Vincent is on a strange TV show, hosted by what I believe is a Proxy named MCQ. If Vincent gets to 1,000,000 points in 30 minutes, he wins a fridge, a bike, a plasma TV, and a microwave; moreover, if Vincent wins, MCQ dies. However, if MCQ (the winner of 25 previous challenges) wins, Vincent dies. Ah yes, nerdtastic Proxy battling.
In an extremely heavy-handed approach, Vincent is asked a bunch of questions he could never hope to answer (and we are puzzled along with him, as the information is completely out of left field). By force-feeding us the correct answers, we learn:
- Romdeau is considered the “City of Sin” and is far from where Vincent is right now. In other words, Romdeau is Las Vegas, only in the future.
- Human originally saw their salvation in cow burps. They turned these burps into methane hydrate. Predictably, the methane hydrate exploded, killing 85% of the population.
- Humans hoped to avoid the Apocalypse with two plans: the Boomerang Project and Project Proxy.
- It seems like the Boomerang Project came back and smacked humankind in the head. The escape ship, Boomerang Star turned out to be a hastily built piece of crap. Part 2 of the Boomerang Project, the Cogito Virus, doesn’t seem to be working out so well either. The problem is really with the name of “the Boomerang Project”, as these things matter.
- Proxies do something that allow the various domes to survive. This confirms what we’ve been hearing in the last few episodes. Hopefully that something isn’t belch, as history often repeats itself.
- There are 300 Proxies, but perhaps they are not strong enough to do whatever they were supposed to do. The originals couldn’t be replicated, and it was a bad idea to order the new Proxies from Chinese sweatshops.
- Creator still loved his creations, even though they destroyed instead of creating. Now these Proxies are the biggest obstacle to restoring humans to how they were. The end of Project Proxy is known as the Heartbeat of Commencement.
- The Proxies have an all-seeing eye, just like Ra, the Egyptian god of the sun.
- We will probably hear some more of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony and we are supposed to remember its theme of Fate/Stay Night.
- Carl Gustav Jung was a huge Vincent fanboy.
- The red-haired First Proxy is this totally emo-goth Vincent fanboy as well, and he was the last world champion on the show.
Anyway, this show is transmitted from a strange satellite. The signal is jammed, but Daedalus, Raul, and the Supreme Council already got the torrent. They get to watch as Vincent answers the last question (“Maze”) and scores the win. As MCQ tells the audience that “the one we must defeat and his base are here,” he gets the blue Sith-lightning of eye-doom, and the transmission ends.
Ugh, this was a bad episode. While somewhat entertaining, this episode uses the same format as episode 3 of Fate/Stay Night, namely the information dump. Sure it’s effective like using a giant sledgehammer to kill an ant, but it could have been carried out with a lot more finesse. The art was also not as good as usual this episode, but I can forgive that because I wouldn’t waste much effort animating this episode either.
There was some amusing Pino screen time, but this was a very Vincent-centric episode. I think what the episode is trying to suggest is that Ergo Proxy is the Creator, and now that he’s pissed off about his cheap Proxies going nuts and growing too fast, he’s laying the smackdown. However, this destructive path seems to coincide with tons of fighting and trippy episodes that will lead to acceptance, understanding, and hot goth chicks that wear a lot of eyeshadow.
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Kabitzin – who has written 1940 posts on Sea Slugs! Anime Blog.
One of the founders of Sea Slugs, I handle most of the blog admin tasks while wearing my I AM BOSS shirt. I like my action series well choreographed, and my romance series extra trashy. I also have a soft spot for puns.
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Sin City could also refer to Frank Miller’s comic. Vincent and Real both kinda dress in a comic-noir color scheme. I’m hoping they’ll end up in Ernie Bushmiller’s Nancy at some point, arguing with Slugo over the merits of three rocks. It’s good to see ep. 15 out of the way so we can get back to the main story again, which does not require so much of the info dump as it does on the emotional dynamic developing between the two organics and our android hero, Pino.
I would label this ep as “insipid”. The info-dumping is rather chaotic, and, in my opinion, adds a little to the overall story, which remains with tons of coherency problems.
Anyway, the idea is rather original and might have been funny – but I’m perplexed about the setting: I find that a sci-fi-noir novel like Ergo Proxy is rather unfitting for this kind of mind games,
Luckily, there’s the mega-ep n.16 next, to save the day. The peak of Ergo Proxy, imho.
Too bad they wasted so much eps for mind trips and left the story development, and some needed explanations, in a messy cloud (of marijuana, if I may say).
I wonder if the inclusion of a game show themed ep. is something more tuned to the local Japanese sensibility than what a U.S. audience can appreciate? Like the obsession in Tokyo with panty shots and cute cartoon animals, the game show is some kind of cultural icon that gets lost in translation. Ep. 15 didn’t do much for me, but it might be another matter for the home audience.
The last part of the episode is a carbon copy of “who wants to be a millionaire”, which is a quiz format aired almost worldwide, I think: here in Italy we have, of course, the local version, “chi vuol essere milionario”. I’ve seen it aired also in Hungary, France, Germany….
Don’t know if it’s “iconic” in Japan, for sure it’s very GLOBALIZED stuff O_o.
I think Ergo Proxy has a solid “western” appeal built-in: i.e. it has been made, probably, to be easily marketed in an english-speaking environment: all the writings featured (walls, papers, etc) are in english, the op and ed are sung in english too. Weirdo as I am I was sometimes checking the lip-sync, and I’ve noticed that Japanese does not fit very well, also.
all eps have english writings EXCEPT THIS ONE, of course (^_^;)
‘The last part of the episode is a carbon copy of “who wants to be a millionaire”‘
I definitely smelled its trademark as well. I think the only Japanese twist was the “the loser will die” bit as some Japanese game shows are known to be rather sadistic e.g., “Takeshi’s Castle”.
“sometimes checking the lip-sync, and I’ve noticed that Japanese does not fit very well”
Odd, I noticed that too recently and drew the same conclusion but I don’t think it was Ergo Proxy but actually FLAG. I’m not sure which show it was actually, it’s just interesting that I recently had a similar thought.
I found this to be a waste of an episode. They could have used this episode to develop relationships between characters, character development, Vincent getting kicked in the nuts, etc.
(and in that scene where the game show douche has Re-l and Pino as extra contestants…I was hoping for Re-l to flip off the camera instead of crossing her arms).
i LOVED this episode. IMO, this is the best episode of the series, it was so damn entertaining and funny. amazing^^