Meditatio VIII - Shining Sign

It has been a long time since I've posted. I could explain the reason of the hiatus, but I'd rather not seeing that all over the Internet blogs on vacations have been published. I'd like to be unique: I'll be talking about shows I've been watching or have planned to watch. Right now, however, I'd like to chat about Ergo Proxy.

After Rozen Maiden ~ Traumend there have been only little anime worth watching. One of those few is Ergo Proxy. As you may have known, I am a fanboy of that series. In its later episodes, however, the quality of the story has been fluctuating, and it has been fluctuating a lot.

Cliches have been introduced; deep below the complexities of the etymological archetypes of the characters and a thrilling plot lie some hard to swallow banalities. Among these banalities is the lack of any deeper meaning to the story. These may appear later, but the plot has been weaker than the established Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex.

For now, it has become a mystery anime; however, I personally like the subtleties and nuances in the series that make the seemingly nondescript backgrounds and seemingly non-living objects proffer important hints and clues to the characters in the anime, and to some extent their motivations as well.

But right now, to be honest, I am not watching Ergo Proxy for the sake of its incisive story. I am watching it because I am expecting a robotic/android Lir to appear in the next episode. I also am expecting, with all my fanboy heart, that beneath all this pastiche of events and relationships among people, Lir and Vincent will get to love one another.

(I've got terribly sappy over the years of watching anime. )

Anyway, I hope it will be a modification of the beautiful Tsukihime plot: maybe now, it will be a love story with science fiction elements. The beautiful first episode of this series, once full of tension, danger, and conflict, has cooled to the point of mediocrity. The intensity is no longer as strong as the first episode, but I still expect a good anime to be pulled off despite the glaring cliches.

One of these cliches seems to be a Pokemon-like (credits for the thought go to wao) invocation of the proxies as is made seemingly and glaringly obvious in its eighth episode.

It's somewhat like Vincent or Lir crying out: 'Proxyball! I choose you, Monad! (or Ergo)'

It somehow downgrades the value of watching the anime, but don't get me wrong: this anime stands as among the best (so far) in the class of 2006. I just hope they can continue with coherence and cogency towards the end (which I hope would have something to do with Lir and Vincent ending up together.)

(Yeah, I know I'm boring in that I don't have screencaps. But I didn't aim for ostentation, however: I aimed to fuel a discussion.)

Any thoughts?