“Ergo Proxy” (2006). Director: Shūkō Murase. Writer: Dai Satō. Studio: Manglobe. Genre: Cyberpunk, psychological, suspense. Episodes: 23

Cogito, ergo sum (I think, therefore I am)

― René Descartes

SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

This anime is so complex and full of topics that I’m going to develop stages of plot:

STAGE 1: Self-awareness Virus

Romdeau is a dome city, surrounded by the global ecological disaster that made the humans, thousands of years ago. The dome city provides a womb for the humans that gave birth in capsules. This dome cities are the new protection for humans and Auto Reivs, androids who coexist peacefully with common robots and humans… until now.

Our female protagonist Re-L Mayer (“Real”) is a detective who is called to investigate murders of people committed by AutoReivs, along with her AutoReiv, Iggy. A virus has infected the AutoReiv population; the result of being slaves of humans and the madness that comes with an overwhelmed new mind, is causing devastation.

The Cogito virus provides androids of emotions and self-awareness. “Cogito, ergo sum“, the self-awareness in artificial intelligence is a topic in series as “Ghost in the shell“.

The epical history about robots having self-awareness and humans running from Earth trying to find a new home in the universe reminds me Isaac Asimov‘s books.

The regent of the Rombeau city is the grandfather of Re-L Mayer, Donov Mayer. This character is so olda that only comunicates by his AutoReivs, named after famous philosophers: Derrida (différance), Lacan, Husserl and Berkeley. Those philosophers are reprentatives, along with Deleuze, Guatarri, and Kristeva (stepmother of Pino, who represents Pinocchio), of the post-modernism, especifically post-structuralism, deconstructivism and phenomenology.

The post-modernism debates about reality. For this movement, rejects the possibility of reliable knowledge, denies the existence of a universal, stable reality, and frames aesthetics and beauty as arbitrary and subjective.

STAGE 2: Global Ecological Disaster

The anime is developed in an post apocalyptic era. A global ecological disaster has wipe out the 85 % of the human population. The rest has invented the Boomerang Star, a giant spaceship (a version of Noah’s Ark). On Earth, they have colocated some humanoids called Proxy’s to repoblation Earth and find a solution to the global disaster. A proxy is a substitute authorized to act for another entity or a document which authorizes the agent so to act… acting in the name of humans, even acting in the name of God.

The 300 Proxy’s were colocated in charge of some dome cities and the womb inside them. Charged by a lot of energy, using some kind of cells, Amrita cells. Amrita, in Sanskrit literally means “immortality”. So they are immortals, and the clouded Earth helps them to not dying for sunlight. When the sun will shine again, the semi-god Proxy will be deleted, the Boomerang Star will return and all the ancient humans will rise again.

The humans made Proxy, Proxy made dome, dome made humans, humans made AutoReivs… but, is the Cogito Virus a result of this interactions or is also a plan of the ancient humans? Thinking if the new humans cannot make it and perish, the AutoReivs with emotions (“new new humans”) will succeed.

STAGE 3: Patron gods

The Proxy maybe is infected by the Cogito Virus and spread it to the AutoReivs, to make that effect. The presence of another Proxy in the dome city may liberate the virus because some praying positions and murders are committed in this situation. This leads to think that every infected AutoReiv starts to think the Proxy as God. In the ancient Greek cities, each city worship a God (patron god), and many conflict were originated by this.

The conflict between cities in the anime states that Romdeau’s proxy is Proxy I (Ergo Proxy) and Musk’s Proxy is Proxy XIII (Monad Proxy), they both are lovers, and wanted to be together. Ergo, meaning “therefore” in latin and “work” in greek, represents the one itself (Proxy I, Cogito ergo sum, One or pronoun I), and Monad, a term meaning “unit” used by philosophers to signify a variety of entities from a genus to God.

Gottfried Leibniz, a philosopher, wrote a book named Monadology , and use the term as a basic unit of perceptual reality. In some gnostic systems, the Supreme Being is known as the Monad, the One, the Absolute, and/or the primal Father. We can figure out that Ergo searching Monad is a representation of the being itself searching the supreme being, the unit in pursuit of itself.

We know that Vincent is a proxy/shadow/persona of Ergo, and Re-L kind of for Monad. And, in the end, we understand that the clon Real Mayer (white hair) has the soul of Monad. This clone situation was made by Rombeau’s lead scientist, Daedalus Yumeno.

STAGE 4: Icarus Fall

Daedalus Yumeno is the lead scientist of Rombeau. He has two AutoReivs, Deleuze and Guattari. Referencing the philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, co-authors of book like A Thousand Plateaus (1987) and Capitalism and Schizophrenia: Anti-Oedipus (1972).

With the words “cyberspace” and “hallucination” used interchangeably, we can see William Gibson‘s cyberpunk novel Neuromancer (1984) being combined with Deleuze and Guattari.

Real Mayer (Monad) always has a red yarn ball that she tends to carry around, like the one who used Ariadne to save Theseus from the Minotaur. The red yarn ball was given by the best craftsman of the city, Daedalus, like Daedalus Yumeno.

The clon accepts Monad essence and produce wings that used to fly away. Trying to escape with Ergo Proxy, being refuse, and leaving the instructions of Daedalus, she flies alone to the sun. Like Icarus, son of Daedalus, she burn itself and dies. The death of Real Mayer/ Monad Proxy destroys the city.

CONCLUSION

According to the post-modernism, the reality cannot be reacheable. The deconstruction of the self is made by consciousness. The gnosticism declares that every being can connect to God through the consciousness, and self awareness.