List of Ergo Proxy episodes

The following is a list of episodes for the Japanese anime series "Ergo Proxy".

List of episodes

Trivia

*Episode 1 begins with a quotation from Michelangelo's reply to Giovan Battista Strozzi's in the Medici Chapel. The opening sequence from Episode 3 onwards features fragments of this quotation in Italian as part of the background graphics montage.

*In Episode 2, the baby carriage falling down the stairs during the Central Mall massacre is reminiscent of the Union Station shootout scene in the film "The Untouchables", which is itself a reference to the Odessa Steps scene in "The Battleship Potemkin".

*Episode 3's title is taken from the title of a science fiction novel "Прыжок в ничто" (Leap into the Void) by Alexander Beliaev.

*In Episode 3, Re-l Mayer's ID Card No. is re-l124C41+ (homage to Hugo Gernsback's Ralph 124C 41+), a word play - Real one to foresee for one.

*In Episode 4, the character Hoody is reading poetry by Joë Bousquet, a 20th century French surrealist poet who later had enormous influence on Gilles Deleuze. Also at the beginning of the episode Vincent is pouring milk into his alphabet cereal, the letters float up in such a way to spell "Misfit". "Misfit" meaning one who is unable to adjust to one's environment or circumstances or is considered to be disturbingly different from others.

*In Episode 5, Hoody mentions a boat called the Centzon Totochtin, named after the group of 400 rabbit-deities from Aztec mythology.

*Daedalus watches video files of Re-L in Episode 6. The first three digits in each file number (Re-014081004, Re-001030805, Re-017120609 and Re-008041502) appear to be Re-L's age at the time (14, 1, 17, and 8 years old, respectively).

*In Episode 7, the Amrita immortal cell line is named after Amrita, the drink of immortality in Hindu mythology and such Dharmic religions.

*In Episode 8, base commander Patecatl, first officer Omacatl and the female prisoner referred to as Mayahuel in the end credits are named after Aztec gods. This episode also features a number of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland references, including two of John Tenniel's illustrations (Gardeners Two, Five and Seven, Alice and the Queen).

*In Episode 10, one tombstone has the words "Chief Writer Dai Sato" engraved on it. Dai Soto wrote most of the Ergo Proxy episodes.

*In Episode 11, the bookstore is named after City Lights Bookstore.

*In Episode 11, the bookstore owner quotes Jean-Jacques Rousseau's "On the Origin of Language" and Heraclitus' writings on Logos and Bios.

*In Episode 13, the title nihongo|Conceptual Blindspot|構想の死角 is also the Japanese title for the TV series "Columbo" 1st season episode "Murder by the Book" (1971).

*Episode 14 pays homage to John Everett Millais' painting Ophelia.

*Episode 15 parodies the Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? game show. The shift from the image of a Neolithic man wielding a bone as tool to the image of a spaceship is reminiscent of Stanley Kubrick's "".

*In episode 17, the long-ranged ICBM is named Rapture, as in Christian eschatology.

*In episode 18, the title "Life After God" is taken from the title of Douglas Coupland's collection of short stories Life After God. A particular scene during which Ergo Proxy kills the autoreiv that holds his memories resembles the scene from "Blade Runner" when Roy Batty kills Tyrell.

*In episode 19, the episode "eternal smile" mimics Disneyland, in which the creator Will B. Good is an exact replica of Walt Disney. The two characters who accompany Pino through her journey in this episode seem based upon the two main characters from Samuel Beckett's "Waiting for Godot". This is furthered by the constant reference to Will B. Good as "the creator".

*In episode 21, the title Shampoo Planet is taken from the title of Douglas Coupland's novel Shampoo Planet.

*Episode 22's title - "bilbul" - is drawn from the Hebrew word בילבול, which means "bewilderment".

*In Episode 23, Daedalus' duplicate of Re-l is given wings, and thus flies too high into the sunlight, which causes her to die. This is a direct reflection of Icarus from Greek Mythology whom is given artificial wings by his father Daedalus and perishes when he flies too close to the sun. In this episode is also a statement made by Proxy One to Ergo Proxy saying, "Certainly, the Ark and the Cradle were necessary for your education." The statement refers to the journey taken by Vincent Law on the Rabbit into "the dead, ashen world spread out before [him] ..." as well as his reclaiming (or actually, discovery) of Proxy One's memories. Both events mirror the Jewish parables of Noah and his Ark, and the finding of the baby Moses in the cradle of reeds (a small craft of bulrushes coated in pitch).

References

* [http://www.wowow.co.jp/anime/ergoproxy/story/index.html Ergo Proxy WOWOW] - WOWOW's official episode listing of Ergo Proxy.