Texhnolyze

I value animes that seek to provoke reflection and thought rather than simply entertain. Nowadays, most productions focus more on providing instant entertainment than exploring deep concepts, life lessons, or moralities.

Texhnolyze, with its dark and monotonous aesthetic, doesn't stand out for beautiful and captivating visuals. However, it focuses on showing rather than telling a relatively simple but thought-provoking story, although its 22-episode runtime can seem long and tedious to follow.

The visual appearance of the anime faithfully reflects events, sometimes charming despite the lack of colourful images or flashy animations that characterise contemporary animes. This choice, however, contributes to the overall concept of the anime.

Regarding the music, although I haven't paid much attention to the ambient music, I must highlight that the opening song seems very fitting, and the ending song is the best thing I'll take away from the anime; I loved it.

As my final detail, in a world marked by dilemmas addressing violence, cyberpunk issues, and the destiny of humanity, Texhnolyze presents interesting directions that provoke reflections on current and future themes, some of which have already been lived. What will be the human fate in the future? Will it be consumed by the desire for immortality through «texhnolization»? These are fascinating analyses, even in a dystopian setting distant from our own.

However, there are important warnings. The anime's pace is slow, and its 22-episode duration can become tedious. Characters come and go, experience joys and sorrows, without making a significant impact. Although it presents shocking events, it fails to fully deliver, and because of this, the anime doesn't feel worthy of another look. Texhnolyze, while having a well-constructed and fluid story, a gloomy appearance, and interesting themes, lacks the ability to captivate and entertain, which, though not essential, is important. Ultimately, it's a decent anime but one that could easily be forgotten.

If you are the type of viewer who enjoys fast-paced action, bubbly and/or quirky characters, romance, cool depictions of violence or just a happy ending, then Texhnolyze is not for you. This anime does exactly the contrary to everything listed before: is cold, slow, realistic, challenging and the ending may leave you with an empty or bittersweet feeling.

Personally the first time I watched it, it left me confused and to be fair, I didn't payed the attention I should have and even a year later, it left a huge impression on me. After the second watch everything is more comprehensible so I can say a couple of things to be considered if you decide to give it an opportunity.

Even if the first episodes seem slow or too abstract, none of them are fillers, events that will have an impact at the end, start from the very beginning but the anime doesn't care to explain to you how or why.

This story is rewarding if you reach the ending, the message is clear and it doesn't leave you with an ambiguous interpretation, but it's your work as a viewer to pay attention, because the exposition is not spoon-fed to to you, but don't misunderstand me, it is not hard to understand it either, the dialogue chooses to be poetic or figurative at times.

I may say that the story of Texhnolyze is focused on the search for the meaning of life on an individual and collective scale, you should watch it if that's something that sounds interesting to you.

Lux ... the underground city of dark imagination where philosophies clash in form of mob-like gangs. Are you a free spirit, religious or do you fancy a well-structured leadership similar in a way to most current governments? Or maybe you do not care for any of these? A traveler descends into this dream-like world in order to find an intensity of life that is missing from his existence. A professional fighter has to find his path after a very violent incident makes him unable to continue his job. A mysterious young girl is able to see the future or rather a possible future. Their paths cross in unexpected ways and their destinies are difficult to fathom.

Texhnolyze has a really special atmosphere, with shots carefully composed and beautifully drawn. It's by no means a fun or fast-moving anime. It includes plenty of violence and some mechanized robots and body parts but the focus is definitely not on getting things blown up but rather on the psychological side. You have to be prepared to give it your full attention in order to understand the sinuous story and visual metaphors. Most important you need at least a minimum affinity to the stylish dark atmosphere because every episode is imbued with it. For those who can feel it and maybe understand it, Texhnolyze will prove one of the most rewarding experiences. It may well be the most mature and artistically valid anime series ever made.

My first review on IMDb, Hiroshi Hamasaki's Technolyze has been so far (in my viewing experience) the most effective way to understand moral ambiguities of the human spirit. Juxtaposing art, architecture, science, psychology and a fair bit of body horror rendered in surreal animation, this series is everything an entire generation of storytellers could want to tell, perhaps, without being able to.

The first episode has exactly five lines of dialogues, the most provocative sound design and surreal animation that can either put you off it or make you bend your knees in awe. From there on, the world of Lukuss takes over, in vivid and astonishing detail.

The denouement is especially haunting and much will depend on your own perceptions. Unless you decide to hanker over the internet trying to find a singular meaning. Which will not be very satisfying. Re-watching this series is going to be my gamble.

I believe Texnolyze is more of an impression. An evolving thought in the minds of Konaka and Hamasaki. And therefore it has movement and fallibility. Sometimes, that is exactly what defines true expression.

Watch it only if you are patient. Or you enjoy art.

With minimal dialogue and an overwhelming emphasis on atmosphere, Texhnolyze's first episode can be off-putting. While there are elements of surrealism in the visuals, this is more of an artistic direction and does not extend to the plot - which for the most part is founded in reality.

While the show's first few episodes were inaccessible and seemingly pretentious, I was surprised that they managed to be entertaining. The overarching plot does not reveal itself until episode 7 of the show. From this point the show becomes far more involved and exciting, and the emotional aspects of characters are developed as the show progresses.

The action sequences are fun to watch but always tasteful, and I think it's the well-handled balance between the violent scenes and more subdued, detached dialogue between characters that made this show great.

The pacing might be alienating to most people, however I never felt that the show tried too hard to appear smart or "artistic".

Texhnolyze is a demanding series - it is not until after episode 10 that each episode becomes filled with clear plot developments - but what is most noteworthy about the series is the final 3 episodes, which are refreshingly beautiful and haunting.