Review of Texhnolyze
Being alive is a strange thing. When most people think about what blind people “see” the color black often comes to mind. But when you talk to someone who is blind, they tend to maintain that that is not the case. When you are blind, you see nothing, seeing black is still seeing something. Blindness is a concept that’s almost impossible to wrap your head around if you haven’t experienced it, the same goes for death. The act of not existing isn't one a human being can ever truly understand. People are obsessed with it; we’ve built belief systems and entire philosophies not only around deathand what happens after we die but what makes said death meaningful. When confronted with something we can’t understand, something we cannot conceptualize, people project onto it. They desperately search for poetics and meaning where none can be found. They try to exist within a state of inexistence.
I’ve spent the better part of about two years trying to figure out how to sum up my thoughts on this show in some form. I should preface this rant by stating that I don’t consider myself to be much of a film critic. I have my fair share of hot takes and artsy preferences like every other pretentious dickhead on this website but for the most part, I tend to like to keep my views short and sweet. Texhnolyze means a lot to me but for the life of me I cannot figure out how to explain why.
It’s the type of show self-proclaimed intellectual YouTubers describe using a barrage of buzzwords like “existential” “nihilistic” or “an experience.” But there’s truthfully no way to describe it that is better than those. Texhnolyze is an experience. It’s a downward spiral of apocalyptic proportions which desperately searches for any type of meaning in human existence. It’s cruel and it’s cold and it’s kind of an asshole, but it doesn’t try to be anything else. It doesn’t try to come across as cool, brooding, and edgy, it doesn’t want to follow the same generic aesthetics that most anime gawk at with their eyes widened and their mouths leaking drool. It is what it is. A slow story about sad people. A kind of commentary on consumerism, institutionalized religion, and the stagnation of an all too comfortable human race. Its aesthetics and content are often confrontational, at times even transgressive, but for all of its observations on the human condition, what makes Texhnolyze so special is that, much like a (competent) journalist, it simply depicts facts of existence, it never tries to pick sides.
No one is good or bad, they just are. All these characters are simply little blotches of gray morality and emotional baggage. Whether or not Texhnolyze gives answers or enlightenment or has some deep philosophical value is not the point. Yes, it is a tale laden with an exceptional amount of textual references both philosophical and political but at the end of the day Texhnolyze is about feeling. It’s about accepting that you will never know what it's like to not exist, that you are comfortable with this knowledge, and do not seek to rationalize the incomprehensible. It’s about the experience; about watching what is essentially eight hours of gut punches until the ending leaves you feeling raw, and emotionally drained. In the end its about coming face to face with the meaninglessness and absurdity of the universe and shrugging, because you are okay with who and what you are, and that’s all that matters.