Texhnolyze

I don't really know the statistics or anything, but I feel confident in saying that there is a LOT of anime produced every year here in Japan. Kids shows, serials that have been going on for several years, etc. Out of all this stuff there's probably only a handful that people would really call A-List material. I see some of the stuff on TV and just have to laugh at how primitive these new shows look compared to what I usually watch. So when going out and picking a new anime show to watch, you're taking a little bit of a risk. Is this show going to be any good? It's a question I really don't have time for so I generally watch the anime productions that I've heard about. Sounds kind of lame, but I don't see a much better way of doing things.

Texhnolyze was one that I took a bit of a chance with. I had heard of the character designer (Yoshitoshi Abe) and it had a dark, sci-fi tone to it that I tend to like, but beyond that I had heard nothing. To be honest, I can't really recommend it. It had a certain style to it, and I suppose you'd have to call the work A-List, but gosh, what a downer.

We start with about 4 characters that we follow. In my mind only one of them could be called "heroic" and after about 5 episodes we find out he's a violent psychopath that's a bit more unbalanced than the rest of the violent psychopath's around him. It's at about this time I realized that this one's going to go down hard. Soon after we get a prophecy about our de facto main character (whom we don't really like) that goes something like: "You're going to hurt those close to you, kill many people, and end up all alone." At the time my western brain is thinking about metaphor and ending up alone in the crowd, but the anime part of my mind knew the real meaning was probably a little bit more literal. This guy is going to end up ALL alone (as in absolutely nothing else).

If that isn't depressing enough, let me give you the basic premise of the film. The world is in decay and humanity is on its last few generations of survival. Something about the genetic code failing or somesuch. To save humanity, a few people are promoting Texhnolyze (just pretend that x is a c) as a way to overcome genetic faults/deformities/etc. Think really advanced limb replacement and you're almost there. On the other side of the fence is the all-natural brotherhood (or something, they probably had a real name that I can't remember) who say humanity's only hope is to shun Texhnolyze and protect the natural order of things (genetic purity ftw). And as you might guess, there's a middle ground. The free thinking, do whatever you want crowd. Again, we don't really like any of these factions and when they start fighting I got a big feeling of "so what". I don't think that was the goal.

Astoundingly, it gets more depressing as you keep watching. It goes DOWN from "humanity's doomed". Nice job? You succeeded in making something that will depress people? I don't know, is that the response they're looking for? I'll spare you the details because I just don't think it's worth it.

But this anime does not stand alone. Of all the anime I've watched I'll guess a good 50% of them (probably more) end with some sort of apocalypse. Usually the bad kind but every once in a while you get a good apocalypse (sounds weird, but it's true). I don't know. It just seems lazy sometimes. To paraphrase Mr. Wilde, to have a sad ending is a tragedy, but to consistently destroy the earth just seems careless.