14/08/2022
SoundYou can imagine my surprise when I found out that the opening theme was by one of my favorite bands in one of my favorite genres. The song is called “Guardian Angel,” by Juno Reactor, and is part of a relatively narrow but surprisingly popular subgenre of techno called psytrance. As luck would have it, this aggressive, grungy, and metallic song is a perfect fit for the anime, and does an excellent job of setting the mood for the rest of the show. The rest of the O. One exception, however, happens in the beginning of the final episode, where a loud, obnoxious and utterly distorted guitar “song” assaults the viewers for a full 5 minutes.
Overall, the songs fit pretty much seamlessly into the show (and are excellent to listen to)
The nature of the anime doesn’t give voice actors a whole lot of room for emotion; if you’re the leader of an oppressive crime syndicate, for example, you’re pretty much expected to have ice in your blood. Fortunately, the seiyuu nonetheless manage to deliver unique voices to each of their respective characters despite this. CharactersWhile by no means bad, the characters aren’t nearly as good as the rest of Texhnolyze. I found almost all of them to be strikingly charismatic, and some of them (Oonishi, Ichise, Shinji) were downright cool, but none of them ever really elicited sympathy.
Every attempt at development and characterization feels unnatural and forced, and in the end this hurts the anime more than any other aspect of the show. OverallTexhnolyze is an anime that I almost don’t want to recommend, because I know that a very large percentage of people will probably hate the show. Just as the animenfo average for Serial Experiments Lain has crashed to a lowly (by Nfo standards, anyway) 8. This worries me, because I think this show is excellent, no matter what many people may say about it. Assuming that you can keep awake through the beginning episodes, you will be rewarded with a strikingly intellectual show that delivers on almost every front. The dense, brainy and memorable storyline, combined with the consistently amazing animation, are more than enough to provide a pleasurable watch time and time again.
Texhnolyze goes against everything that would appeal to the masses, with the most obvious example being fighting shonen and sports. There is no positivity, no willpower overcomes everything, no light at the end of the tunnel (hello Naruto). It is bleak and pessimistic, and it never tries to make you believe it’s going to change any time soon. Unlike many other series, it stays true to what you see in the first episode instead of switching to something completely different that is nowhere near as good (hello Sword Art Online). That’s how it stands out for most; as something anti-mainstream, a term that ends up being the same as “not cheap entertainment”. It’s not easily digestible and it’s certainly not something you air on television and expect high rates.
The storyline doesn’t really attempt to inject warmth or depth into the characters (it’s not that kind of a show), and as a result they feel more than a little like pawns in the overarching story – intricate and interesting pawns, perhaps, but pawns nonetheless
Many still consider anime to be a niche medium. Texnolyze is a niche within a niche, aimed at those who seek something not saturated by shonentards and deviant otaku fetishes (hello Oreimo). It is also not different for the sake of being different, as is the case with pretty much everything nowadays that thinks it can stand out by subverting a couple of things and expecting the tasteless masses to hail it as a masterpiece (hello Akame ga Kill). It takes itself seriously and sticks to it. It is also animated and directed masterfully, instead of implying all 
it takes is to be dark and depressing with everything else not being important (hello Berserk 2016). With all that said, it is a difficult to watch series.