Texhnolyze Volume 1

In a brooding, unsympathetic and bleak future, Texhnolyze documents humanity’s sheer visceral will to survive. Even as Mankind has hit an evolutionary grave-stone, there are people left who want to go on living; and through all the despair and hopelessness that surrounds him, Ichise stands tall with such a tremendously strong spirit, refusing to give in.

Texhnolyze is the latest series involving the eclectic artistic genius Yoshitoshi ABe, the acclaimed creative driving force behind the high-brow science fiction landmark Serial Experiments Lain and symbolic coming-of-age drama Haibane Renmei, and this unique, claustrophobic vision of the future more than lives up to his sizable reputation.

Texhnolyze #1 is a remarkably cerebral effort, relying on the viewer to feel the story rather than understand it. Ichise is far from a typical “leading man” and with him being a very quiet and brooding personality, we are forced to judge him on his actions rather than words. And it’s his innate, desperate instinct to survive that underlines the struggle at the heart of Texhnolyze, where Mankind has all but lost hope in natural evolution and long since turned to technology to push themselves past their old physical boundaries. In this underground decaying city of Lukuss, Ichise is one of the few people left who are simply content to go on living.

This is clearly not a series for everyone and I can understand how many viewers could watch the first few episodes and dismiss it outright as being “pretentious” or “stuck up”; Texhnolyze is a show that eschews modern story telling techniques and depends on the narrative trapping the viewer in its thickly tangled web of raw atmosphere and base emotion.
Rarely is anything explained during Texhnolyze #1, instead we watch as Ichise struggles from disgusting sewer to dirty back-street, having been horribly wounded for defending himself against a powerful Yakuza woman.
Ichise is eventually “saved” by a rogue female doctor who specializes in creating Texhnolyzed limbs; advanced robotic technology that can sync with the human mind and more than make up for any missing arms or legs.
This is but a small taste of a story that looks to involve social disputes, religious philosophy and mafia war-fare.

In a series that is as dialogue-lite as this, it’s a relief that the industrial musical score more than stands up to the task of driving the story forward and emotionally identifying the viewer with these characters. Texhnolyze immediately struck me as a show with a great mysterious sense of urgency and the atmospheric, often rousing soundtrack more than outlines these feelings. Notable are the fantastic opening and ending themes, respectively exciting industrial beats and melancholy, sad acoustics.

Artistically, Madhouse Studio’s have animated Texhnolyze in a way that perfectly matches the series tag-line of “Inhumane but beautiful”. This is cold science-fiction at its most bitterly attractive, burying us knee deep in the grime and desperate hopelessness of that embodies the underground city of Lukuss.

In Summary

Texhnolyze #1 is a fantastic introduction to latest artistic masterwork involving Yoshitoshi ABe; eclectic, visual story telling nearing perfection. Some viewers will be disappointed in the lack of plot exposition and considerably slow moving narrative, but if you dare to allow yourself to be sucked into the bleak hell-hole of Texhnolyze, the claustrophobic, emotive atmosphere will have you glued to the screen.