Texhnolyze (テクノライズ) (pronounced [teknolaiz]) is an anime series by director Hirotsugu Hamazaki, broadcast in 2003.

The story of Texhnolyze takes place in the crumbling underground city of Lux. Lux has artificial sunlight, water, and even day/night cycles. Denizens of Lux have come to call it The City and treat it as a sentient force. The landscape of the underground area is primarily desert. Initially the series is mostly concerned with the conflicts between the factions in Lux, but changes scale as the series goes on to look at the city's interaction with the surface world. The central plot device is a method of creating prosthetic body parts, called "Texhnolyze."

Lux is the battleground of three factions: the Organo, the Union, and the Racan. The Organo is a business-like organization that is linked to the manufacture and sale of Texhnolyze prosthetics. The Union is a populist or luddite-type group whose primary motivation is to interfere with Texhnolyze. They view the Organo as esurient and parasitic. The Racan are a marauding group of Texhnolyzed youths who commit violent acts in hope of triggering an all-out war between Texhnolyze and the Union. A fourth faction, known as the Class, rarely get involved with the City because they are closely connected to the surface world.

Membership in Organo, the Union, or Racan confers privileges. The rest of the populace are extremely poor. Overrun by such criminal organizations, Lux quickly became a dystopia. The nominal protagonist of the series is Ichise, a boxer who is Texhnolyzed after being maimed, and his struggle to adapt to his cybernetic existence and find a purpose in his life.

The series begins with a number of seemingly unrelated events: a man from the surface world begins his descent into Lukuss; an underground fighter resting after a fight; the leader of the Organo lost in thought; and a girl at the center of it all who can see the future.

The first episodes introduce Lukuss. They also introduce the struggles of Ichise after he loses his right arm and left leg, and is later texhnolyzed by Doc, who has taken an interest in him. Doc is the creator of the texhnolyzation science, and is also the technician of Onishi, the leader of Organo. Ran, a girl from the village of Gabe, seems to have a major interest in Ichise as she travels the city selling flowers. A man named Yoshii comes down to from the Surface World and begins to explore the city of Lukuss.

Yoshii eventually meets Ran and follows her to Gabe. Yoshii becomes friends with the chief of Gabe after he saves him from being assassinated by rogue Union members. As a reward for his bravery, the Gabe chief asks Ran to escort Yoshii to the city. Later, Yoshii meets Shinji, the leader of Raccan. Meanwhile, Onishi tries to quell a "spectacle" between the Organo and the Union, caused by the recent assassination attempts of Union members gone rogue.

Ichise becomes accustomed to his new limbs, but is frustrated when he has difficulty operating them. He is unstable when he leaves Doc's laboratory. Ichise meets the Organo members who took his arm and leg. Instead of being brought back to Organo headquarters, he is thrown into Lukuss sewer system. While in the sewer, Ichise sees white flowers flowing down from somewhere. He follows the flowers and eventually finds his way out. These flowers belong to Ran.

Meanwhile, Yoshii becomes increasingly interested in the city of Lukuss and its people. Intrigued by the emotions he sees from the people of Lukuss, Yoshii begins to orchestrate a plan that would cause a spectacle between the city's warring factions. Yoshii's plans come to fruition and the city erupts in violence.

Ichise learns to use his new limbs effectively. Again, he finds the Organo members who maimed him. These Organo members denounce Onishi to his face before being subdued by Ichise. Onishi, seeing the potential Ichise has, eventually inducts him into the Organo. Yoshii tries to assassinate a member of the Class, the mysterious fourth faction of Lukuss. Eventually, Onishi and Ichise find Yoshii and kill him before he can cause more destruction.

Ichise becomes an official Organo member and carries out orders. Meanwhile, an enigmatic man called Kano is found to be plotting to take over of Lukuss. Ichise eventually finds who orchestrated his father's murder and gets his revenge. The villagers of Gabe don black fox masks as they prepare for Ran's prophecies to come true. Ran predicts that at the end of the coming apocalypse Ichise will be the only one left alive.

Onishi receives a visit from Kano, who claims that the city belongs to no one, and that it must be governed by one force. Onishi remembers that Kano is the boy who received Onishi's legs when they were younger, leading Onishi to have the texhnolyzation procedure. Kano is shown to have gone through texhnolyzation of a vastly different type after his body rejected Onishi's limbs.

Kano then begins to unleash his texhnolyzed army upon Lukuss, whom he calls "Shapes." The Shapes are almost fully texhnolyzed and equipped with additional weaponry. Eventually, the remains of Union, the Organo, and the Raccan, band together to try and stop the Shapes. The Shapes overwhelm the other factions and continue to assimilate the city. Ichise and Doc find Onishi and Shinji at the train station. Onishi believes that Lukuss' only hope is appealing to the inhabitants of the Surface World. Sakimura, a man who works as the train operator, offers to escort them to the surface.

Ichise, Doc and Sakimura make it to the Surface World and travel to the Government Office building. The Surface World is almost made up of primarily countryside and sparse houses. The group is stopped by the voice of Mr. Saginuma coming from a speaker. He asks what are they doing. He offers to escort them to the Government Office building, in the guise of a small girl clutching a ball.

Ichise and Doc try to appeal to the Surface World's government but are met with questions about the status of texhnolyation in Lukuss. The government concludes that the only reason that they believe to save Lukuss is Raffia (the material which makes texhnolyzation work, that curbs the rejection process), but because the Surface World has no more need of Raffia anymore, there is no reason to step in and save Lukuss. Doc decides to stay in the Surface World, due to her work on texhnolyzation now over. Ichise decides to go back to Lukuss and try to save Ran.

Meanwhile, all texhnolyze limbs have stopped working and Ran gathers the remainder of the human population of Lukuss to the Obelisk, there she reveals to them the future of Lukuss, causing everyone to go insane, plunging Lukuss into more chaos. Shinji decides to go to the Hill, where the Class resides. Inside he kills human-like people he finds inside a pool, before he is killed by Kano's blind servant. Now most of Lukuss are dead or texhnolyzed into Shapes. Onishi decides to go to the Obelisk, believing that the Obelisk was the Voice of the City that he has always heard. However, he discovers that, in fact, the Voice of the City is actually Ran and that the Obelisk is simply another manifestation of her.

Onishi, trying to decide his own fate, asks Ran what he must do. She tells him to kill her, that it is her fault that the city is now beyond repair. She shouldn't have let the people of Lukuss see what she saw as the future for Lukuss. Onishi, saying that he would do whatever she wished, plunges his sword into the Obelisk and Ran, destroying Ran's mind. Onishi is then ambushed by a few of Lukuss last remaining humans. All of them have guns and have set their sights on Onishi. Meanwhile, Ichise makes his way back down to Lukuss, following visions of Ran, which eventually lead him to Onishi. Just as Ichise calls out Onishi's name, the men surrounding Onishi open fire on him. After the ceasefire, the only things that are left of Onishi are a lot of blood, and his texhnolyzed limbs.

Ichise angered at Onishi's death, begins to fight the deranged group of men, only to be beaten down easily due to his texhnolyzed limbs not working. Ichise then forces his limbs to work by effort alone. Ichise's vision then changes quickly to a view of Doc's laboratory. Something has activated on a control panel. Ichise's limbs now work again because of what Doc had put in his limbs. She put in some of her own cells, causing his limbs to be way more powerful than any other. He destroys the group that killed Onishi.

Ichise makes his way toward the opera theatre where Kano resides. On the way, Ichise talks to Ran, though it is not really Ran, only his memory of her, telling her of his plan to take her to the Surface World, where she would be safe. Ichise finds Kano sitting on a chair, high above the theatre. Kano explains that his plan was not to become the leader of Lukuss, or take over the Surface World. Kano explains further that he knew from the beginning, that such plans would never work. He continues to explain that the reason he let he created the Shapes and let them loose on Lukuss, was to see what effects texhnolyzation had on a person's conscience.

Ichise questions him as to what Kano has done to Ran. Kano explains that his "dear Theoria" shut down her own mind, in an effort to stop the madness. Ichise is horrified to see Ran's head on a statue, attached to a life support system seen in use by the Shapes. Kano, seeing Ichise's anger flare, explains that Lukuss is simply a byproduct of his own mind, and that by killing Lukuss's creator, Ichise would be embracing his insanity until death. Ichise, undeterred by anything Kano has said, brings back his right fist and throws it at Kano's head. Kano's head is seen skidding across the floor with a trail of blood.

Ichise takes Ran's remains and walks toward the village of Gabe, where he throws her remains into a pit of Raffia. Ichise continues to walk through the empty city, fulfilling Ran's prophecy of being the last person alive. Ichise sits on the ground and eventually falls on the ground. After a period of time, his right arm seems to move on its own. Then from a spot on Ichise's arm, a light appears and shines on the ground, displaying a hologram of a white flower. Ichise, for the first time smiles, and eventually dies.

- From Wikipedia