Ergo Proxy & Mushishi

[timepiececlock]

Ergo Proxy - Episode 1

Plot: Hm. Weird. Weird and somewhat annoyingly nonsensical. A little boring the way Witch Hunter Robin was boring at times. The whole thing felt like a weak beginning.

Characters: The leader character looks cool, but I don't feel any attachment to her or feel drawn to her at all. The others I don't care much about either.

Animation: Gorgeously well-funded. Too dark at times, and no artistic flavor at all (the way, for example, Mahou Shoujotai or Samurai Champloo are artistic), but extremely high quality production value.

Music: Nothing memorable, but nothing bad either.

Overall: Weird. Too cryptic, but hey, cryptic's better than stupid. I'll probably watch more episodes and give it a chance.


Mushihi - Episode 1-2

Plot: Weird, but in a totally different way. Very straightforward plot concept (essentially, he's a ghost hunter / voodoo doctor), but introduced with mystery and a hazy sort of beauty. The second episode was better than the first. Although I'm not sure I like the fact that usually half the episode passes before the main character appears, at least it's time spent on something interesting.

Characters: I am intrigued by the main character (whose name I can't remember at the moment-- have we even been given his name?) He's got the mysterious thing going on, but it's a very unthreatening mysteriousness. He looks like someone you want to trust from the outset (love his voice!). Which, actually, makes me think he'd be pretty cool if he suddenly went all badass. The second episode gives us a little more insight to his character while still leaving much unexplained. He's very chill in temperament; this is someone you'd want on your side in a crisis.

Animation: Again, very high production value here as well. In fact, this anime is beautiful. Everything has a soft, glowy look-- very luminescent. Reminds me of the forest scenes in Princess Mononoke. I'd love to see them turn that soft look into something scary. Opening animation was pretty, but somewhat boring.

Music: Opening song, though was cool. A Western band singing in English, but the song was very soft and pretty, like the series. A nice fit, mood wise.

Comments

[donna-c-punk.livejournal.com]

I'm still kinda iffy on Ergo Proxy myself. I promised to give it a few more episodes before I went yay or nay.

I adore the hell out of Mushishi, tho. And Ginko is the main character's name. He gets a lot of background exposition in Episode 12.

[rashaka.livejournal.com]

EP: That's what I'm thinking too. I wasn't grabbed, but a lot of anime series suffer from a weak first episode, enough that I usually give a series three or four before I decide (unless I hate it from the outset, which nearly happened with Gungrave.)

Glad to know it's still good further on. Right now I'm torrenting eps 4-6, since I only had three downloaded. I plan to watch episode three tonight as well. The slowness is a little dragging, but my growing affection for it otherwise is allowing me to not grumble too much about the pace.

And Ginko is the main character's name.

I remember now! Yes, he did say that, didn't he. Huh. I remember now that at the time it reminded me of the Geiko car insurance commercials. That and something else I couldn't identify.

He's kind of interesting as a main character in that he's not an overtly sexy character, for an anime male lead. A bishonen he is not. But the scene in the second episode where the mother walks in and he's leaning against the wall barefoot and smoking, with his shirt slightly opened and looking very relaxed... that was kinda sexy.

[donna-c-punk.livejournal.com]

EP reminds me quite a bit of GITS: SAC, in that "we're gonna talk about philosophical meaning of life type of stuff in like we're all pompous-asses" sort of way. Honestly, with Noein, I have enough thinking in my anime at the moment. And Noein's isn't pompous about it.

Mushishi's episodes are always slow, but that honestly does not bother me. I love how it weaves itself into nature, co-existing with nature and respecting nature without being preachy about it.

After reading a bit on Shintoism, I understand how these things would resonate with Japanese people, and on a level that it simply doesn't with Americans or those who don't practice the religion. The last two fansubbed eps - 15 and 16 - were my absolute favorites, esp. 15.

The latest post at the comm says it might only be released to episode 20, and I believe there are 26 eps in the anime. I do hope that's not the case.

[mswyrr]

Wanted to thank you for mentioning Mushishi oh so long ago in this post. I put in on my To Watch list after and, having finally got the chance to see it, I'm really enjoying it.