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REVIEW: Texhnolyze DVD

That ending is one of the most beautifully tragic endings I have ever seen in an anime. Go pick it up if you haven't.

His only company is a stone-faced girl, a masked seer who stays by him without a word or reason—sometimes following, sometimes leading: a silent pigtailed Virgil accompanying a blank-eyed, half-machine Dante through the grimy hell of a mafia mining town.

The first episode --- which has, I think, only a single line of dialogue...

I hope this review convinces people that "hating a show =//= a show being bad" but rather "feeling provocation (of any kind of response) = a successful work of art".

Even though I hate nihilism more than any incarnation of evil I know, if anything is understandable, I'll lend an ear.

A good review for an anime that I definitely consider to be one of the best ever made. I do feel I have to make a case against it being the complete black hole of despair that both it and the majority of people seem to make it out to be, though.

I certainly agree that it's one of the most depressing things that I've watched- it pretty much left in a stupor for two days after I finished it. The thing that inherently gives the show something of a hopeful note, however was the transformation that the main character has undergone by the end - from a directionless, rage-fueled stray-dog who cares nothing about himself or others, to someone who wants desperately to change himself and who eventually has a singular goal of alleviating someone else's suffering. The review alludes to this and while that transformation may indeed bring him more pain, I'd say it's not a transformation that he regrets, which you can base off what he says on the way to opera house in the last episode spoiler["I've changed, haven't I? Not because I got this arm. Because I met you." Then he smiles.)] and the second-to-last image of the show spoiler[another smile and literally the only time he looks happy in the entire series. Depending on how optimistic you're willing to be, you could also see the projected image of Ran's flower as actually being Ran's doing through her burial/reincarnation in the Raffia ravine.]

For as much as the show points out how much the various philosophies of human existence are flawed through groups like the Organo, the Union, etc, it also highlights that one meaningful connection and an act of kindness can be enough to change someone for the better. Considering how much despair is present in the rest of the show, that message, however small and perhaps even inconsequential in the grand scheme of the story, was enough to make me feel like it offered something of a positive message.

If, among ABe's “serious” works, Serial Experiments Lain is about the human mind and Haibane Renmei the human spirit, then Texhnolyze is about human flesh.