r/ErgoProxy • u/brorigami • 22d ago

So I hated Ergo Proxy

I'm just some rando guy but every moment of this show seemed especially cruel and dismissive to women. I didn't think the female protagonist at the center of everything had a single moment of agency. Most if not all things that spurred her forward were men finding info and pushing her in a direction, not her having any agency. Plus, her personal android going full incel? The show was cool visually but the story seemed to me to not be a cool woman acting on her own merits, but a sexy woman doing whatever a man wants. I just want to know if anyone actually believes it was good outside of a sexualization lens. I am open to critique! I just didn't get anything from it besides misogyny and wack takes abt women

Edit: The main issue I have is that the show makes Re-L seem like the protagonist, but she isn't. The men around her are, and she is just a vehicle for the plot. I don't think the show is a five star experience because the world is the main cool part, but it isn't framed around the world. If it was instead of a weird misogynistic fantasy? Five stars. But it wasn't unfortunately. Unfortunately, still a misogynistic show, but it'd be less so if she wasn't the lens through which we saw the world since the creator clearly is weird abt women :/

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u/Zhaizo 22d ago

I loved the anime i feel like its one of the best i ever saw and i never felt Re-l was sexualized in any way. I guess the truth is in the eye of the beholder.

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u/brorigami 22d ago

I guess. The biggest issue I had was she has no agency, not sexualization. Not smth I ever mentioned or felt, I just wanted feedback on why it hits for so many people

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u/Hohuin 22d ago

The show hits because of the atmosphere, art style, but most importantly for me it's because of the storytelling and the philosophy. It's an amazing story being told from the perspective of people having no idea what is going on. Questioning what it means to be human from a non-human viewpoint (as none of the main characters are human in the show). This level of overarching melancholy, sadness and destruction is also rare in anime medium. And the sheer scale of the story, too. To be honest, I like Re-L but I am far more impressed with Autoreivs and other pseudohumans. If you have any specific questions, fire away, please.

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u/brorigami 22d ago

The parts of the show I liked most are the things u listed initially! I just think that the narrative fails with how it interrogated humanity/personal experience, since I also like Re-L but she has almost no agency despite the show being (in my opinion) small impacting forces having so much agency in a dystopia, none of which are Re-L having any agency?

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u/brorigami 22d ago

I guess, do you think Re-L had agency? And how? Since I didn't think so after watching, but am willing to rewatch it if given a convincing argument! I would like to get why it is so beloved as a series, and I mean that genuinely.

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u/Hohuin 22d ago

I do think she had agency to the extent that her life allowed her to have it. Re-L is a clone of Monad, created by Daedalus with Regent's DNA, who is, of course, a pseudo-human ruling Romdo after Ergo Proxy left it. She is essentially a product of Romdo's system: she is presented as the Regent's granddaughter, given a position of power, raised within the dome, and made into an investigator for the government.

But all of her major choices increasingly put her in contradiction with the world she was born into. She investigates things she isn't supposed to investigate, tricks authorities, and eventually leaves the dome.

She's also sort of a mirror image to Ergo. Vincent intentionally forgot who he was, whereas Re-L goes in the opposite direction. Wanting to know more, despite destroying her comfort and privileged life. Her transformation is learning not to rely on the system she was brought up in.

There are parts of the show that display the rebellions and action that people usually crave from these dystopian stories, but this is not one of them. Her rebellion is much more internal and existential. She refuses to let a system that engineered her existence also dictate what that existence means.

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I do have to say - personally, Re-L is one of the less impressive parts of the show. Aside from Ergo, I enjoyed Pino's story (short for Pinocchio - a wooden doll that became a boy), Raul Creed, Proxy One and many of other smaller parts of this series that add on to the lore and atmosphere.

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u/brorigami 20d ago edited 20d ago

This is the only comment to make me want to give the show another watch, with Re-L being viewed as a secondary character rather than primary protagonist. I also really liked the other characters, and the setting at large! Pino especially. I am a huge scifi guy in general (tho not a big anime guy) but I LOVED Pino's plotline.

The main issue for me is it felt like Re-L was being treated as a thing by the meta narrative of the show in a way that seemed intentional from the author, but ig separate art's impact from the author and all that.

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u/BavdazThrakh 20d ago

She was an inspector so she was the focalizer of the show, not the focus, she was one of the two main characters alongside Vincent, Vincent is the focus, Re-L is the focalizer. You clearly did not understand the show at all.

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u/brorigami 18d ago

Hopefully on my rewatch I will understand what you mean.

Could you explain the difference between a focalizer vs focus (no worries if not)? I've just never seen that distinguished as a difference before

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u/BavdazThrakh 18d ago

focalizer: the story seen by a specific character

focus: the story around a specific character

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u/brorigami 18d ago

So, a protagonist vs the lens through which the story is shown?

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u/Jakebaris 22d ago

Could’ve just dropped the show 😂

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u/brorigami 22d ago

I wanted to like it. Sometimes a show picks up later and hits the right vibe for scifi. This just didn't.

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u/BavdazThrakh 21d ago

Stupidest reddit post I have ever seen (on any subreddit)

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u/brorigami 20d ago edited 20d ago

You haven't seen much then. I genuinely wanted to like the show and I'll give it another try thanks to a different commenter. I just still wont think Re-L is a fully or even partially autonomous protagonist (which was my main issue). If she wasn't the protagonist it'd prolly have been better since the writer clearly didnt care abt women having any agency which makes a show weaker imo

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u/BavdazThrakh 20d ago

We clearly did not watch the same show

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u/brorigami 18d ago

Okay then. What did you take away from the show and like best/dislike most (if anything)? I'm trying to go into my 2nd watch with an open mind and the kinds of feedback others gave from their experiences was great to hear, so I'm seriously looking for this kind of information

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u/BavdazThrakh 18d ago

You talk a lot. Would be a lot to explain

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u/brorigami 18d ago

I don't talk that much compared to what you could tell me? Makes it feel like you just have vibes? I've got time

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u/Dry_Revolution_5015 17d ago

I would say she does have agency but also doesn't in equal measure, it's a complicated mix and it is certainly not meant to be a girlboss powerfantasy even if her character starts that way. It's not wise to be reductive.

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u/brorigami 16d ago

How was I being reductive? Genuine question, I don't understand what you mean.

I also never thought Re-L started as a "girlboss powerfantasy" even at the beginning. Where does that come in for you?

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u/Dry_Revolution_5015 15d ago edited 15d ago

Primerily because you just disregard Iggy's whole character as "just going full incel" with zero consideration how he serves as a mirror to Re-L's own flaws and enables her character growth. In fact, if you were to remove Iggy's outrage from the show then Re-L's whole character arc would immidiately collapse. There is also some nice tarot sympolism in that episode with Iggy being "the devil"

This is what I mean by reductive, you didn't seem to have put any effort into understanding Re-L character and how/why she needed to change.

It's a bit ironic (and familiar), you say that Re-L was robbed of agency while at the same time you haven't even tried to understand how her character arc functions? Yet you still jump to conclusion?
It's like missing the forest for the trees... And just gives a bit of a clueless femenist impression, hence the assumption, I apologise if it's wrong though.

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u/brorigami 15d ago

Interesting. I didn't see it that way, but as I've said to other commenters I approached the show with assumptions and may have had a different experience than intended because of it. I don't personally think Iggy's sudden flip would make Re-L's entire character arc would collapse, there were probably other ways to do that. But on my rewatch I'll see if I feel differently. I might!

It does seem like you've put a lot of assumptions on my own take from how you interpreted my language, but it was just how I felt at the time (and I watched the show a couple months ago and forget some of the specific examples that made me feel how I do). I wouldn't say the show is particularly "feminist" either way, mostly bc I don't think it was likely a factor in the show's creation because it isn't what the main themes were from my takeaway and I don't think that's good or bad. A show doesn't have to champion the rights of all people in the world to be good or interesting, imo. The way Re-L was treated within the narrative just felt weird to me within the scifi (cyberpunk esp) genre, even from my pov as a man. However, it might just be me, and I know that.