anyting like Real's nose as we have seen it previously? I don't believe it does. Throughout the episode there are loads of moments like these. 09:01-04 just pay attention to her face, particular her chin. It just looks messed up and morphs in scene when she doesn't even move her face that much.

I don't have a vendetta against Ergo proxy nor do I understand why the animation can't be consistent and express emotion at the same time. Ep17 for example is much better with regards to the animation.

If after just looking at a few of these examples, you still can't "see it" then I'm afraid without sounding too offensive I'm just going to have to chalk it up to fanboyism/fangirlism and the tendency to overlook these faults. I don't think it's down to personal preference, I really do think the animation was inconsistent in ep 16 and I certainly wouldn't use phrases like slick-looking and gorgeous, just gorgeous stuff, not let down by sub-par animation etc...

[Hige]

arkon: Your examples are all legitimate in showing the faults in EP's animation if you sit there and go over it with a fine-tooth comb. But quite frankly, I don't really care if Lil's nose is a bit skewed in one scene or her chin isn't accurately rendered in another. I still find EP's presentation to be slick and often gorgeous, but I'm certainly not an animation aficionado so I don't notice faults like these. And they certainly don't make or break a show for me.

I appreciate you backing up your argument with examples but I personally wouldn't have noticed them specifically if you hadn't pointed them out. Mark that down as fanboyism if you like, but I'm inclined to call it inattentiveness to aspects not especially important to me.

In defence of my 'gorgeous stuff' comment, ep 16 has many beautiful moments that immediately caught my eye and moved me in some way. I'll give you that it isn't technically flawless by any extent, but as a whole its visuals impressed me. We obviously disagree but I think it's unfair to dismiss it as fanboyism.

If we were having this conversation about the content and I demonstrated the same ignorance to important plot faults (which EP has its share of, btw) then the fanboy card would be fair play. But when it's over something like a dodgy nose or a weird expression I think it's more generalised than purposeful avoiding of the facts (i.e. fanboyism).

[arkon]

Sorry if I sounded a bit rude and/or harsh there. I was trying my best to sound pretty reasonable. I am not an animation aficionado by any stretch of the imagination but I guess these things just stood out to me and I guess that's why I disagreed with some of your statements. It might seem like I went over the episode with a fine-tooth comb but that was just randomly picking out examples. I noticed most of this stuff whilst sitting there watching the episode for the first time and it isn't like I was purposefully looking for this stuff either. I guess, as you say, some people can more easily see this stuff than others. I've been in similar situations in the past with other media not just anime, games for example and the whole 30fps/60fps thing.

I'd also like to say that this stuff also doesn't make or break a show for me. I've seen shows that are as bad and that I've still enjoyed immensely regardless of these inconsistencies. Lamune is one such show. And finally I'd point out that I did enjoy episode 16 a lot despite all this nitpicking if you will. It combines some of my favourite aspects of anime and I'd probably rank it among my most favourite episodes of the show purely on the enjoyment factor.

Well I will leave it at that. I didn't mean to cause any offence and I apologize if I did. It wasn't my intention. Again pretty much most of the stuff in your post I agreed with, it was just those few points that stuck out like a sore thumb to me. I'll stop now as I seem to be rambling and repeating myself.

[Chris]

I have to agree with arkon that the flaws stood out like a sore thumb. I didn't watch any episode twice and I wasn't looking for any flaws either. This wasn't the first episode with such animation flaws, so I wasn't really surprised or disappointed. I only mentioned it because you praised it so much which really surprised me.