Cyberpunk

Ergo proxy is best described as existentialism depicted in animation. Aside from the first few episodes and the last one, it spends the bulk of the series discussing philosophy of existence and one's raison d'etre. The point of the show is to get the viewer to question reality and that assigning moral value to existence is pointless. It's not everyone's cup of tea.

I liked the fact it was different and effectively adapted the ideas of existentialism into a palatable format for most people. The cyberpunk aspects add more entertainment value, unlike other literature on the subject (ie: Camus' The Outsider).

I recently started watching this, but I think I have similar feelings to you, because once it went out to the wasteland I started getting less enthused and stopped watching after a few episodes. I've been meaning to get back to it and see it through -- although it sounds like you're not particularly rosy on it, hearing there's a "game show episode" makes me think I need to at least see what that's about.

I do really like the soundtrack; New Pulse in particular has a quintessentially cyberpunk feel for me.

One reason for me not already mentioned by others yet is the pileup of redundancies explained at the end:

And the music is simply great!

Aside from the absolute banger of an opening, the grungy visuals and character development? Perhaps the focus on philosphy (existentialism and gnosticism) and its genius depiction of yet another dysfunctional utopia. Also if you didn't understand it, I'd recommend you read this essay.

I really wanted to like it, the vibes were good. But man. What kinda fuckin story were they tryna tell aye.

I felt the exact same way, even down to those specific episodes. It had a lot of promise and started asking some profound questions, but it never really felt like it addressed anything. It's not bad, but I certainly couldn't have made it through a second watch.