Texhnolyze Analysis: The Omnipresence of Suffering

Texhnolyze is an anime that primarily, if not exclusively, focuses on the human condition. As such, it is only normal for it to have the concept of suffering within its thematic exploration. In this post, I will be talking about how said exploration manifests itself through the characters by going through each character affected by this theme in a significant way and explaining how their attempts at trying to ease their suffering failed. Note that this will only make sense to those who've already watched the show and will include the names of specific in-series groups.

Toyama: As a character who escaped his home through being adopted by an Organo member (thereby becoming one himself), Toyama's main childhood issue is shown to be his father's sexual abuse of him. He's shown to deeply despise his own father and wishes to kill him for touching and/or raping him (or so it is implied). He seems happy to have escaping such treatment, as he later remarks to Ichise, and grateful to the man who took him in. However, said man himself is constantly shown to touch Toyama and, furthermore, sends him on a mission to gain information from his father, a task that requires him to sleep with the latter. So, as you can see, he is still exposed to the same type of suffering he fled from despite having changed his place in life and within the social workings of the world.

Ichise: Acting as a prize-fighter who brutally beats his opponents and having to prostitute himself in the beginning of the show to a woman in order to make money, Ichise is a quiet, held-back person who doesn't speak a word for the first 3 episodes of the show. It is interesting, therefore, to see him talk more (compared to before) when he kills a man he has a grudge against and joins the Organo. He dresses better, eats better, and seems more to be in control of his emotions then. However, we soon see that he has to get his hands dirty when internal struggles arise and, on top of that, Doc (a woman) constantly uses him for her own sexual pleasure. Near the end of the show, he's shown to be beating a few people who've surrounded him and, as he does this, footage from the first episode of him fighting emerges. He then kills a man he has a grudge against. So, as you can see, his lifestyle is fundamentally identical to the way it used to be. It only has different dressing.

Doc: She is someone who relishes in her technological inventions and especially loves the cybernetic limbs she constructed for Ichise after two of his own were cut off. She is disappointed with Ichise due to his not appreciating his new limbs and wishes to access the upper world where she believes her work will be appreciated more. However, upon trying to access the place, she is met with hostility as guns fire at her. When she does eventually make her way there, she learns that the people there have no need for implants any longer and have essentially become living ghosts who cannot appreciate their own lives, let alone her work.

There is also the guy at Racan (Shinji) whose childhood dream was becoming part of the elite and who is disillusioned to see that they are mere puppets and his friend who, being jealous of Shinji's gf loving Shinji more than she does him (as well as upset at the fact she won't make love to him), becomes a robot incapable of making love, but those two are minor cases.

So yeah, as you can see, people in this show suffer regardless of their circumstances, just as people in real life do.

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