The world Texhnolyze builds is a machine that grinds people into smaller pieces until there's nothing left to grind. Ichise doesn't get saved by his new limbs, he gets owned by them, dragged into a collapse he can't stop and wouldn't understand if he tried. This is a show that believes suffering is the default state and asks what you do when the only exit is deeper in.

Lux is an underground city, cut off from the surface, where criminal factions compete for control while its people live in fear. Ichise, an orphan and former boxer, loses an arm and a leg to appease a furious fight promoter. Near death, he is taken in by a young doctor who fits him with experimental texhnolyze prosthetics. With his new limbs, he comes under the protection of Oonishi, the head of Organo, a group that holds real power in the city. As a stranger's crimes set the gangs against one another, Ichise is pulled deeper into the fight over Lux's territory. Ran, a young girl who can see the future, guides him from the shadows. Ichise must uncover the truth about the city and fight to survive as it slides toward its greatest crisis. The result is a dark, psychological science fiction drama built around action and violence.