Wonderful. Now let's go to the mall. Hello and welcome to our week there yet. And that's exploration and education and anime. I'm your anime idiot, patrick dugan.
I'm an anime expert, dana hollander.
And I'm brenda mccullough. Your anime 2012 Ben affleck movie recap to you by someone else. You know, your argo by proxy.
I think that's all we needed. One's over. I think we can end this one here. This one's in the bag, guys.
Yeah, it's a great episode. It's flawful.
Thank you for joining us. You can find the show on Twitter.
Give us a like and review on itunes.
Not after this one. So, yeah, what we got going on.
I figured we don't have to beat them around the bush with the title because the show is in the title of what we watch. So, like, listeners know it's. ergo, proxy.
Took you that long to catch on to the title.
If you don't know what you're listening to when you downloaded this, I pray for you.
We can't help you.
You're random on my podcast app.
I hit shuffle just on all of itunes. I just let Steve Jobs take me where he leaves me.
You got a week left of that topical. Just kidding. It's dead by the time this episode comes out.
Shit, I use itunes. I should probably figure it okay. Yeah. Anyway, so we're watching ergo Proxy. It is a listener recommendation because we got a lot we actually got a lot of recommendations and we should probably start burning through these because we want to keep our listeners and we always.
Say this at the end, let's put.
It at the top.
If people don't tune in through the end, you can send us suggestions for shows you would like us to watch. You can tweet at us are we Verriet, Twitter and Instagram? Or you can email us arievaria@gmail.com.
Yes, thanks.
So this is a listener recommendation from Robert Anderson and it's a show I've actually already watched, so I figured I would be a good guide for it because it's kind of a doozy. But what do you guys know about ergo Proxy?
Just the title.
Yeah, I learned the title when it was suggested.
It's one of the first things me and my roommate founded over when I first moved in and then we didn't talk for two months and it's been a great relationship since.
Wow. Exactly what you're looking for.
Yeah. Very minimal silent uber ride of It's a Dream. So, yeah, this show is going to be real with you. I don't know a lot about when I came out or I just found it, I think on Netflix with a buddy of mining college and we just watched it and we're just like, whoo, that was something.
This came out 2006, so it's early odds.
That's earlier than I thought it would have been. The animation's pretty good. Then like for 2006 when I would have thought like at least after 2010, so oh, okay. That's interesting to know, but it takes you know, we won't spoil too much, but, like, I think it does a story people are familiar with in an interesting way. So if nothing else, it's done. And, like, it's not one of my favorites, but it's it's definitely like I can respect what they did and what they were going for from this, so I enjoyed it. Overall.
What a ringing endorphin.
I mean, I don't have a collage over on my ceiling of the characters and cast, but, like, I enjoyed my time with it.
A collage?
A collage.
Who do you have a collage on.
Your hey, let's not talk about this. It's easy. From Final Fantasy Nine.
Perfect. Much better.
Got, like, seven R prints of him. It's my favorite character anyway. Anime.
We are watching the first three episodes.
Let's make like, dee dee blanchard and get this munchausens by proxy. Anyway. That's a bad one.
Hi, robert Anderson. I want to say that I love you. We appreciate you so much.
So much.
You're a value to this show. Without listeners, we would be nowhere. And I just really need to say at the top that you are a quality person. This show fucking sucks.
Your mom and I are getting divorced. It's not you. We both love you. You're a great kid.
Holding I i always feel so bad because the recommendations we get most of the time I'm like, I don't like this, and I don't want people to take it personally because you are entitled to like what you like, but, oh, it's hard to watch.
I love it because you're very respectful of everyone's opinion. You make it clear, like, I don't judge people on what they like. And dana's, like, the optimist. Dana can find gold in anything. He can find something you like in, no matter what we watch. And that's very good for the show.
I don't think that means anything to you, but that means a lot to me. Thank you.
I think we need that on the show.
If it was we need an optimist on this show.
I feel like dugan doesn't have god.
It'S hard to say.
Dugan doesn't have to poke her face. He can't just lie for an hour. Meanwhile, I revel in either just shitting on stuff or just being an asshole. I am the Internet of this episode, so I'm just yeah, I'm the sheety one on this. So, like, we can't have just two of us. We need all three to balance it out.
Yeah, we got the yin, the yang, and the young. We got the three way version, the.
Angel, the devil, and Andy from Toy Story in the middle. I don't know who would be in.
The middle of that. Why was that the first job?
Because he's just a blank slate.
Hold on. Sorry. Stop the podcast. Let's dive into that real quick.
Sure.
Why Andy jump one for the most neutral person in the world.
Name me any defining aspect of his personality. Besides he likes toys and went to college at some point.
Okay, but that is literally the most.
Shit you got me.
Yeehaw.
There's a lot of advertisements for two story four around my area of the city, so like, it's on my mind. I'm not saying it's a perfect analogy, it's very precious.
Him and his little sister are very sweet.
I don't know, they're arguing.
The third one let's not talk about this.
Sorry, we're avoiding this. Rather talk about anything else.
It is fascinating the way brendan's mind works.
When I get the opportunity to pry, I just need to take it. Please.
Dig your grubby little fingers in there.
Careful. It's like the arcade covenant. Sometimes you just lose your face. Just move. Anyway, episode one, we're starting off with some cryptic text just going on, not really sure what it's saying. And then it just goes right into before you can even read it, it's not English, it's something else. And it goes right into a laboratory. And we see the subject of the lab chained down into the center of this floor. And it's a person all black. You can't tell if it's black clothing or black skin or they're just like pige black, though. And it's stands out in a very sterile white laboratory. And they're breaking out of their chains and trying to fight off people and eventually see them break out their strains. Throw something at the glass divider between the two rooms.
Wait, hold on. I think you're talking about elfin lead. We've watched that one.
Yeah, that's a different show.
Yeah, we didn't watch that one this week.
Wait, no, this one doesn't have titties. Oh, there's a difference.
We almost do. Almost.
And then the creature, person, whatever, just starts attacking everything. And we see kind of just a bunch of scientists and robots. Just to be clear, the robots are called auto raves. They say it a lot, so that's what they're referring to. And they're just kind of like, oh no, the subject is escaping. And then we cut to just a guy waking up at like 09:00 p.m.. And it looks like he's going to work, so he's working like the night shift. And we just see him doing his morning or not morning, but waking up routine. And he's riding his bike, going down at a stop light, and we just see him wipe out and just kind of fall over and it's not really made clear why. And then we get this guy just monologuing as he's standing out in front of a window and just talking about punishing them and that he's hearing the pulse and just a lot of vague shit. Like even if I wrote it all down and read it word for word, it wouldn't make sense.
What a great way to start your series.
Yeah, really sucks we already forgot about this because this doesn't matter for the three episodes that we've watched at all.
I'll tell you this, having watched all of it, it doesn't matter until, like, the last three episodes of the show.
Oh, God, now I'm mad because I completely forgot about this.
There's foreshadowing and then there's just throwing stuff out there and being like, hey, put this on a sticky note. For eight months from now, episodes that it's relevant to comes out.
This show is much more enjoyable the second time watching it when you have all the context.
Yeah, I got the sense of that, watching it, which is not a good way to watch a show for the first time of being like, I hate this now. Second time through is probably going to be good, but there's not going to be a second time.
It's like an acquired taste of beer. It's like, you're going to hate it for, like, six years when you first start trying it, but eventually you're going to start liking it. It's like, yeah, but those six years, they're going to suck. Like, you're going to hate it.
The nasty wheat tea tastes like piss.
Anyway, we get the show title, and then we get just shots of the city, just establishing shots. And it's just a very futuristic setting. We don't get an exact time, but far in the future. And there's a robot walking around. That's obvious enough. And then we see Ralph creed, the Citizen Security Bureau chief. And he's talking on the phone. And he's very despite being in the future, he's a very fancy man. He's a very, like, 17th century shakespearean. Like, he's had a long, flowing hair and a poofy collar and, like, a long coat. And he's tucking those robot. And apparently there's his auto rave. Apparently there's some emergency going on that he has to be pulled away from all of his meetings right away and has to address. And then back in the city, we see a guy kind of chasing after this robot, and he's kind of shooting at it with some sort of gun. And then we see all the auto raves look human on my desk. They're like androids and stuff. And then we see this giant machine on, like, wheels roll out, kind of following the robot. And then we see the machine defending the robot. And the guy with the gun takes out the large machine and shoes it down. And it's clear he's chasing after the robot like it's some sort of escaped robot of some sort. And apparently this is very boring for dugan. I don't know why. It's a ton of action right at the beginning.
Okay, the color palette of the show, just googled the broken sidewalk and yeah, it's gray, dark gray, brown, muddled red and more gray, some blue.
That's the piece of gum on the sidewalk.
Yeah. I have not seen an action sequence, an inherently interesting thing be made so boring. We get to a sequence later on that should have been so badass. But no, we'll get there.
Think about for all the color blind viewers. That's all. And we see to be quite honest.
I already forgot about this chase.
Me too. I'm sitting here quiet because I don't remember this.
Yeah, same.
There's a lot of lloyd's world building within the first, like, five minutes, and it's overwhelming pretty quickly.
I would not call any of this world building. We get the name of the city. We get there are robots. Cool. That's it.
I don't remember the name of the city. And we see the rondo.
Yeah, it was fucking rhombus or whatever.
Batu. The new galaxy's.
Edge.
Disneyland.
It was an Orlando. The Dark souls level.
So in the city of wattu, the watcher from Marvel. Awesome. We see the scientist from the lab where it escaped, and he's kind of being talked to by this. We just hear the voice. We don't really get a good idea, but it's a very ominous setting. Clearly, like the leader of some sort of organization or city or whatever. They're kind of talking, dressing them down for letting the experiment escape. And I just put old overseer like lady, because that's the voice you hear. And we cut back to presumably the guy that broke out of the lab. And then we just get like an establishing shot of them killing somebody. I think it was a scene. And then we cut to Riel, who is the main character, and she's being driven around by her entourage, which is like everyone's personal Auto rave. So it's just your bodyguard or companion or whatever you need for them. But they always call them their entourage. And her Auto rave is named iggy, and he's her partner. Because she's kind of a detective. I don't think it's really made clear what her exact title is, but she's basically a detective for what a great.
Defining feature for a main character. What does she do?
Not important. She does whatever she wants. She's a loose cannon on her own.
Yeah.
And iggy is telling her all about these infected Auto rays that are going berserk and running around, and they kind of develop their own kind of consciousness and self awareness. And that's what we saw earlier with the one whereby going kind of crazy and escaping. They developed their own consciousness from this virus that's infecting them.
No, I'm sorry. I think you were watching a playthrough of Detroit become human.
I was going to say I'm watching something good, but clearly on this group or any other sci-fi trophy stuff with the robots. And iggy's just going off talking just like gab gab gab gab gab gab gab. And rio's just looking at their opening, and she just yells out, like the, like, command prompt and, you know, silence language modulator or whatever, and basically just shuts them up.
Well, no, I like I actually kind of I liked this a little bit. This was interesting to me. She said specifically, like, turing, like, turn the turing thing off.
Yeah, I think turing is which is fun and interesting.
It's that test where you can't tell if you're talking to a human or a robot.
Yeah. And I think in the context of this, turing is for robots. It's kind of the human interaction part of it. So if they can turn that off.
They don't need to artificial intelligence.
Yeah. They don't have the fake persona of, like, Hello, I'm a walking, talking person. And then they just go to the standard, like, hello, address, command, like sort of robot. So she just shuts them up and is like, I'm done. So Auto rivers are running around and stuff in the city and stuff, and everyone's kind of got one, but they're still not citizens. There's still things to be controlled by people. So they still have the option of shutting them off and modifying them and stuff. So when she shuts off, iggy she's thinking to herself and we get, like, a monologue of her talking about the city and how's this paradise in this dead world and everything outside of the world of the city is kind of just like, wasteland. It's just uninhabitable. And then we cut to kind of the factory repo disposal unit that Rio is investigating for this escaped Auto rave we saw earlier. She's tracking down, like, what went wrong and the disposal unit that retrieved that robot and trying to see what's happening. And this is where we meet Vincent Law, who is another not titular character, but a pretty prominent character. And he's part of the disposal unit for Auto raves. And they are affected by the cochito virus, which no one's really sure where it came from, how it transfers. It's just a mystery. But they have a name for it, and it's what gives the Auto raves the self awareness and this yearning for freedom. And they say the Auto raves go bizarre, but it's not like they don't go on a rampage. They just go loose and go rogue. So we find out Vincent is an immigrant. I'm not sure from where, because everything outside of the city's mosque. moss okay.
It's a place called Mosque.
Yeah. And it's basically just a clear way establishing, like, classism. He's lower than a citizen. He's an immigrant, and he's trying to get his citizenship. And Rio is telling him what to do and how to appeal to it, ways to help improve his chances.
Yeah, it's a dangerous choice to live. moss.
Cohito does sound like something that would come from taco Bell. Is it coheto or cohito?
Cohito would be a cue.
Have you tried their new sauce?
Young I got to talk about the other day, I got infected with the keto virus I've been pooping on. Anyway, iggy's examining the auto rave. While Real is kind of talking with Vincent, and iggy kind of finds out more stuff. And as they're leaving, we see Vincent getting chewed out by his bosses and by the different auto raves. I work with the bosses, and Riel says, like, oh, he'd be a perfect citizen. He's simple and dull and just uninteresting. He'd fit in perfectly. And then we see ral, the security chiefs robot, talking to him about different patrols, and then they can't find it, presumably the thing that escaped from the lab earlier. And they're just talking about bureaucratic bullshit. It's very uninteresting. And we see Weird, unfortunately, that's a lot of the show. And we see iggy and Real, they show up to where the infected auto rave, like, escape from or escaping to. They say that all the infected auto raves travel the same path. They all try and go to the same point. So they're trying to figure out where this one was going or escape from. And it's kind of just a condemned hotel looking place. And as they run around, they hear somebody and they kick in the door and they find a squatter. There some immigrant who's been living there with his companion auto rave. And while iggy's getting all of his information doing the actual work, real just starts wandering around and exploring the rest of the building, trying to see what's there. And she gets ambushed by the guy and escape from the lab, this crazy monster, and drops down and immediately just, like, takes a swipe at her and then just launches off through a window. But we see they left a giant, like, handprint right next to the window. So they're clearly super strong enough to just, like, punch through concrete and stuff. And this is when we see Vincent isn't cut to Vincent inspecting an auto rave at some rich yuppies house. Some rich citizen like, oh, and he's looking at her, and we see her doing a test, and he's like, yeah, no, she's not infected, so I can't take her away. I'm the disposal unit, not the return unit. Like, I can't just take it away because you don't like it anymore. She's like, oh, well, the government finally gave me permission to have my own child, and now that I have my own child, I don't need this robotic child anymore. Just get rid of her. He's like, yeah, I can't do that. Sorry. And then we see the rich woman kind of chewing them out for being an immigrant, just really showing the divide between immigrants and citizens in this society they have. And then we see we're all in that weird room the scientist was in earlier, being talked to by these floating statues. It's not super clear.
I just don't know.
This was the worst part, and it happens a lot. It's not super clear because it keeps showing the statues, like, floating up and down while the voices are talking. And there's clearly voices assigned to each statue, but it's not clear if the statues are actually talking or if it's just supposed to be a surrogate for someone in another room or in another place talking through a speaker. But we do see the regent, the kind of prince or ruler of the city sitting in front of him behind us like veil. And he's hooked up to this weird like life machine, like life support machine. He's really not doing well. But he's the regent, he's the royalty and also riel's grandfather.
They established the slick scene once, we just forgot to mention it.
Yeah. And they're chewing roll out about the escaped Proxy. That's what they're calling this creature that ran off and has been destroying stuff, saying, yeah, captured by any means necessary, even civilian deaths. And then we cut to Real learns that the killer wasn't an infected auto rave. The body they find that was killed, we saw earlier, was killed by the Proxy, but they don't know that yet. And all of a sudden iggy gets very serious while they're investigating the body and the scene. And his eyes glow red and he tells her to stop investigating. And that's orders coming from up top, saying we can't investigate this any further. Kind of like oh well, that's super suspicious. And then we see Raw back in the broken laboratory where the Proxy escaped from and investigating that. He's talking to the scientist who's basically saying like, hey, I don't know what the fuck this is. My job was just to keep it sedated and asleep and locked up. Like I don't know what we were doing here. I'm told very little, even though it's a super secret project. And then we cut back to Real as she's going home and just thinking about today's investigation and what they learned. And she thinks, what did we learn today?
Boots.
But with a lot more murder with boots. And iggy's going back to the office for some reason. And he notices Real left her notebook tablet thing in the backseat. And he's like, oh, got to go, give that back. And as he starts turning around, he notices Vincent drive by him on his bike. And I think he just notices like that's that guy from earlier. And like that's it, it's not really alluded to much more than that. But then we see Vincent pulling up outside of riel's house or apartment. And then we get shots because it's anime of her undressing and getting ready to take a shower. Because you know, titties, you gotta, you got it. And this is what we're referring to. You almost got some titties. But when she's about to get in the shower, we see the Proxy jumped or we see the steam fogging up her mirror and we see the word awakening written in it. And that's when the Proxy jumps down through the ceiling and just kind of like shoves her up against a wall and he's kind of cry. The Proxy is crying and puts their finger up to her lips, which is weird. And then we see another Proxy fly out of nowhere and start attacking the first one. And that's it. That's the first episode.
You know, the episode title was Awakening, and my personal favorite part was when Vincent, I think, poured himself some alphabet cereal, and then he poured the milk in it, and then the letters for Awakening came out of the milk.
And that is literally the first reference to the title of the episode. So we're like, serial. It's cursed. What? Why? The prophecy cereal.
The virus comes from the serial. Is that the whole thing?
You figured it out? There it is.
I figured it out.
I knew it was trying to spell something, but I didn't care enough to try and read what it was.
Yeah, it wasn't super clear. It was like, as the letters popped up, it just spelled out Awakening in that order, but it was still jumbled in a bowl of cereal, so it was hard to follow.
Yeah, I was mostly thinking about, like, man, he spilled a lot of milk. That's going to suck. To clean up. My Mind Is an enigma episode Two yeah.
Okay, let's keep trucking along. I think I can follow the plot. Look, please help me if I stumble. 1 second.
Okay, check one, two. Check, one, two.
Okay. So it is, I believe, the next day, they're sitting in a lab. We get, like, 30 minutes of a robot just, like, counting numbers, and that's the introduction.
30 minutes.
Okay. Sorry. It felt like 30 minutes. This robot is pulling up suspects of people who could have attacked as riel is sort of in the police station reporting on the attack from the night before. And she's getting frustrated because they keep showing her a bunch of just normal people, and she's like, no, it was a monster. A monster. I say, monster, and they say, oh, that was everyone who was in the area. I guess we got to keep going back through this list because it's one of these people. And she's like, It's a conspiracy. A conspiracy. I say, I'm not crazy.
Everyone else is.
They're hiding the truth. So they found a passed out suspect from the night before, and it was Vincent, who they say was infatuated with her and is likely a stalker who tried to attack her. And that's the reason for the attack. It was Vincent being a stalker.
She's like, what a weird costume he had on.
Yeah. Strange being all frankensteiny. So she's like, no, you're all idiots. That's not it. There's something going on. And they say that she wants to go back to work on the case from yesterday, but they say since she was attacked and was injured, she has to go to a doctor for a physical and mental evaluation. So they're trying to pin her being crazy.
The attack really jangled her marbles because.
She'S talking about these monsters that don't exist crazy. Which so on the way over to the doctor. She's trying to talk to iggy about what happened, and his memory from the events was erased. So there is something going on, because even he who was there does not remember. So they're going to talk to the chief of the Health and Wellness Bureau, who's going to be doing the examination.
He's also the scientist from the first episode.
Yeah, see, I could not tell you that. They're talking with the doctor, going through it. Sorry. No, we're in a different office with raul or raul. Sorry.
Raul.
Raul. raul is talking about how it is a conspiracy. They were deleting all the footage and archives of the events of the proxy attack.
I like, that just the position of reality being like, it's a conspiracy. It's all connected. Everyone thinks I'm crazy, but I'm not. Then cut to Ralph. Yeah, it's a conspiracy. We're covering up all our shit to make her seem crazy. It's like, okay, yeah. Just to confirm is exactly what's happening.
This whole show is just real. Getting gas lit by the government.
Nothing like setting up a fun conspiracy and the mystery of if it's a memory problem and then immediately undercutting it by saying to the audience, yep, conspiracy. This is all some government bullshit anyways. So we go with Riel to the doctor who is doing the examination, is like, hey, yeah, this sucks. You're fine. I want to believe you. But Riel sees on the computer screen that they're trying to pin, like, a trauma disorder. I forget what it said it was, but they're trying to pin that she's an unreliable, crazy witness.
Yeah.
So she fakes a breakdown to say, oh, why doesn't anyone believe me? I sort of leaning into the distress of I'm having these memory issues. So he leaves the room to go set up, like, a mental brain scan. And when he's out of the room, she gets on his computer and looks up some information and finds info on the proxy.
I'm in.
Some hacking commences.
I packed into the kiwi interval.
I didn't have to.
I can Google proxy from the doctor.
Thank you, control f proxy.
So then some baby stuff happens. Can someone help me with this?
Does she get the baby?
Yeah, that's it. Fancy lady got a baby.
Fancy lady got a baby. hooray.
Pretty much it.
All right.
That's the B plot, man. It's the B plot.
Is it?
Because yeah, we'll get there, but it's like the Dplot.
It's like a short, this episode.
We'll get there after the appointment, rail is back with iggy and asks about the proxy as they're driving. She's talking about since she has to get a new housing. She's talking about going to the mall, getting new outfits, sort of coping with the attack through shopping. And she says to iggy, hey, what's a proxy? And the turing is disabled, and iggy refuses to talk about this. So she realizes that iggy is bugged, and they're. Watching and preventing any information from getting through. And just as that happens, emperor grandpa wants to have a talk with me.
What a coincidence.
Papa. grandpapa.
And we see a flash of the monster, the Proxy, somewhere, hanging out, just doing his thing.
Yeah, just leaning on a bill and smoking a cigarette. Not bothering anybody. Yeah, just chilling, having a good time.
Cool.
It's all a big misunderstanding.
So we see. They're in the chambers with Regent grandpa, the fire lord.
Mark hamill fire lord?
They're in the chambers with the grandpa, fire Lord. And real is like, what's a proxy? What's going on here? There's something afoot. I can smell it. With my detective skills, I can smell the foot.
They don't call it smell.
It's frankenstein onto a monster body. And grandpa is like, hey, cut it out. Fucking drop it.
Quit it.
Well, the grandpa doesn't actually say anything because he's basically a mobile, but it's all those statues yelling at her.
Yeah. Was that what was happening? I fucking could not follow.
It's one of those things where it's like he's royalty and he's technically in charge, but he's got some terrible medical issue where he actually doesn't do anything and has an assistant. And then the council basically runs everything. But the councils are all giant floating statues. It's weird. Men.
Why be like that?
Why?
Sometimes hey, sometimes it just be like that.
Sometimes it be like that.
Okay, so I guess a fucking marble statue tells her, hey, knock it off, knock it off or you're going to be under the watch of security forever.
I think dugan's really turned the corner for this episode.
We hit the digit on Breaking point. He'll be under his desk soon.
See, I'm fine when it's like, yeah, this plot is like, whatever. But when you're like, a statue told her to drop the case. I'm like, this is garbage.
Stop.
Okay.
I'll also say when we saw the Proxy earlier, the Proxy was stalking Vincent. Just setting that up.
Okay. I didn't notice.
Yeah, see, two thirds of the people who watched this missed that great storytelling show anyways. All right, let me take a deep breath. We're going to get into some fucking bullshit in a SEC. Okay, so Riel's like, fine, I'll drop it. Just kidding. I won't. I'm a detective. That's not what I do.
I really wish the camera pant behind her and she had her fingers crossed behind her back.
That's the level of storytelling I'm expecting for Michelle. Okay, so we see raul.
Whatever. Doesn't matter.
Whatever.
Shakespeare.
Yes. The conspirator sees two proxies at I don't know what happened here.
He was reviewing he was reviewing the camera footage from Riel's apartment when she got attacked, and he notices that there were two proxies in the video.
Okay, thank you. I could not make sense of my notes because, again, this show is garbage of Hit. So riel is at the new house settling in and trying. Okay, this bothered me. Sorry. She knows that iggy is, like, bugged and is watching her and surveillance. So in order to give them the slip, she says out loud, I know you're bugged. I know they're watching you. anyways, here's my plan to escape.
I think that was supposed to be, like, an aside. Like, she says that quietly to herself.
But she said it out loud. When there's a bugged robot in the room, how bad is it hearing?
I mean, it doesn't have ears.
She talks to it. You can't get into that. You can't do that.
Wasn't there another of us play me like this? There's, like, another show where we had the character talking out loud, like 5ft from the person they're talking about. It's anime. It happens a lot. Okay.
So she reveals to the bugged robot that she knows there's a bugged robot, and she's like, hey, I'm going to check out. I need to go back to my apartment and pick up some clothes. And iggy's like, no, we're going to the mall, remember? Don't go back there. I'm not bugged anyway.
Hey, I'm going to go to this active crime scene that I'm not allowed to go to. how's that sound? Bugged robot?
Yeah. Is that cool? So she's like, oh, fine. We'll go to the mall. We'll have a shopping spree, look up a catalog, and find me some good clothes. So iggy turns his back and pulls up, like, the clothing selection. And when he turns back, she's gone.
Girl, you're going to look so good in this dress. You're going to look so what?
I love iggy. iggy is my favorite character in this whole fucking show.
Iggy deserves better than this.
He does deserve better than this.
Hashtag justice for iggy.
He's a corrupt robot.
Hey, I don't care.
Okay, so now that we got that.
Out of the way, here we go.
We got to get into some garbage. Okay, so we're at the mall.
Say you like you respect Robert anderson's opinion. Like, you say it, but like I do.
Robert, I will buy you a dvd set of the show if you like this. I want you to like this, but.
Let'S not go that far.
It's on, hulu.
You know where it is.
Like, what you like, but oh, boy. Okay. Anyway, so I wish you had a happy existence, Robert. So we're at the mall. Every character is here. Apparently everybody we see ral is ral here or watching on, like, a monitor?
No, he's there.
He's there.
Okay, because everybody's here. Yeah, he's at the mall. For whatever reason, not set up.
He wanted to get some pinkberry.
Got to stop ice the orange, julius.
Oh, God, would I pay to just see a scene of him walking down, like, the second floor with some pinkberry and just yoga pants that say juicy on the ass? that'd be great.
Great fan fiction of it.
There's not enough going on. They need extra content written in. So Vincent is also there. Sure. Rich baby lady is there. Cool. All right.
All the characters we know, all five of them.
Yeah, all of our favorite characters.
Real. Not there.
Not there. Surprisingly not.
Anyways.
But if she listened to iggy, she would be there.
Yeah, iggy is probably there doing some shopping, just in the background, mining his own damn business.
Some robot paints.
I don't know why that got me.
Yay machinos. Okay, so we have Vincent. He's freaking out because he sees the Proxy and starts shooting at it, and he runs away. The Proxy drops down from the shadows and starts murdering some people and is chasing after Vincent. Okay.
Yeah.
We have a slowmo sequence. That is the worst action sequence I have seen in such a long time. So what, we get rich lady, baby, robot baby, whatever, they're coming up the escalator. They're just getting off. Vincent, like, stumbles through them, like, very slapsticky, almost like slow motion trips over them. We see the Proxy slowmo slash through the baby and the mom pushing the mom down the escalator and pushing the baby in the carriage down the stairs next to it. And the the robot girl starts praying.
I guess, once again, with context, it makes sense. It's not better.
I have none because they've given me none. So this is a bad seat.
The other robot earlier started praying when the Proxy was around too, so must must have something to do with the Proxy. But you remember what we said that I tried to find nice.
Yeah. You're doing great. You're fulfilling your contractual obligation.
I'm trying to I'm just trying to make sense of this in my brain.
You're trying it. Sometimes there's just nothing there. Sometimes there's just nothing there.
Grasping it, but yeah. So you say in episode one, there's a good action sequence, and then this literally a, like, big city like, mall attack, literally 90% of it is in slow motion. So we lose all the effect of this action sequence by slowing it down so much that it looks comically slow. And you get a vague sense it's mostly silent as well, so there's not even, like, fun sound cues. In slow motion. We get a rich lady falling down an escalator, some babies falling down the stairs, and there's some people that got slashed by a monster.
Rich lady falling down an escalator, sounds like.
Yeah, I'm on board with that.
Like, they're trying to do so many things, I forget what movie it is, but the, like, mob I can't remember if it's like, untouchables or godfather of the Baby Carriage falling down the stairs. As people are shooting each other up, they're trying to do an homage to that. This also reminds me of I don't know why. This reminds me of Heavy Rain, the mall sequence where the kid gets hit by a car.
Jason, too.
Jason. Jason.
I don't know how true it is, but apparently they've recorded all the different languages of that game with the same actors. And that's why it sounds so weird.
Because aren't they all French actors?
Anyways, it's four very different languages and they're native speakers.
For one of them, we referenced two what's that company? quantic.
Yeah, David Cage.
Two of their games.
David Cage is a bad man. He's a bad person.
He's a bad man.
And apparently he likes this because it has the same tone. So that's also a strike beyond all the bad bullshit, beyond two souls.
Bam. Got the other game in?
Yeah.
Fuck me.
Okay, so sorry. We spend way too long on this very bad sequence.
So did this episode.
Yeah. So attack. The government locks down the mall trying to contain the Proxy, but it breaks out. Of course. riels at the house and confirms that there was a monster attack. Just looking at all this stuff. And then there's people breaking into the house of the little girl that was praying. Is that a different little girl or same little girl?
Same little girl. She went back to the mansion and the disposal unit that Vincent works with are coming after her because her owner died, and now she's like a rogue auto rave. So they're just coming to take her away.
Cool.
Now she's garbage.
Yeah, they immediately locked down the mall, but she somehow got out.
I mean, it wasn't an immediate lockdown.
But then why lock it up? Why lock it down at all if you're trying to immediately contain this monster? That's right.
Hey, we're going to lock down the mall.
Take your time.
If you want to go home. Yeah, honestly, it's fine.
I know your family just got murdered, but you're not a suspect. We don't need to talk to you. Just goodbye. And then riel finds the necklace of Vincent of the moss symbol, and the Proxy runs up to Vincent and gives them a hug. I don't know. That's the episode, it's garbage.
I thought I was the anger.
I could recap episode three in like two minutes, but I'm not going to do that. I'm going to take my we still.
Got a few minutes to kill here.
I'll be honest, I could not tell you what happened in episode three. I had it on. I was I was not paying attention. There's not a lot of dialogue in this show, so there's just long stretches of silence. So he got to watch. If they gave me something interesting to look at, sure, that's a fair deal.
There's like a big old mom.
Episode three, Vincent is on a train and he's asleep. He's having a dream. And he says, literal, I'm like, hardly paraphrasing, he's like, I'm just sad, I'm so sad. But also I'm laughing. And he's having this dream. There's like a desolate wasteland and bombs are falling, things are happening. It's just a weird dream.
He's a man.
There's a man. And then he wakes up and he was on the train the whole time, like we saw in the beginning. And then his phone is ringing, and then most shocking thing that happens, we.
Get into three of the three episodes.
And the song is very I don't know if it's the same. Is it the same in Japanese as it is in the English dub?
I don't know.
I skipped this so fast. It's like four minutes long.
I listened to it because I needed a minute from this monotony to listen to this very coldplay esque music.
It's like a 90 slow grunge is what I felt.
At first. I was like, oh, it's kind of like muse. And then as the chorusy part hit, I was like, oh, no, this is coldplay.
Okay, I'm mad for two reasons. I just pulled up the opening. The full length of this opening is over four minutes. That's reason one I'm mad. Reason two, it's four minutes and 19 seconds. Why didn't you just add one extra second? You could have made it up that way.
There you all right?
Sorry.
We get that just fun ass opening. And then it's revealed that riel is the one that's trying to get in contact with Vincent.
Oh, the ending song is radiohead Weird.
What?
Are you kidding?
Why?
The song for the closing is paranoid Android by Radio Head. God, if that's not fucking on the nose, I don't know what is.
Wow, someone put half a second of thought into that choice.
It looks like real. And iggy I think it's at this point yeah, it looks like they're in, like, some kind of Internet cafe, but I know, it's like, at, like, a police station.
That's what it looks like.
And iggy is just doing that thing that robots do in movies where he's just, like, looking at a bunch of pages at once and taking in all the information, and then he's like, Real, I found something. And turns out someone was trying to access a security database from a whole bunch of different accounts. And then she says a line, but her lips don't move. But then iggy responds to it, and I was like, can he read her mind? Or did she say that out loud?
Or was this a shitty animation job.
Or is this just shitty?
Is it just something's bad? I don't know what option Ergo proxy.
Is gas flooding me. geez, my notes are bad. I wrote down dark piano time.
I mean, it's raw, like, just tapping on a piano. And then his phone rings, and then that's it. Nothing happens here.
Cool. So I wrote down their phone is ringing and they're mad about it. So I think that's yeah, we've covered that. And then Vincent is again at, like, it looks like an Internet cafe because there's just, like, a bunch of screens around future.
This is actually his work, the disposal unit.
Okay, so he's calling out for dorothy, but he says, dorothy. dorothy.
Jason.
He makes it three syllables.
Jason.
She just keeps saying, Vincent, I'm over here. And then he finds her, and oh, no, she's broken. It was like a voice recording of dorothy. And we don't even know who dorothy is. He talks to her. He talks to her briefly in a different episode we watched, but we don't. She's an Auto rave, and that's all we do.
Yeah, she's like his entourage at work. She's like a coworker.
Wow. So glad they established that.
Yeah. But now she's broken, and he's being shot at. whoa. We're halfway he's running away. And I wrote down for being a robot, that one has bad aim because he's sitting in one place, and there are, like, four bullets that hit around him at the same time. And I'm like, Come on.
Come on, man.
Literally programmed to be able to shoot a gun. And you do it.
That it's not clear. This is actually, like, a human in, like, a weird mech Walker, and he's, like, sitting on the back of it. So it's not a robot.
Oh, I remember seeing that later.
Yeah, I remember seeing that later. I didn't see most of this episode, I'll be honest.
Nothing matter.
Life is fleeting.
And then we're back with the Council of Statues, and these fuck.
They want to know, these assholes.
These singing heads from the haunted mansion ride tombstones quake.
And the tombstones quake. And the tombstones quake copyrighted. So they're angry with the Chief? Well, it looks like they're angry with raul. I just called him Chief Whatever because he hasn't found the Proxy yet. But then they kind of zoom out, and it seems like they're mad at his Auto rave for not being able to find it, because I think she responds. I think she's like, My bad.
I think it's kind of like, he's a dumb human. We expected him to fuck up. But like, you you're a robot. You're better than that.
You're a robot. You should know better. And then we go back to a different place, and then there are these guys, and now they're looking for an Auto rave. They're looking for the little girl Auto rave. And Vincent is on the run, and then he runs into the little girl.
For you guys, wasn't it?
I made that pinot.
He calls her pinot. He's like, hey, you're, pino. And I wrote it as P hyphen no, because I just wanted to have.
Some fun for the first time in an hour.
Sorry, I wrote real R-E-L. Yeah, I wrote pinot. I was like, I bet that drunk Rich Wine mom named her pino.
Love it. And then she has this thing where she's like, Am I pino? Who's pinot? Me pino. And I'm like, okay, sure.
Yeah. So I can point out let's go.
And then we get a shot of rielle trying to call someone, and it turns out she's trying to call Vincent. But he's not answering. And now he's just hanging out with the robot kid, and they are in, like, an alleyway, and he's like, hey, pinot, you stay there, because I think he's trying to get away from her, but she's taking his phone, and then she answers it, and she's like, hello. And then Riel's like, Vincent, is that you? And it's like, come on, shit. You're a detective. You should know that this small child is not Vincent.
I like, that even robot kids have sticky fingers. They always got sticky fingers.
And then the gist of the conversation he has with Real is that he's trying to leave. And this is the point where I was like, wow, they really do talk a lot in this show and don't say anything because they're like, having a conversation that lasts, like, two minutes. And then she does this thing where she's like, oh, my God, I can hear the light rail cross paths where's that happening now? And then she does it in her weird little notebook ledger thing because it's the future I'm in. And then she sees where it is, and then she enhance, and she's like, you're here. You're at this place. You're trying to leave. And he's like and then he hears, you got me. And that's the whole conversation.
He's trying to get outside. He's trying to get outside of the city in the wasteland.
Well, so he's like, look, they're trying to kill me. I might as well leave anyway and just die. It's fine, fine.
Don't worry about it.
And Riel's like, stay where you are, Vincent. And he doesn't wow. And pinot follows him.
This whole show is summarized with, hey, do the thing. No whole shit.
Bad improv skills. Ergo proxy. Yes.
And then they're trying to leave, but he's like, getting lost, and he's like, wow, the city is a maze, and the name of this episode is maze City. And pino's like. Follow me. I know the way. And he's like, all right. So he follows the small child to a dead end, and he's like, shucks. A dead end. But then she, like, shimmies through the wall, and then it turns out it's not a dead end. And then we're, like, reminded of the time that riel said the robots that have gone rogue all followed the same path. So pinot is going down this path. Apparently.
She'S infected, but it's not clear enough.
Yeah, it was not clear to me.
See, he also wasn't watching.
Also, it was at this point I thought this the whole time, but this was when I finally wrote down, this show is so dark, I can't tell what's going on. There are some times where everything is just black, and then you'll get, like, a sliver of light and you're just like, what's happening here? What's going on in this scene? Because I really can't tell. And pretty much like, the whole time that pinot is leading Vincent out is just dark and you can't tell what the heck is going on.
Please switch to a lighter gray, please. And Brendan, you told me to watch this because I was complaining. It was too quiet and just there wasn't anything audio going on. And you told me to watch it. And dana's saying, oh, all the visuals were fucking dumb and dark.
You can't tell what's happening.
I didn't tell you to watch this. Robert Anderson told you to watch this. Just making that claim, not really throwing him under the I just saying it ain't on my list for a reason.
Robert, I still love you, but Brendan.
And then we cut to the council of statues talking shit about real. It's fine. They also mentioned I wrote this. They're like, oh, rondo has been shaken by this attack. And I was like, oh, rondo is shook.
I wrote down back to the regent with the statues arguing again. I was like, that's a weird sentence.
I love the ancestors from the law.
Damn, Daniel. Back to the region with statues again.
And then somehow riel found Vincent. She gets there and she's like, what did you do?
Where is they?
Who got in the track? Did you eat that rapper again? What did you do?
And then he's like, I didn't do anything. All I did was get attacked by this thing. And then the cops were after me. And she's like, you know too much. And he's like, I don't know anything that's too much.
Watching the show. Finally an audience surrogate.
And then the robot cops find him. And then pinot opens. It looks like a dead end, but they're like, at the gate of the city. And she just opens it. And she's like, I did it for you.
I hooked you up.
I opened the door.
I'm helpful. peanut the best.
And it's just slowly opening. And it's like an airlock because I guess the outside is just so harsh that the wind is like this makes.
Given the big suck.
The wind gives Vincent big suck. And he's being pulled out of the city and riel is trying desperately to keep him inside.
So is there like he's no air outside? How does this work?
I don't know. That's what I'm saying is like, what are the physics behind this?
Maybe it's like the jetsons and they're just really high up. The cities are on pole.
Okay, so he monologues about he was like, I'm never going to be a citizen. They don't like me. They don't want me. I'm going to get killed anyway. I might as well die out here. And then they're closing the doors because if the doors stay open any longer, people in the city are going to get hurt, I guess from the air quality or something. And then real sees.
But if it's pulling them out, no air would get in because it's a suction thing.
I just don't know. Vincent, like, opens his eyes so he's one of those characters that has his eyes closed the whole time, or it looks like he has his eyes closed the whole time, so you're just like, oh, those are just his eyes. But then he opens his eyes and he has blue eyes, and it's not blue eyes, green eyes. Then they're like, bright and very green. And I was like, what? Is that mine? And riel's like Vincent. And then the doors close, and pino is also just out there like, bye, guys.
Later.
And that's it.
There we go.
Yes.
Are we there yet?
I just watched all three episodes of this, and we just recapped all three episodes of this. I could not tell you what happened.
Let me tell you. While I was watching it, I wanted desperately to know what was going on. So I was like, oh, maybe I would keep watching this show. But now dugan's opened my eyes and made me realize that this is just a bad show, and that's why I didn't know what was.
He opened your bright green eyes like Vincent. You know the mystery.
Mystery one of 80 established in these three episodes that we do not get resolution set up.
It's like 24 episodes. We got more time.
Okay, Google, tell me what happens at the end of Ergo Proxy.
No legit. I want you to tell me what happens because this is all hot garbage.
Maybe not. I won't. I won't do it. While we're recording, in case anyone is.
Actually interested in watching it, I need to know. Spoiler alert right now. spoilers.
Hold on. The first line of this reek, it's a recap ergo Proxy anime explained guide for story plot in episodes part one. Ergoproxy is a very complex anime using a different way of storytelling than most anime.
Most animes use a good story, straightforward. I'm sorry, I can't say that with a straight face.
Plot overview. I just want to know how it is.
Do we want to do just a little spoiler?
Yeah, just yeah. What are they trying to do here?
All right, so you if made it through to this entire fucking episode and you still have an interest in it. congrats. That's fucking amazing. I mean, I watched it. I enjoyed it. I'm scared to say that because I think dude will hit me a lot.
As I've been saying, robert, I love you. Brendan, I love you like this show. I very much want someone to get joy out of this. It's just not me.
So spoiler for next, like, 30 seconds. Just to get bad. 30 seconds. So basically, Ergo Proxy is blade Runner. Cross with wally.
Yeah, we got it. Was blade Runner. They beat us over the head with that.
Yeah, but so what happened was the Earth got so polluted, they created these cities, and all the rich people went off planet. And the proxies are basically wally, who's supposed to make it reinhabitable again. They're supposed to make it livable again on Earth.
Cool. Nothing in the first three episodes even comes close to hinting at that.
Yeah, 24 more episodes. It's a slow burn.
Yeah. Let's establish the overarching theme past the first three episodes.
It took me a long time to figure out what the fuck was actually happening, but I could definitely see it being appealing on a second. Watch through of this.
They won't get me for one.
I mean, hey, we're showing you the variety of anime that exists in the world. They're not all the same. And this one's unique.
This article says, Proxies die in the sunlight. Are proxies vampires?
They were very much in the sun in that mall, artificial.
Fuck.
I've been trying to read this while you've been talking. Like, I haven't even honestly. But this article thing, this recap thing, is just as incoherent as the anime.
I just don't fucking know. This is not a very clear shell, even if you know everything. So it's a rough go of it.
A great storytelling device.
It's very unique. It tells the story in a very unique psychological and philosophical way. Yeah, that's what it said.
There's few things I hate more than bad avant guard stuff, and this is giving me that sort of vibe of, like, it's storytelling, but we're doing it in a new way. And it's like, no, you're doing it bad. You're doing bad storytelling.
It's like when a chat song tells a story, it's like.
Even though it's done right. Cool. But if you're just, like, let me take five notes from anywhere on this keyboard and just cycle through them, that's bad. That's not good.
Well, there you go, Robert. I hope you're happy.
Thank you. Robert, we love you.
Seek us out and be mean to.
Us on the Internet, even though we were a little bit mean to you. Well, not to you.
We weren't mean to him. We were mean to the show.
I cannot stress this enough. Robert, I love you. You are a wonderful person so much, Robert. You bring value into this universe. I want you to know that. You matter so much.
We do preface it with, like, hey, recommend shows we might shoot on them. True. There's that caveat.
I just feel bad because we tend.
To exclusively shit on the shows that people recommend. Hey, listeners, get better tastes.
No, your taste is fine. Don't listen to Brendan.
You're allowed to enjoy.
I don't know. I'm questioning their taste if they're listening to this show. bitch Fair.
All right, well, thank you for joining us. What do we have going on next week?
Next week we're watching a movie. We're watching 5 cm/second, which is made by the same guy that made your name. I've heard it's a fun and sad time, so let's do it.
All cry.
I feel like it's like the substitute teacher with the hangover. It's like, all right, kid, we're watching movie today. Shut up. We're watching elf for the 37th time.
But, Mr. mccullough, it's August.
Why are we in school?
It's the first day of school. What are you talking about? Anyway, this is a nightmare. So thank you for joining us. You can find us on Twitter are we there yet? On Twitter and Instagram, where you can send us suggestions. You can also email us are weveryette@gmail.com you can find me on Twitter and Instagram at mrpatrick. dugan.
You can find me on Instagram at Queen. Period. Weebu and on Twitter at Queen underscore weebu And I actually just opened an art Twitter, which is Queen underscore Weebu. Art.
Got that branding?
Yeah.
You can find me on Twitter at abts. Brendan abts stands for Almost Better Than Silence, which is my video game podcast. I've done with Doug with the elfin lead episode we referenced earlier.
Does he like ergo proxy?
I assume he does.
I mean, he likes alvin Lee. That really gives you an idea of his taste. Hey, dog.
If you love art, follow dana's Twitter or look at our pretty artwork done by camille ruley. And thank you to Louis zong for the use of our theme song stories off the album Beats. You can find all of Louis music at Louisong bandcamp.com. Thank you, and we hope you'll join us next week as we learn to live with anime. We love you so much, Robert. You're amazing. Keep you in good things.