Texhnolyze

Texhnolyze is a show about heavy breathing, grunting, and a pissing contest between a group of gun and sword wielding alpha males in suits who speak in bad mob movie cliches. If you force your imagination enough, you may be able to find something deep in the recesses of this art, but the same could be done if you stared long enough at the textures on a rusty frying pan. There's a subplot about "texhnolyzation", a procedure to repair or upgrade a person using technologies such as mechanical limbs. The transhumanist ideas herein, which have potential, are unfortunately enveloped in a lot of empty atmosphere. Mostscenes are comprised of long shots of nothing, sound effects that were ran through one too many flange filters, and cryptic dialog that's just later reiterated in dull exposition. The tone is reminiscent of the cheap drawings an angry teenager would sketch up after being sent to his room for cursing out his mother. There's hardly any diversity among the characters; they all share the same stern facial expression, and communicate by either mumbling or shouting. Episodes 19 - 22, though still reliant on exposition, are admittedly fascinating as they focus on the aforementioned subplot. With that said, I'm not entirely sure the ending was worth sitting through the preceding 6 hours of tedium. If this show had been around 10 episodes instead of 22, it could have been good, maybe even great.

I’ve been meaning to describe my experience with Texhnolyze since I last rewatched it, but just like the ending to the show I found myself a bit lost for words and a little empty inside. I’ve since found that it’s very easy to write about things I don’t like in anime, but it’s difficult for me to give praise to fantastic shows in a way that gives them the respect they deserve. Story - 10/10 Texhnolyze's story stands out because of the power of its narrative. The story of the Texhnolyzed Ichise is not one that progresses very rapidly, but the complexities of the world of Luxand its counterparts, the inhabitants and their allegiances, as well as the external forces that bring change to the city are all dealt with in full length, providing the viewer by the end of the show a wide and deep understanding of the world of Texhnolyze. That being said, Texhnolyze shows way more than it tells, and while it's minimalist dialogue and slow pacing may be a turn off to viewers who were expecting fast action based off of the opening, to me it's a great change of pace and very fitting for the dark material that it covers. As a result, Texhnolyze doesn't spoon feed you information, but instead tries to convey its story more stylistically through the use of different colors, drawings, scene construction, character expressions, and symbolism. And I think it does very well. The show is multi-layered, with religious, artistic, and literary references that enhances the show's already powerful messages but not so overwhelming that you're lost in an incomprehensible mess. The themes of Texhnolyze are also thought provoking. From traditional cyber punk themes of the fusion of man and machine and the negative impacts of technology or post apocalyptic messages ranging from the fall of man to the meaningless of life, Texhnolyze gives the viewer a lot to think about when the credits rolls at the end, and it leaves up a lot to interpretation to the point where as dark as it is, Texhnolyze still offers a bit of hope at the end of the tunnel. Art - 9/10 The art of Texhnolyze really does deserve a ten, and my giving it a nine is more of a personal snicker than anything else. The show's set pieces are very fitting for its content. There are few shows where the expression of a character's face or a camera angle or the depiction of certain buildings adds value and importance to the story. Whether it's the haunting perspective of Ichise where his view is now covered with details about his new robotic limbs or the apathetic expression from the show's deadly instigator, Texhnolyze offers up a lot of fine detail to analyze. Texhnolyze manages to do that and more. While the majority of Lux is bound in grey and other colors that have been shaded with darker hues, the use of lighting is used very effectively when it comes to important and critical scenes or used thematically as a means of splitting characters in light or dark. In short, Texhnolyze uses all forms of visual storytelling to improve upon its already powerful story. My only gripe with the show is that its cover art is kind of misleading. Ichise, Ran, Onishi, and Motoharu, some of the main characters in the story, are nowhere near as sexy (and for Ran...well she's still kind of cute) as they are in the cover art. Which made me sad. :( Sound - 10/10 The opening and ending of the show are really interesting and I think they kind of set the pace for the show in a very noticeable way too, getting our bloods pumping by the beginning of the show and then gradually calming us down by the end with a peaceful melody by Gackt. Juno Reactor's Guardian Angel is splendid and I can't think of any better way to have opened the anime. Its soundtrack is also a diverse mix of slow piano pieces, guitar solos, fast more trance/techno beats, and even the occasional rap. One wonders when listening to Texhnolyze's soundtracks how such a violent and depressing anime could have uplifting tracks, and I think that's one of the qualities of Texhnolyze. But beyond the sounds, one must realize that Texhnolyze is still a very sensory experience. Just like how the art was used in a way to highlight characters, sound is used pretty extensively as a means of conveying the narrative. The ragged breaths of Ichise as his anger rises up and down, the soft sound of footsteps at a suspenseful moment, the sound of trains, gunfire , shifting of the legs, all these sounds are amplified and brought out in a way that creates such an intense atmosphere that wouldn't have existed with such good sound editing. Character - 10/10 The characters in Texhnolyze are deeply flawed, but that's all part of their charm. I've heard many people say that they couldn't get emotionally attached to these characters, and while I disagree, I think that's still missing the point. I'm not a big fan of the phrase "I'm in this show for the characters" because that implies an attachment to certain characters than a show might or might not really need to succeed. There are plenty fans of Eva who find characters like Shinji or Asuka or Rei revolting and still love the show for what it is. The same can be said with a show like Ergo Proxy (and that's not the only thing asinine about that show). I happened to love the characters but even so, Texhnolyze offers up very human characters that all have plenty of development and screen time. We understand their motives, their philosophies, and they all add something important to the narrative. Whether it's Doc and her attempts at bridging the world of man and machine or Onishi with his steadfast sanity that kept the city from falling into utter chaos or Yoshii with an apathy that I have never seen since reading The Stranger, all of these characters have great characterization. Enjoyment - 10/10 Texhnolyze is not a show for everyone. It's violent, slow, and almost downright depressing. It's also not a show where people just sit down and expect a fun experience. It's thought provoking and tries to create a narrative that's multi-layered and deep, and it definitely succeeds. It just happens to frighten away a good proportion of the anime fanbase in the process. I personally thought that Texhnolyze was an intensely enjoyable experience. Every episode was filled with such great world building, characterization, atmosphere, and sometimes even action to admire and think about. I left every episode thinking about something new, and Texhnolyze was enough of an interesting take on cyberpunk that I would say that I came out kind of enlightened and thought about the genre in a different light. The fact that a lot of the show was up to interpretation was also interesting. Plenty of friends cite how bleak it is, but I happen to think Texhnolyze has some uplifting moments. It offers up that mankind, even down in its darkest moments, is constantly fighting for survival, to live, to find one's meaning in life. It offers that while technology may be a bane on existence, perhaps there's something else there, that it helps us forge bonds or become more human than we were. Texhnolyze has these kinds of themes and messages for us, lying in wait. One just has to look for them to understand and enjoy what the show has to offer. Overall, Texhnolyze is easily one of the best, if not the best, anime I have ever seen. I think I've found the words I've been meaning to say for a long time. Texhnolyze is not for everyone, but if one is an anime fan, I highly recommend you give it a shot.

Texhnolyze is an adult show. You may happen to witness homosexuality, SM, pedophilia,incest, blood sheds, meaningless violence and utter despair while watching it. This is a pitch black cyber-punk tale of High Quality -Abe Yoshitoshi- in all regards : entrancing music, beautyfull art, bright direction and mind-blowing plot. The pacing is slow, and the naration often resorts to visual communication and minimalist dialogues as you follow the taciturn (yet so hot) Ichise in the turmoil-city of Lux. You have to think of it as a highly symbolic and esthetic tale questioning civilisation, progress, evolution, survival, violence, loneliness and their conflicts with morality and sanity. Story: Due to the slow,unusual story-telling and somewhat symbolic plot, the show sometimes fails to keep your mind plugged. However, the directing is really top notch: centerings, lightings, designs are some of the best i ever seen in an anime, period. Sound: An opening with no karaoke is just pure win, plus it's trans-what else? The sound track fits the dark-industrial-cyberpunk mood very well, with some strings here and there and a heart-breaking song for the last episode. Characters: Oonishi the King, Ishise the Fighter, Eriko the Artist, Ran the Virgin, Yoshii the Stranger... each of them are strong symbolic figures with deep and complex psychologies, motives and desires. Enjoyment: I won't say this show is a masterpiece, but it is so refreshing, ambitious and wiked that the flaws are easyly forgiven. I did not had a really fun time watching it, it is indeed pretty violent and utterly depressing -this is no entertainment. Nonetheless, the show is apart (and far far better) from your daily anime, and it truely deserves some attention and praise.

To call Texhnolyze one of the most predictable stories is an understatement. The only expectation it defied was the exepctation to be worthwhile. Other than that, this is your typical artsy anime. It beats you over the head with how artsy it is, using techniques that distinguishes it from mainstream anime. None of these techniques distinguishes it from the many ‘artistic’ stories out there. It often looks like an immature, more angsty little brother of Blade Runner or Eraserhead. Is there a more redundant way to inform your audience that your story is serious by having grey colours and serious characters? Nolan used the same techniquein Inception and made a complete fool of himself. He was so focused on being serious that hsi dreams looked like Michael Bay directed them. The anime doesn’t follow an idea of its own. The directors behind it watched a bunch of art house films, noticed the lack of dialogue in Blade Runner and decided that this is the reason it got the acclaim. Being serious isn’t going to make me take your story seriously. Halfway through the series and all the characters still act the same. They all present the same variation of the stoic, apathetic characters. Some are less stoic than others, but that’s like saying there’s a major difference between New York Hardcore and Beatdown Hardcore. They more similar than they are different. After 20 episodes, the 100th shot of Ichise’s indifferent, emotionless face is hilarious. It reeks of trying too hard. Is the life of people in harsh environments like this? Did the Jews in the Holocaust or the fighters in Sudan had time to just stare off into the distant with a stoic face? Think of any photograph of a war-torned or poverty-stricked place. Do the people have the privilege of being stoic? No. These photographs are harrowing because they’re full of pain and suffering. These are people who want life and struggle to survive, to find some kind of joy in it. Stories from Holocaust survivors are full of these moments. They’re not stoic but swinging from one extreme painful moment to a small relief of happiness. The only place that actually is monotonous is your office job and suburban job. Texhnolyze is full of angst, the kind your suburuban dad gets after 20 years in the same job. It’s your boring monotonous pessimism you hear from a teenager when every day is exactly the same. Actually, comparing this to teen angst is a compliment. Teen angst is an existensial storm of ups and downs, like that Nine Inch Nails album. It can be silly but it’s exciting. Texhnolyze is macho angst. It’s the same thing that fuels Game of Thrones and Cormac McCarthy novels. The old macho fantasy of men in suits not expressing emotions is a big hit now and is often confused with depth. The only surprise is that Texhnolyze doesn’t have graphic sexual abuse (Although we do get a sexy doctor). You cannot horrify the audience by constantly showing suffering. Humans adapt. When feel something too much we get used to it and our perspective changes. Texhnolyze has the same emotional tone throughout the series. Bleakness and grimdarkness cannot be leading tones. They’re too narrow. You can use them in certain scenes but unless you’re doing something especially unusual there’s nothing there. You need to contrast it with something. People don’t suffer because they don’t have something. People suffer because they don’t have something that they want. There are plenty of tragic and dark works out there, but they’re effective because they’re aware suffering doesn’t exist in a vacuum. You don’t have to show a moment of joy. Just showing it can exist in your world is enough. I only have to skim over Serial Experiments Lain to find a shot of girls laughing in bright colors. This is enough to inform me that in the world of Lain, people can be happy. Some moments have potential to offer contrast, but the mood suffocates it. A sex scene is in dark colors and full of dread. We see a party, but there breaks Hal’s heart. It is a flat line, which means it’s both shallow and dead. If Texhnolyze found a unique way to express the grimdark cliche, I would have forgiven it. If it would have gone full retard in the Techno-Industrial depart it would be a little fun. While the soundtrack is nice, the scenery never reminded me of Front Line Assembly. The decay gets more focus than the mechanical nature. The focus is on the mood, rather on something that will create the mood. This is no City of Rapture. The most radical switch from this mood is the action scenes. The anime joins BTOOOM! and Deadman Wonderland by bathing in blood and faces distorting in pain. The show already established a cold, stoic tone. When these scenes kick in, the violence isn’t harrowing. The scenes don’t reveal any pain because we were already beaten the head with pain before. So all they do is take the suffering one step further, showing it more explicitly. Someone should’ve told them that what makes pictures from the Holocaust or Unit 731 harrowing is because we know these are real people. The people in Texhnolyze aren’t real. There’s a revealing interview with the creators. They said these action scenes were a response to the Shounen Jump style violence, where characters walk away bleeding. The creators wanted to express ‘pain’. If they had any understanding of action films, they would have known they are not about pain. Action anime is about aestheticized violence, about making violence look really cool. Asking what the creators wanted to communicate, they said they don’t have any idea. They admit things changed as they series went along and that’s it. He hoped that the viewer would feel some kind of empathy or that they will think ‘this might mean this’. Does that sound like a work which involved deep thought? I did not want the creator to analyze his own work. Still, I expected them to have some kind of direction. Lynch saying he sees absurditiy and weirdness all around him is enough to give you some idea what his films try to express. If Texhnolyze was a mess of ideas it would still be amusing. If it jumped off from one idea to the next it would at least be there. Not knowing what it’s about, instead, makes for an anime that never builds towards anything. The tone never changes, since they never know what it was about in the beginning so they had no foundation to build upon. It ends with a big battle and an antagonist who’s a rip-off on Fallout‘s The Master only without the charisma, humor and the depth. I engaged in a long debate with hopes of finding value. While the person raised a lot of valid points and there is something here about the nature of existence and ‘being human’, it’s not conveyed. I engaged in that debate while watching the last episodes. They’re an improvement and the above-ground is a great idea, but the stoic mood and boring violence overpowered any depth there could have been. You don’t cover depth and ideas with a boring story. Your cover needs to serve the ideas, not obscure them. Some also told me the characters are not the point, but if this is about humanity they must be the point. You cannot have a story about human nature or existence without characters. Existence and stories don’t exist outside of characters. You can have a story without many things. You can have a story that’s just an inner monologue, but without characters the only thing you can write about is asteroids hitting planets and blowing shit up. That’s just a Michael Bay story without women. Perhaps I’m an idiot. Perhaps there is something deeper beneath the 100 shots of apathetic and ultra macho faces. Perhaps everyone just jumps on the bandwagon of grimdark and think that if the anime has a serious tone, then we must take it seriously. I’ve experienced plenty of strange and ‘artistic’ stories. Most of them were weird enough to be interesting for a while even if they failed. Texhnolyze is a predictably artsy anime that can’t escape its trap. Even if it says something about existence or optimism, in the end it wants too much to be serious and everything is dead. Additional content: Style and substance aren't the same, but they're linked together. Texhnolyze does have interesting ideas and ambitions, yes. It does end on a slightly more positive note, which makes in unique in the reality of grimdark stories. However, the style of the show prevents all of these ideas to surface. There are different personalities, but they are more similar than they are different in their toughness and stoicness. The series tries too hard to set atmosphere, spending too much time on it than other 'atmospheric' works like Mushishi or SEL. Moreover, the atmosphere is incredibly generic. Mushishi has the mysterious, indifferent nature thing going on. SEL has the digital-paranoia going on (Even if it's not very original, it's at least specific). Texhnolyze sometimes points to an Industrial-Apocalyptic decay thing, but most of the time it's just really grim and dark. Lux isn't defined by a specific aesthetic but just a general tone of Really Bad Life. Texhnolyze is actually my type of anime. I love cyberpunk, post-apocalyptic stories, the theme of technology and progress and weird narratives. I'm a pessimist, so I'm all for dealing with life's harshest realities. Texhnolyze was boring because it wasn't challenging or weird or exciting enough. If Texhnolyze was truly bizarre, I would've forgiven its flaws. Instead, I just felt like I've seen it all before. 1.5 stoic faces out of 5

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