So, RahXephon. I feel in reviewing this that there's something I need to put out upfront, my feelings on the other anime that is almost always mentioned in the same breath as RahXephon: Neon Genesis Evangelion. Simply put, I didn't like Neon Genesis Evangelion. I thought there were some good points, but more things that I couldn't stand, mainly the cast of almost completely unlikeable characters and OH GOD THAT ENDING. Anyway, this isn't a review of NGE and I only mention this because, in my experience, RahXephon is always suggested as the NGE-esque anime for people who didn't like NGE. So, Evangelion's less popular but still well received cousin draw me in where the popularity juggernaut had failed?
Well, I'll dive in by giving the best summation of the plot I can while not spoiling too much. I don't think I can go completely spoiler free, but I don't think I'll be spoiling anything beyond the first 2 or 3 episodes. After a short scene on a battleship, we come in on the main protagonist, Ayato Kamina. He seems to be living a relatively normal life in Tokyo. He spends his free time drawing or painting. On the day of the first episode, he leaves for a normal day of school with his friends Mamoru and Hiroko. Everything's going fine, until a sudden terrorist attack rocks the city and totals the train Ayato was riding. He leaves his friends to find help and runs into another friend from school, Reika Mishima. As they try to find help, Ayato is confronted by government agents with blue blood only to be freed and offered the truth by a mysterious woman. However, the agents attack again and Ayato escapes on a train with Reika. They arrive at a strange shrine with an egg surrounded by water. Meanwhile, strange looking robots have begun to fight off the invaders, completely turning the tides. Back at the shrine, Reika begins to sing, awakening the egg while Ayato begins to pass out. From the egg comes the title robot, RahXephon, who also goes off to fight the invaders and fight one of the other robots, called Dolems, as well.
The next day, Ayato awakens in a hospital with a spotty memory of the previous day, and even when he remembers some details, others don't seem to remember some parts, such as the RahXephon or Reika. Things become suspicious and he takes his mysterious savior from yesterday up on her offer of the truth. Ayato is under the impression that Tokyo is what's left of the world, with the rest of the world being taken out in a mysterious war. He soon learns, as he escapes Tokyo in the RahXephon, that Tokyo has been encased in a strange barrier that separates it from the world and also causes time to pass at a much slower rate. This happened during a war with the Mu, blue-blooded people from another world who attacked humanity. Now that Ayato is in a whole new world, he has to adapt, joining a defense force to fight the Mu and their Dolems. The story continues with him fighting the Dolems in the RahXephon, struggling with mysteries surrounding the world and his identity, choosing which world and people he wants to protect, and finding the power to protect them.
The story is good, though it can get very confusing at times. The plot of the story revolves around Ayato learning who he is and the relationships between all the different cast members, including the serious but cheerful officer Haruka Shitow, the woman who escaped with Ayato, her energetic young sister Megumi, the enigmatic and distant Quon Kisaragi who shares some similarities with Ayato, and lots of other officers and characters. The relationships are twisted even more when the Tokyo time difference comes into play. It also references a lot from music and Mayan mythology, two things I admittedly know nothing about so some things may have went over my head. As plot twists unfold and mysteries are cleared up, the end of the story was definitely worth the ride, but you have to keep paying attention.
The characters can be a bit bland at times outside of a few characters who shined to me, and while in general the characters and story are more upbeat than Evangelion, it's still bleak at times and you won't be getting much of a pick me up here. Romance is another one of the major elements of the story, and in my opinion it was handled much better here than most other animes I've seen. Relationships evolve slowly with time and they remain pretty subtle and serious for the most part. The action is good but it's not the focus, with most of the fighting only taking up the last parts of an episode with RahXephon coming to save the day. The battles also get bizzare and psychological at times, reminiscent of some episodes of NGE, with the actual fight only being one or two blows. So yeah, you'll get a bit of a giant robot fix here, but if that's what you're looking for, look somewhere else.
When it comes to the art, the pictures look good, but they're nothing amazing for the most part. You'll enjoy the art enough, and it does really shine in some areas, but there's no real standout, wow factor. The same goes for the animation, with the fights being well animated and great fun to watch, but the rest is pretty basic. I really did like mecha designs in this series and they're probably the standout feature as far as the art is concerned for me. Sure the big wings on the side of RahXephon's head can look goofy at times, but I really liked it and the Dolems were pretty unique for the most part too.
This series revolves heavily on music, and as such the music in the show is really great. And I do mean in the show. The opening and ending are slow paced and the opening in particular was pretty basic and not particularly memorable. The ending was better, especially remixes used within the episodes, but it still doesn't really hold up to the great classical tunes and such being used in the show. I'm not someone to notice BGM most of the time, but in this show I definitely took notice and it really built on the scenes most of the time.
Now, to mention something that doesn't usually bother me - the packaging. This is the first series I own that I have several complaints about the packaging for. First, we the hated-by-most method of storing the discs, the infamous "several discs on a center spindle" method. It's annoying and, with only 4 discs per box, completely unnecessary. Secondly, for several discs they can't even get the episode listings on the back right, with too many or too few for like half the series. That really seems like amateur hour to me. These along with a couple other complaints made me wonder what the heck the design team was thinking.
So, in conclusion, this is a good series with a complex plot, great music, and an all together nicely well-rounded package. It probably won't be cracking any top lists of mine any time soon, but I enjoyed it all around and would recommend it to anyone looking for a serious, plot-centric giant robot anime. Till next time!
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