Heh, this was one of the few times at which a Deus ex Machina actually felt good. Probably because of Pino’s role. When we saw her wandering through Romdeau, I kept thinking that something bad would happen to her, but she actually didn’t play a role in this final arc at all. The creators just gave her an excuse to spend a bit of time, that’s all! Then she met up with Kristeva and returned to the Usagi again, without anything happening, and picked up Real. This moved away from the overused endings in quite an original and appreciated way.
Anyway, the final episode did explain a few crucial parts, though there are a lot of details which remained unexplained. Why did Ergo kill Monad? What exactly was the missile Raul sent towards Moscow? What’s Real’s link with Monad? Who, exactly, is the creator? This also is a series that you need to watch twice if you actually want to understand it. I might do this, perhaps after all of the fall-releases have died down.
This is what I think happened to the world:
– When the world was threatened to be destroyed by the exploding tanks of methane hydrate, the Proxies were created.
– Humanity fled to outer space with space-ships, waiting for the gas to fade away.
– Each of the Proxies created a dome of its own. Proxy One created Romdeau, Monad created Moscow, etc. For some reason, this was vital for the Proxy Project to succeed.
– The Heartbeat of Commencement, I’m still not sure what exactly it was. It’s never really explained. It involves Romdeau being destroyed, Vincent fighting Ergo, Vincent and Monad-Real flying through the clouds, Vincent going back and Monad-Real becoming one with a sparkling light. It was supposed to have happened way sooner, but the Proxies betrayed the Creator.
– Proxies die when they get in contact with direct sunlight. That’s why they refused to start the Heartbeat of Commencement.
– Humanity, meanwhile, has been waiting for generations in their spaceships, in an orbit around the earth.
I would’ve preferred that this anime would have had one extra episode. It’s exactly enough to fill in the remaining gaps, and make things a bit clearer. Overall, the ending was pretty nice. Not perfect, though not the horrible mess that other anime manage to become in their final episode. I’ll probably have the review of Ergo Proxy up tomorrow, as it’s getting too late for that now. Overall, it was a very nice series. I’m glad I watched it, and I’m sad to see it go.
Man i’m really sad to see this show end.I find it still odd that so many questions were unanswered.Vincent says “The real battle has just begun” and concludes that he is Ergo Proxy.I wonder if there will be another season which is why they have purposefully left some things unexplained.?
Animekiseiki (http://anikimeiski.blogspot.com) answered most of those question in his blog.I think you should read it if you’re too lazy too watch it again.
Anyway this episode was a very fitting ending.I don’t think one extra would have been needed after all there is no need to go further in time.
I can’t believe they ended the show. I totally loved it!!! I think they should make one extra episode, just to see what happens to the real-Real and Vincent and the rest…That’s would make a lot of fan-fics, don’t ya think?
Heh, that’s another thing which could have been put as a final episode, yeah. It’ll be interesting to see how they’ll be living their lives after this incident. 🙂
ok i know im a bit late but did anyone else get the greek mythology reference (daedalus telling monad2 not to go to close to the sun) ever since i saw that the character was named daedalus, i was just waiting for something like that to happen
well i think when daedalus, a reference to the greek mytho character, warned monad-real not to fly too high it was because she specifically could not do it. she was unique, remember? she was created by him. that all fits nicely with the greek myth. proxies don’t die in direct sunlight though.
I just wandered in searching for some ‘fill in the blank stuff’ on Ergo, and thought I might put in a bit of my own suggestions. I think I can answer for you what the Heartbeast of Commencement or Heartbeat of Awakening (as other translators call it.)
There is a sort of theory on heartrates of certain creatures. It is said that the amount of heartbeats for every creature’s life is the same, and that there is a limit to how long they live. This is also related to the heartrate. So the faster the heartrate of the creature, the shorter the life-span is going to be. The slower, the longer-lived the creature is. In the gameshow episode, they ask Vincent what the Heartbeat signifies, and the answer is the end of the Proxy Project.
That is, the Heartbeat is a countdown to the end of the proxies, and when they’ll fry in the sunlight when the humans return. Ergo manages to stop this, so he is not eliminated as the other proxies are. The end of the Proxy Project is heralded by the return of the humans in the Boomerang (think of the boomerang’s trajectory). The gameshow also pointed out that the proxies were the greatest obstacle to a restored earth, so they needed to be eliminated before the humans could return and rebuild the planet.
I hope that helps! –Bri
I can see that there is still quite a bit you don’t understand about the series “Ergo Proxy” yet. I don’t want to come off sounding like a know it all or a nerd, (I’ve watched the series nine times since it came out. I really love it.) but the remaining details you speak of in your second paragraph are mostly common sense and there are a couple in there that are already explained. I don’t have time to explain, but watch the series again. (You know you want to anyway) And I had a good time reading your article. Good stuff.
Sincerely: Jesse McCallum
Why did Ergo kill Monad? What exactly was the missile Raul sent towards Moscow? What’s Real’s link with Monad? Who, exactly, is the creator?
– One proxy once said (emmisary of light i think) “When two proxies met, they must fight”
– The missile where thermo-nuclear missles, ALIAS, that would explain why Proxy one says to vincent that he must PUNISH the creator, punish the humankind
RAPTOS
– I think that the creator is humankind. they created the proxies (proxy proyect) thus they created THEM.
Why did Ergo kill Monad?
– The Pulse of the Awakening forced him to.
What was the missle Raul sent towards Moscow?
– A nuke, probably left over from humanity, that Proxy One kept.
What’s Real’s link with Monad?
– Real is YAMC(Yet another Monad Clone). Humanity created the proxies in their image, and being like gods, the proxies created “humanity” in their image.
Who is the creator?
– Humanity
The proxies were tasked with making earth habitable again. The Pulse of the Awakening was an end run self destruct for the project. Tied with Cogito and the whole sun allergy it was pretty effective. We don’t want a bunch of bioengineered immortal supermen running around when we come back to earth.
Proxy One did not like the idea of dieing without a fight so he created Vincent, a modified clone of himself (no sun allergy), to extract vengence from the Creator, humanity.
Id say he didnt kill Monad but rather choose to face the world with Real instead.