TEXHNOLYSE
VOL 1: INHUMANE & BEAUTIFUL
VOL 2: SPECTACLE
(MVM Region 2 PAL DVD)
review by Blackgloves

From the feverish imaginations of acclaimed artist Yoshitoshi ABe and producer/writer Yasuyuki Ueda, comes this dystopian science fiction nightmare set in a decaying underground city riven with conflict between Yakusi gangs and a harsh religious cult. "Texhnolyse" is surely recognisable as the work of the creator of "Serial Experiments Lain" but seems a world away from the colourful pastoral landscape full of angelic beings created by ABe in his wonderful series "Haibane Renmei". With "Texhnolyse", ABe has created another dwelling that looks like an old, abandoned, post-second world war, East European city; but the beautiful blue skies and rolling hills of Renmei have been replaced with a filthy, dark and decaying landscape of crumbling ruins and grimy streets filled with rubble!

The inhabitants of this nightmare city of Lukuss are either poor and desperate or violent and cruel; the predominately destitute masses are referred to as "the class" and cope with their pointless existence by choosing to forget they're alive! And if the surroundings and the people aren't depressing enough, the whole underground world is lit by a harsh artificial lighting that is meant to mimic daylight (the huge artificial lighting system is switched off at a set time everyday, and smaller street lamps are turned on to give the effect of night enveloping the city) but which, in fact, smothers everything in a harsh white glare that blanks out the horizon.

ABe has not created an attractive landscape for his characters then; and the general look of the animation is deliberately drab and relentlessly very, very dark. On top of that, ABe and Ueda seem preoccupied with creating atmosphere at the expense of story development in this series -- which means it moves at a glacial pace; especially in the first episode, which is, perhaps, one of the most uninviting and stand-offish first episodes to a series ever concocted! There is practically no dialogue, and everything is set in either complete darkness or greyish half-light as we flip backwards and forwards between the series' three main isolated protagonists, all of whom are, initially, so sullen and ambiguous that it is impossible to get a handle on any of them! No wonder this series seems to get a hard time from many anime reviewers! (For instance, check out this site's review of the Region 1 release by Big Miclargehuge!)

Negotiating an unstable peace between the warring factions of Lukuss is a crime lord called Onishi, whose crime syndicate, the Organo, have assumed the role of a pseudo-government and police force by virtue of the fact that Onishi controls the cybernetic technology called Texhnolyse -- which is used to replace the limbs of selected people in the city with a tougher, artificial variety; something that is needed in the unforgiving underground environment. Onishi is an immaculately turned-out and powerful-looking figure, but he lives in almost total isolation in his palatial dwelling. His apparently mute wife is later revealed to be insane!

A stranger from the surface world is visiting Lukuss; climbing down a large, scaffolded hole for several days with a gas mask, supplies of food and a gas lighter, Yoshii eventually reaches the outskirts of Lukuss and almost immediately stumbles across a mysterious young girl wearing a fox mask! She leads him to an old man referred to as "Big Uncle" -- just in time to help save him from an assassination attempt by low-ranking members of the Salvation Union -- a fundamentalist religious group who oppose the Texhnolyse technology being used on the population. In payment for his help, the old sage allows the young girl, Ran, to act as Yoshii's guide on his journey into Lukuss. The old man tells him that Ran has the ability to see the near future ... or at least one possible version of future events.

Meanwhile, a boxer called Ichise angers a female gang leader and has an arm and a leg chopped off for the trouble! Refusing to die without a fight, Ichise painfully drags himself through the city and is eventually found by the female doctor who implements the Texhnolyse technology for Onishi. She Texhnolyses the mute Ichise against his wishes (and has creepy, amputee sex with him on the floor of the laboratory before fitting his new limbs!) despite Onishi initially refusing to help him after finding the boxer just after his unfortunate "accident"!

It takes about three episodes to uncover this much of the plot; Ueda and ABe constantly let the momentum of the show slow to a standstill before drip-feeding the audience another crumb of information about the characters to nudge it into life again. There is constant mention of something called "Raffia" in relation to the Texhnolyse process; but we don't find out what that is until episode six of volume two -- even though there doesn't seem to be any reason to hold this information back. This is all just part of the creators' strategy of shrouding everything in as much mystery as possible for as long as possible. This will undoubtedly prove frustrating to the audience (even Yasuyuki Ueda admits in the interview included on volume 1, that he might have pushed the audience's patience too far) but the show is worth persevering with since it shows all the signs of developing into quite an interesting science fiction epic once it gets going... which, admittedly, it only shows signs of doing by episode 7 of volume two!

Each volume of "Texhnolyse" features MVM's usual extras: that is, trailers and textless opening and closing credit sequences. Volume 1 also features the aforementioned interview with Yasuyuki Ueda and Yoshitoshi ABe in which they discuss the differences in approach to the visual appearance between this series and "Haibane Renmei" as well as explaining what they set out to achieve with the show. This runs at just under 11 minutes.

Each volume features an anamorphic, widescreen transfer with 2.0 Stereo audio options in English or Japanese with English subtitles.

"Texhnolyse" is an atmospheric and evocative series despite the frustration of its deliberately obtuse plotting and the ridiculously slow pace of its story development. By the end of volume two though, this policy looks as though it might be paying off, as at least one character has already revealed himself to be quite different and much more menacing than we might have thought at the beginning! This show is worth being patient with and volume three looks like it could give us some quite radical developments... hopefully!