Foxkei

I finally finished getting all the Ergo Proxy DVD’s. I bought volume 01 almost two years ago when it was first released, but because of the pricing ($25 for each volume is still expensive!) I decided to gradually buy the other ones whenever they go on sale. So today, after two years, I finally got volume 04 (actually, there are six volumes, but I didn’t buy them in order). I’ll start (re)watching (I watched the fansub already) this great tonight!

I’d recommend this anime to those who like to watch something intellectual; an anime that would wow your psychology and philosophy professors. It’s a very story-driven anime with heavy dialogs (I had to watch some episodes twice). Just to give you an example, I’m gonna copy & paste Wikipedia here as an example. There are more trivia here.

• The following [Ergo Proxy] characters are all named after philosophers: Husserl, Kristeva, Derrida, Berkeley, Deleuze and Guattari.

• The society can be based on Plato’s ideal guardian society with philosopher rulers and information control.

• Monad Proxy’s name comes from the word ‘monad’ as being the first origin of all things and in gnosticism, refers to the “god which begets lesser gods”

• The character Pino and her name is thought to be a play-on of the story of Pinocchio - her experiences with Re-l and Vincent are similar to Pinocchio’s journey to become a real person. It also pays homage to Pinoco from the manga Blackjack. Pino’s character was partially inspired by Pinoco. Pino means ‘to drink’ in Latin possibly symbolizing Pino’s ability to ‘drink knowledge’ or learn.

• The Cogito Virus refers to Descartes‘ “Cogito ergo sum,” which means “I think, therefore I am.” Each episode is also called a “meditatio” as a further reference to Descartes whose most famous work, Meditations on First Philosophy is a series of meditations on various philosophical ideas.

• Inside Regent Donov Mayer’s chamber, the statue of two reclining figures on the right is based on Michelangelo’s Night and Day statue placed above Giuliano di Piero de’ Medici’s sarcophagus in Medici Chapel, Florence. In the show, the female figure (Night) represents the voice of Lacan and the male figure (Day) the voice of Husserl. The statue on the left is based on Michelangelo’s Twilight and Dawn stature placed above the sarcophagus of Giuliano di Lorenzo de’ Medici in Medici Chapel. In the show, the female figure (Dawn) represents the voice of Derrida and the male figure (Twilight) the voice of Berkeley.

• The robots (AutoReivs) in the show are installed with a Turing Application program that can be switched on and off, allowing normal human-like conversation between humans and robots. This is named after Alan Turing, who proposed the Turing test as a test of AI sentience.

• Daedalus and the death of Re-l 2 refer to the Greek myth of Daedalus and his son Icarus, who died after he had flown too close to the sun. Other references to the mythology of Daedalus also exist. In one episode, a Minoan dolphin is seen swimming across Daedalus’ aquarium screensaver on his computer. A ball of red yarn also makes a few appearances towards the end of the show. Although this yarn is thought to reference the threads of fate that bind lovers together, it may also be a reference to the ball of yarn that helped Theseus find his way through the labyrinth and defeat the Minotaur. It had been Daedalus who had built the labyrinth in the first place, as punishment for his helping Minos’ queen to procreate with a bull (who was actually Zeus in disguise). It was the same labyrinth that Daedalus and Icarus were escaping from using wings that Daedalus himself had constructed.

If that sparks your interest, you own it to yourself to check it out. The animation is beautiful, the story is great, colorful and interesting characters, and there are lots of action scenes as well.

Well, enough about that. Now here are pictures of volume 04:

“Priority Mail” my ass! Paid extra so I’d get this in “2-3 days”, but it took them a week~

All the other volumes come with a small poster like this too. The poster is on the other side of the booklet; rather than leaving it blank, it’s good to see they put the inside of the booklet to good use.

The cover image you see at the bottom of this picture is a notepad of some sort. I remember reading somewhere that they’re used as drawing pads.

And here’s the complete set in its full glory.

Here’s a trailer for Ergo Proxy.

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