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A Trip Down The Memory Lane With Music, Ergo Proxy and Radical Doubt

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@vimukthi
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I had an amazing journey with music today and when I decided to write about it, I remembered that @dlstudios invited me to come check out and author content on "The Anime Realm". So here I am with my confession.


I have never had much care for music as entertainment or just care for entertainment in general. I have never been into the pop music, most of the popular movies, books or even games. Still... all these things are mere mediums. Mein Kampf, The Bible and Fifty Shades of Grey are all just books. It is the application of the medium and what it produce as its impact is what truly matters.

Where is This Going

It all started with an old friend on STEEM @marcoagarcia3rd who commented on one of my articles on Apps, FAANG Stocks, Global Brand Value, Retail Sector and The Empire of Jeff Bezos This lead me to find some of the old music he had shared and I discovered a new artist (Cigarettes After Sex) which lead me to share some of my favorites. These don't represent all of my music tastes and I did exclude some of the more well known pieces of music that I love (eg: I love "O Fortuna")

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yP4Nm86yk0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKk1u5RMTn4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbODwqGZNTU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7m_qmr7KYA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlJJ-0_8enk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hjos0QxSGBM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhvpGd7l5EE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ba9AeUMjoBo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bc53Hya6iO0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlzQKhvle4w

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXdFPwFpZCw

As you can see, 6 out of the 10 YouTube links I embedded relate to anime. Through all these I remembered an old AMV I used to listen to. It was from Ergo Proxy which is an absolute favorite of mine. That AMV was what introduced me to "Placebo". This was almost a decade ago where I watched the first episode because the name "Ergo Proxy" caught my eye while reading through a list of anime available on a website that probably doesn't even exist now. Even the original AMV which helped me discover "Placebo" is gone. Yet there is another two year old upload with the same title I remember in place of the AMV that should be about a decade old.

The Lonely God - Spoilers Included

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1cdZ8SMqYg None you know a piece of anime history about me. I have been watching some Ergo Proxy scenes and AMVs. I can remember some of the amazing scenes of the anime and when, where and how I watched them years ago. The memories are very special and goes deep. It was an old computer with a CRT monitor and a slow internet connection.

More on Placebo

My mother had a brain stroke (thrombosis) when i was 10. I don't need to analyze this video so much. from then, i grew up very fast and i became her personal assistant, translator and her right arm (she doesn't move it, and she never spoke one word again since that day). When she fell down, a part, or my entire childhood fell with her.
Everybody can make his own interpretations, but i can feel this song and video very directly and i hope can let her go someday. I'm 26 now and i always wanted to share my story each time i saw this video. Thanks for reading and thanks Placebo.

  • Ignacio González

I´m a physician , surgeon and urologist , i´m 40 , i use meds since i graduated in 99 ....i´m totally disconnected and feel apart from this world , things like cruelty , humans behaviour , eating meat and etc...are part of my brainstorm everyday...so , i fell into a deep deppression crisis in 2010 , lost 20 kg , got a bilateral pneumonia , stopped working , driving , and living for 6 months , lost illusion , happinness and ambition , had no ´´strenght´´ for nothing.... thought of killing myself for serious 2 times ....death seemed to be my redemption and the end of pain those days.....my son matheus was 4 and , was the only reason i did not do nothing serious by that time... i got better nowadays , ....but my existence crisis still goes on...in a controlled way .....this video really....really touched me..... cheers for all of you...wish you never felt like i did sometime ago....

  • Rodrigo Tarpinian

I can't stop crying when I listen this song. it's terrible, and it's amazing.

  • Fat Beans

My mother suffers from Bipolar and drug issues and my dad was an aggressive wife beater and from ages 5_14 I was in fostercare. This music video destroys me as it reminds me of my past. As a kid I had to look after my mums emotion and when I moved back hone when I was 14 I had to look after her, make her meals, clean, get groceries, do things a 14 year old shouldn't be doing. I protected my mum from my abusive dad and had to give my mum through everything. Her mental health is extremely bad and I wish things weren't this way.
Sometimes I miss being the ignorant naive kid I used to be, as I've grown up I have become the depressed cynical man that is breaking apart and can no longer function. What gets me through the day is remembering the naive kid I used to be. Everywhere I go my past follows me and the happy memories is the onlything that makes me want to move forward.
Such a powerful video

  • Rhys Hamilton

i feel like this song is about your inner child allways draging your depressed adult mind around till it cant no more and then you just forget about it and move on. kept tightly shut in a box somewhere in your subconsciousness.

  • Cyre

I wouldn't have cared if my father was like that but having him with me would have always taken care of him with great pleasure and love ❤️ but I left early

  • Luna Templos

Beautiful!! I felt it is the story of one guy riding his car that is life.. And the kid is his dreams, his desires, the innocence to take life head on... But the man is all the sadness and suffering that life gives you.. And everyday our goals and desires keep pushing us ahead like the little kid but our sadness and suffering weighs us down.. Though we try so hard to change that, the irony lies in the fact that at some point we have to bury our pain and all those demons far away and move on like how the kid left the guy at the asylum. But it never ends there.. The kid ends up in the car and the cycle repeats . Well I've been through depression.. Just thought I'd put what I feel out here.. Hope someone else finds strength to live.. :)

  • drakegeorge12

It's a song about heroin addiction and I can't thank this song and strong video enough . It gave me the strenght to get help after 30 years of addiction to mostly every drug I touched. I am in my second year of recovery, two amazing children 9 and 7. I was always a functioning addict so thankfully my children haven't been effected. Being clean is so much better. Thanks placebo.

  • Kenny Telfer

All Above Comments Were On This Video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7bxXjQL3cY

Back To Ergo Proxy - An Introduction

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xWYmfUsUFk The above video is from August 30, 2019. It is yet to reach 5K views and the anime started airing on February 25, 2006 and the studio went bankrupt in September 2015. I can still rmember watching the last few minutes of the first episodes and then after some time watching the ending and re-watching it again and again because it was so good. You could say that it was a "feeling" wrapped around with philosophy and symbolism as well hope and determination. I don't want to spoil the Mindfucks but let me tell you that they were amazing.

The backstory described in the video is mostly delivered in a single episode that looks like a trippy game show similar to "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" which also acts like an unconventional form of combat. It was one of the most unique and efficient ways to tell the backstory and do the world building in an organic and indirect way.

Commentary On The Series

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTsFGdAE9QQ

For Those Who Think It is Pretentious

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ob27bKpOaNk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XI9YWV_oXas https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jl-1GXmaZTo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQkPiOQhE6E

Interview With Murase Shūkō(Director) and Satō Dai (Writer)

Both of these great creators have many work behind their belts. With the exception of few parts from Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, Ergo Proxy is the best I have seen from either of them. The immense creative freedom given is largely responsible for this. They were given the relatively massive amount of budget to make a anime look decent 14 years later and then asked the director and the writer to just do whatever they want. The results are truly unique and at times works like an even better version of David Lynch.

intouchwithrobots Tributes Ergo Proxy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IoyJQxh8zE They turned their lyric video into an Ergo Proxy AMV. This was published January 30, 2020. The love is still there. Te band earned my respect for having great taste.

One More AMV

It has been a nice trip down the memory lane for me and it was a pleasure to write this article. Before I started writing, I shared a lecture from University of Michigan Titled Cogito Ergo Proxy: Radical Doubt in Japanese Anime. I wish you have a great day and grow spiritually and intellectually!

Best of Luck!