If you are looking for a nicely packaged anime series that will answer all your questions simply, through the use of a linear plot and likable characters, this show is not for you. This show is for a very specific audience and it will simply bore or go over the heads of many people who will inevitably watch it. If you are a fan of Lain, Boogiepop Phantom or The Fountain or Mullholand Drive or Cyberpunk generally I would highly recommend watching this series. During this review I will analyze different reasons why I feel this show is a 10 and why one should watch it and maybe give some insight into how one should watch it.
Firstly, what is Texhnolyze about? On the surface level, Texhnolyze revolves around the lives of a few individuals and the respective movements and ideals that they represent. Ichise, the protagonist was a boxer in an underground boxing ring, however due to extenuating circumstances he loses an arm and a leg. He is able to get replacements through something called Texhnolyzation. One of the most important themes in this film is the issue of pushing humanity forward through this process of mechanization through texhnolyzation. As texhnolyzed limbs can be far stronger than limbs made of flesh.
There are many philosophical approaches that can add insight into the issue of texhnolyzation. The major issue at play here is one that is quite common to revolutionary theory and that is can man change his destiny as a race? Can man transcend the limits that make us human? This film has some very strong Nietzchean themes as well as ones dealing with Ontological Anarchism.
The story of Texhnolyze takes place in the city of Lukuss, which happens to be controlled by the Organo, essentially a very well organized Mafioso style organization. Given that this group controls and rules Lukuss in a very authoritarian manner, there are two other groups vying for control. The first of these groups is the Union. The ideals of the Union express a very common moralist revolutionary aesthetic. They hate texhnolyzation for they see it merely as a way for the Organo to rule over them and thus they oppose this technology and are flesh purists. The other group vying for control is Racan. This group is the most interesting in my view. They seem to espouse a very Stirnerian ideal of ontological anarchy. They do not have some moralistic cause like the Union. They are not well organized. They are a merely a group of individuals who come together of their own freewill. Their existence is solely tied to their own ego as individuals and furthering that ego through fighting authority not to pursue justice, but to win. In other words they do this to assert their existence and also transcend the absurd.
There are many other issues within the plot that I could divulge but what is more important about this series is the passion and feeling that is possesses. Often this anime is criticized for having cold, alien characters. For people, who give this as a criticism I have two responses, firstly, consider environment as a factor in determining outlook. I don't think it would fit to have likable and overly open characters considering the environment in which they exist. Secondly, I would go so far to recommend that a person not to take the characters as separate whole entities, but rather as fragments of what we would consider human. I think only when taken into totality can the characters and their relationships be truly understood. The characters seem to represent particular psychological drives, and only through totality can all the characters and their relationships be understood. They cannot be isolated, so it seems meaningless to look at them as such.
The number one reason to watch this series is because it is Human all too Human. It evokes so much and constitutes all that is human with a sort of Dionysian passion.
Firstly, what is Texhnolyze about? On the surface level, Texhnolyze revolves around the lives of a few individuals and the respective movements and ideals that they represent. Ichise, the protagonist was a boxer in an underground boxing ring, however due to extenuating circumstances he loses an arm and a leg. He is able to get replacements through something called Texhnolyzation. One of the most important themes in this film is the issue of pushing humanity forward through this process of mechanization through texhnolyzation. As texhnolyzed limbs can be far stronger than limbs made of flesh.
There are many philosophical approaches that can add insight into the issue of texhnolyzation. The major issue at play here is one that is quite common to revolutionary theory and that is can man change his destiny as a race? Can man transcend the limits that make us human? This film has some very strong Nietzchean themes as well as ones dealing with Ontological Anarchism.
The story of Texhnolyze takes place in the city of Lukuss, which happens to be controlled by the Organo, essentially a very well organized Mafioso style organization. Given that this group controls and rules Lukuss in a very authoritarian manner, there are two other groups vying for control. The first of these groups is the Union. The ideals of the Union express a very common moralist revolutionary aesthetic. They hate texhnolyzation for they see it merely as a way for the Organo to rule over them and thus they oppose this technology and are flesh purists. The other group vying for control is Racan. This group is the most interesting in my view. They seem to espouse a very Stirnerian ideal of ontological anarchy. They do not have some moralistic cause like the Union. They are not well organized. They are a merely a group of individuals who come together of their own freewill. Their existence is solely tied to their own ego as individuals and furthering that ego through fighting authority not to pursue justice, but to win. In other words they do this to assert their existence and also transcend the absurd.
There are many other issues within the plot that I could divulge but what is more important about this series is the passion and feeling that is possesses. Often this anime is criticized for having cold, alien characters. For people, who give this as a criticism I have two responses, firstly, consider environment as a factor in determining outlook. I don't think it would fit to have likable and overly open characters considering the environment in which they exist. Secondly, I would go so far to recommend that a person not to take the characters as separate whole entities, but rather as fragments of what we would consider human. I think only when taken into totality can the characters and their relationships be truly understood. The characters seem to represent particular psychological drives, and only through totality can all the characters and their relationships be understood. They cannot be isolated, so it seems meaningless to look at them as such.
The number one reason to watch this series is because it is Human all too Human. It evokes so much and constitutes all that is human with a sort of Dionysian passion.