Aside from the absolute banger of an opening, the grungy visuals and character development? Perhaps the focus on philosphy (existentialism and gnosticism) and its genius depiction of yet another dysfunctional utopia. Also if you didn't understand it, I'd recommend you read this essay.
this post was submitted on 07 Feb 2026
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Cyberpunk
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What is Cyberpunk?
Cyberpunk is a science-fiction sub-genre dealing with the integration of society and technology in dystopian settings. Often referred to as “low-life and high tech,” Cyberpunk stories deal with outsiders (punks) who fight against the oppressors in society (usually mega corporations that control everything) via technological means (cyber). If the punks aren’t actively fighting against a megacorp, they’re still dealing with living in a world completely dependent on high technology.
Cyberpunk characteristics include:
- Dystopian city setting where mega-corporations rule
- Full integration of technology into society, featuring cybernetic implants
- Outsider protagonists (punks) who often are very familiar with the technology around them
- Hard boiled detective and film noir vibes and influence
- Themes dabbling in trans-humanism, existentialism, and what it means to be human.
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Ergo proxy is best described as existentialism depicted in animation. Aside from the first few episodes and the last one, it spends the bulk of the series discussing philosophy of existence and one's raison d'etre. The point of the show is to get the viewer to question reality and that assigning moral value to existence is pointless. It's not everyone's cup of tea.
I liked the fact it was different and effectively adapted the ideas of existentialism into a palatable format for most people. The cyberpunk aspects add more entertainment value, unlike other literature on the subject (ie: Camus' The Outsider).
I recently started watching this, but I think I have similar feelings to you, because once it went out to the wasteland I started getting less enthused and stopped watching after a few episodes. I've been meaning to get back to it and see it through -- although it sounds like you're not particularly rosy on it, hearing there's a "game show episode" makes me think I need to at least see what that's about.
I do really like the soundtrack; New Pulse in particular has a quintessentially cyberpunk feel for me.
I really wanted to like it, the vibes were good. But man. What kinda fuckin story were they tryna tell aye.
One reason for me not already mentioned by others yet is the pileup of redundancies explained at the end: spoiler for full story
Humans fucked up Earth and engineered different solutions/fall back options and they all activate at pretty much the same time, leading to them interfering with each other and destroying the societies that managed to grow after the collapse.
And the music is simply great!
I felt the exact same way, even down to those specific episodes. It had a lot of promise and started asking some profound questions, but it never really felt like it addressed anything. It's not bad, but I certainly couldn't have made it through a second watch.