Saturday Anime: Ergo Proxy

Title: Ergo Proxy

Creator: written by Dai Satō and directed by Shukō Murase

Basic Premise: In the future, people live in a domed city named Romdeau that protects them from the after effects of a world-wide ecological disaster that took place several centuries earlier. Humans living in the city are served by androids and robots. The outbreak of the cogito virus inflicts self-awareness on the automatons who catch it and causes the infected machines to start murdering humans. Behind the scenes, the government of Romdeau secretly performs experiments on a life form known as a "Proxy," which may hold the key to human survival in a nearly dead world.

Plus the opening song "Kiri" by Monoral is the best intro music for any anime, ever.

Other Notes: This is another one that gets deeply philosophical. For example the "cogito" virus and the title "ergo proxy" call to mind Descartes. The series makes frequent inquiries into the nature of the self and one's raison d'être. Additionally a rather large number of characters are named after philosophers – Derrida, Lacan, Husserl, Kristeva, Monad (evoking Leibniz), Berkeley, Deleuze and Guattari. It's certainly the "heaviest" anime series in my list, but well worth the effort.

Saturday Anime: Sword Art Online

Title: Sword Art Online

Creators: Based on a light novel series written by Reki Kawahara and illustrated by abec.

Basic Premise: Nerve Gear is a new tech that allows MMO players to engage in a "full dive," experiencing a virtual world as if it were real in every way, and feeling as if they were just as present there as in the physical universe. On the release of the "Sword Art Online" fantasy MMO, thousands of players sign up and log in – only to find that they cannot log out again. If they die in game, their bodies will die in the real world as well (talk about permadeath). If anyone on the outside tries to disconnect them from the system, their bodies die as well. The only way to escape alive is to clear the game.

Intro:

Saturday Anime: Claymore

Title: Claymore

Creators: anime directed by Hiroyuki Tanaka, based on the manga written and illustrated by Norihiro Yagi

Basic Premise: in a land plagued by yoma – humanoid monsters that eat people – a clandestine organization breeds human-yoma hybrids who alone are able to kill pure yoma. These female sword-bearing warriors are able to tap into demonic energy that allows them to defeat the monsters. People call these women either "Claymores" (after their weapons) or "Silver-Eyed Witches" (after their unusual eyes and powers). The Claymores must struggle keep their demonic energy in check – while they need to draw on it to defeat the Yoma, over-use causes them to transform into the very creatures they were bred to kill.

Intro and Closing:

Other Notes: The violence in this one does get pretty bloody, and there are more than a few sexually suggestive scenes, so I'd say this one is not for the kids.

Saturday Anime: Death Note

Title: Death Note

Creators: anime directed by Tetsurō Araki and based on the manga written by Tsugumi Ohba and illustrated by Takeshi Obata.

Premise: Late high school/early college student Light Yagami discovers a Shinigami's (Grim Reaper's) notebook on the ground. It turns out when you write someone's name in the book, the person dies. What would you do if such a notebook fell into your hands? C'mon, you know you'd use it...

Closing Music:

The song is "Alumina" by the Japanese band Nightmare

Saturday Anime: Psycho-Pass

Title: Psycho-Pass

Creators: Gen Urobuchi (writer), Naoyoshi Shiotani (director)

Premise: In a near-future dystopian Japan, a massive super-computer system tracks the psychological state of every citizen. When a citizen's crime coefficient gets high enough, he is labeled a "latent criminal" and is brought in for treatment. If the citizen's coefficient goes too high (typically just before, during or after commission of a major crime), he is executed on the spot. The agents of the Public Safety Bureau (PSB) are responsible for tracking down latent and full-blown criminals. The story combines action and adventure with some rather high-brow philosophical and political references: Jeremy Bentham (whose panopticon is used as a metaphor for the super-computer system), Max Weber, Blaise Pascal, Michel Foucault, and others.

Intro:

The theme song is "Out of Control" by Nothing's Carved in Stone

Other Details: According to the creators, the series was influenced by L.A. Confidential, Minority Report, Gattaca, Brazil and Blade Runner (Wikipedia).

Saturday Anime: Fullmetal Alchemist

I've decided to do a short series of posts to demonstrate to some friends that not all anime consists of gross tentacle-based perversion. A recent conversation yielded up that image, and it's not the first time I've heard it either. As with everything else in life, there is good and bad in anime. And while what constitutes good anime is of course a question of taste, I can at least show examples of things that I like personally.

No, I'm not a fan of the gross tentacled stuff. I enjoy adventure – especially fantasy, sci-fi, pulp/noir, and combinations thereof. And while I'm certainly no anime expert, I know what I like. So for each of the next several Saturdays, I'm going to put up a very brief blurb of an anime series that I have found worthwhile.

To start things off, this week's choice is one of my all-time top picks:

Fullmetal Alchemist

Creator: based on the manga by Hiromu Arakawa.

Premise: Two young, budding alchemists – in a world where alchemical magic is a scientific reality – engage in a ritual/experiment that goes horribly wrong, with devastating effect. They devote the rest of their lives to rectifying that mistake, encountering danger and adventure all along the way.

Intro:

Other Details: There are actually a couple versions of the series, along with two movies. The intro link above is from the Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood series.

Fullmetal Alchemist (series)
Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood (series)
Fullmetal Alchemist the Movie: Conqueror of Shamballa (movie)
Fullmetal Alchemist: The Sacred Star of Milos (movie)