Finally, we have a normal episode of Ergo Proxy again. It’s mostly focused around Raul, while Real, Vincent and Pino meanwhile run into a very interesting city.
First Raul. As Director-General of the Citizen Security Bureau, he has a lot of privileges. And he’s one of the few who can get access to information not meant for normal citizens. Because of this, he’s able to tell the difference between truth and lies. Real was another example of this. Now he as well, has given up on Romdeau.
We also see him having a little discussion with Daedalus. Daedalus seems to blame Raul for Vincent escaping. After all, if Vincent hadn’t been chased out, he would just be leading a normal life. Raul gets angry about this, with a good reason. After all, it was Monad who caused this. Not Raul. Daedalus also isn’t getting worried about whether or not Real betrayed him. He reckons that as long as Real is alive, she won’t betray him, and he can be himself.
Right after Raul put down his trust in the city council, he’s labelled as traitor and his once faithful assistant Krysteva gets put in charge to hunt him down. Krysteva thinks that he’s planning to escape, so the heads for the same place we saw in episode 2, where Vincent landed. In the meantime, she orders to erase all of Raul’s data from the city-databank. This takes about ten minutes. Before that time, Raul can still use his privileges. When she arrives, however, he appears to be in a total different place: his house. In the end, his goal was to get his data erased (on a side-note: does anyone find it ironic that his ID ends with the numbers 666?).
Daedalus, meanwhile, calls himself calm. One of his autoraves also refers to him as the prince of Romdeau. We also see Daedalus talking to a picture of Real, pretending it’s the real thing. And what happened to Monad? Raul, meanwhile is in his apartment, playing piano. The ending of the episode was quite confusing, and I didn’t manage to really understand this at all. For some reason, a hug rocket gets fired. Raul, meanwhile, has visions of Vincent. He reckons that Vincent was the cause for everything (it was quite shocking to see Pino in normal clothes. I nearly forgot that she used to belong to a rich family). Vincent, Real and Pino, meanwhile have almost arrived at Moscow, when they see the same rocket head for their destination. I suppose that that thing is going to blow up the city, though I’m not sure.
Next, Real, Vincent and Pino. They’ve made another pitstop, and they’re making quite some progress. One day, they managed to travel 140 miles, which makes a journey of 2000 miles take about two weeks. Shorter than I expected. In any case, when Vincent and Real decide to leave again, it seems that Pino is gone. She seems to have wandered off somewhere. Vincent also tells Real that if he ever stopped being himself, that he wants her to kill him with her own hands.
Searching for Pino takes a while, in the end, the two of them find a cave, and head in. It consists of some long tunnels. At one point, they find a number of dead bodies, belonging to misshapen humans. When they walk deeper in the cave, they hear sounds coming from a piano. Pino seems to be playing it. She’s accompanied by a live version of these creatures found earlier. It’s quite shy, and doesn’t look healthy.
After a bit of investigation, the main nest of these creatures is found. All they do is walk around, and sitting miserably. Real then discovers that there’s a small amount of poisonous gas inside the caves, so she decides to head out, before the problem becomes worse. Pino is also taken along, against her will. Apparently, the road is very long, as she becomes bored fast, and Vincent has to carry her. She’s very much like a little girl at this point.
Then, they pass the dead bodies of these creatures again. It then seems that the creature Pino was with has followed them, and now collapsed. Then Real realizes what’s going on. When the environment of the Earth changed, they were just normal humans, who dug the tunnels in order to protect themselves. The tunnels, however, then began filling with poisonous gas. This turned their bodies to their disfigured current state. In the meantime, however, it also made them dependant of the poison, up to the point that they won’t be able to live in a normal atmosphere.
Real meanwhile discovers some primitive wall drawings, and a rather cute scene occurs. The creature who collapsed stands up again, and gets carried away by his mother. Pino says goodbye to him. The wall drawings show a family with a pregnant mother, father and child, and Real realizes something again. We never know what it was, though.
Overall, I’m not sure what will happen to Raul afterwards. Will he be caught, or does he manage to escape? And I really need to rewatch the first two episodes at one time. Is it me, or did Pino use to be Raul’s autorave? In any case, the music was great again. It was a very nice episode. Nothing special, but I really enjoyed watching it. Every single time, Real, Vincent and Pino run into something unique in their journey to Moscow.
The episode clearly shows that Pino was Raul autorave,he must have been really attached to her and maybe even infected her with cogito so she could act like a real human.
I too didn’t really understand the missile lunch in the end,I think it has a link to Raul discoveries(that the outside world is healing and this truth is purposely left unknown to Romdeau people)or maybe was it just hate?Anyway the next episode may answer these questions.
Anyway even if the fillers weren’t bad,it is a good thing that a new a story arc is beginning.
True, though rumours are circling around that the show starts to get very bad after this point. I hope these aren’t true.
From what I’ve heard the show is getting in a boring phase (even if it’s kind of controversial) but the last 3 episode are said to be purely awesome.
If the show wasn’t so deep I would have jumped on the raws,but my japanese level is no match for ergo proxy,so I can just hope the ending will be good,unlike most anime of this genre I know.
Also the cave species looks a lot like the “uterus” used in Romdeau for giving birth,maybe this explain Real expression when seeing them.
Also some general theories I’ve been thinking about the anime:
Each proxy has a dome and has a goal to control and raise the human population in this dome(Proxy are part of a project for human survival(MCQ)) but it looks like most of the proxy have killed all the humans in their dome or are slaving them(which is what Raul discovers in this episode) so maybe Romdeau counsellor is a proxy.But why would proxy who are supposed to help human kill them,have they lost fate in mankind?
I think Monad was the Proxy for Romdeau. Remember how she (he?) was locked up and escaped? It could be that the Romdeau officials managed to catch her/him.
The theory seems plausible. If that’s indeed the case, Vincent is Moscow’s Proxy. As he’s Proxy One, it’s quite possible that the Proxies were released at that point. The cave species didn’t get a proxy because they didn’t live in a dome, and the Proxy from episode 12 just fled from his dome.
I thin Monad being the proxy from Romdeau is strange since she seems captive while the proxy should be the master of the Dome, also Re-L grandfather is the regent which means he is governing instead of someone else,but then who is Romdeau true master?
I also ain’t sure Vincent is the proxy from Mosk since we just know he was once in Mosk but it doesn’t imply anything,and if he was Mosk proxy why would he come to Romdeau?We know he was in love with Monad,so maybe he as come after her,which means Monad also was in Mosk,so maybe Monad was Mosk proxy.
Also I’e begin to rewatch some episode and in first episode we saw a Vincent with a different look naked under the blue sky,he looks more like the one talking to Raul then to usual Vincent/Ergo.I was thinking tat maybe he is the famous proxy one from the quiz which would imply that Vincent and Proxy One may be 2 different beings,since they are very similar and that proxy one cared about Vincent maybe he kidnapped Monad from him..but then why would Vincent lose his memory and fight Monad?
Also there may be a link between Re-l and Monad since Daedalus since to care about bot in the same strange way.
I also first thought that Proxy One and Vincent were different beings, until I noticed something at the end of the episode. Notice how when the winner is announced, a picture of Proxy One appears?
I think that Monad used to be the Proxy of Romdeau, but that Re-l’s grandfather somehow managed to capture her, gaining control over the city. Because of this, he got in his current state.
Remember Daedalus once said to Real that Monad had been stolen from the Moscow Dome so she must be the Moscow proxy. Also there were a conversation between Krysteva and Raul which suggested an operation was conducted against moscow. Vincent emigrate from Moscow presumably after the operation which destroyed the dome.
The woman and baby who died at the begginning in the mail were Raul’s woman and newly produced child, and Pino belonged to them so when shes referring to her dad she mean Raul…