Anime: RahXephon - Pluralitas Concentio

Content Warning: Very brief nudity, older woman getting it on with a teen, some violence and blood.

I always find it weird when anime companies do this, the whole “hey, let’s chop down an OVA or series into a movie and release it so we can make more money!” I do not understand it at all. And you know what else they do? They usually change things so the plot is either way more simple or move things around to flow better. Wait a minute…

The movie starts us off with introducing the Haruka/Ayato young romance and all that, just right out the gate. And that her name is Mishima Haurka. Then we get to see her reaction to the Tokyo Jupiter event. After that, the movie starts roughly where the show does, but with a voice over explaining that he still remembers Mishima.

From here, two things happen: the new scenes (or edited scenes) start popping up and they start running us through the plot much, much faster. When Ayato goes for help, like he did the original TV show, he encounters the tank and all that, and then ends up in the subway, and has the encounter with the “government agents” and again is rescued by Haruka. This time, however, she drugs him and takes him with her as she tries to leave Tokyo. But, the RahXephon awakens and drags the plane down into the shrine. Here, Ayato boards the RahXephon for the first time and takes Haruka with him as he leaves the city. Outside, we see Tokyo Jupiter and the ruins of the world directly outside. Haruka fills Ayato in on what happened, the Mu invasion and all of that.

Soon, Haruka and Ayato are picked up and taken to the island, where Ayato becomes the pilot of the RahXephon in defense of humanity, but there’s not a lot of battles to be had. Seriously, there’s two fights and they’re chopped down to almost nothing. So, Ayato is taken back to Tokyo by one the Dorem and talks with his mother. And she’s really his mother this time, by the way. But she’s still not biologically Haruka’s aunt (thank goodness, but still, what the fuck, Japan?). And then Ayato saves Asahino, and leaves again. Since he wasn’t running away, he doesn’t have to face the music when he gets back, but he still ends up killing Asahino when she creates/controls the Dorem. However, at this point Ayato’s blue turns blue. And then Haruka sleeps with him! Yeah. She’s biologically in her 20’s and he’s biologically 17 or so, but they do the nasty. If it wasn’t for the age difference, I would be more on board for this, as they’re in love with each other and know who they really are in this version of the story. However, can we stop with this stuff, please?

After this, things get rolling quickly. We meet Quon, the sleeping beauty. She’s been waiting for Ayato to awaken her. And he does, with a kiss, and she goes to the Mu capital ship… Thing. Then, TERRA takes down the Tokyo Jupiter barrier and the war starts in earnest. There’s a huge battle against the forces of Mu on the high seas, and Ayato arrives in the RahXephon. He’s losing his memories, now that he has blue blood, but must “tune the world.” The leader of the Foundation thinks he’s going to tune it to what he wants, but due the intervention of Haruka, he doesn’t. Ayato’s RahXephon defeats Momaru’s Dorem, and then fights Quon’s RahXephon. During this battle, Haruka arrives and is killed. But she’s not gone yet. She’s able to get Ayato to reset things, kind of. The RahXephon can’t go back in time, but they can give them, Ayato and Haruka, their time back.

We then jump ahead 60 years and Haruka is reading “Through the Looking Glass” to her granddaughter, Reika (who is the Mishima Reika from the series). They talk about Reika’s grandfather, Ayato, who has passed away some time ago. Reika goes to get tea, and the old Haruka sees a young Ayato, and then vanishes.

And that’s where the movie ends. I have to say, I enjoyed this version of the story as much as the series. While the series gave us much more to experience, the movie distills it down, and edits things, to make a much more simple story. However, we don’t lose the same feeling of the story. It’s just different. I do prefer the end of the series, as it’s not as bittersweet, but I appreciate the movie’s ending for what it is.

When thinking about it, I believe that the movie was done the way it was because more women go to the theater in Japan and this movie is has a more feminine feeling to it. It isn’t about mecha and battles, not that the original was all that, but is more about the emotions and love. It takes the best part of the series, the relationship between Haruka and Ayato, and the time that was stolen from them, and makes it the focus of the story. No mystery about it, Ayato has always loved Haruka and she has never stopped loving him.

And now that I’m trying not to cry, I’m going to go now…

Rating: 3 out of 5
Suggestion: While lacking a lot of characters and depth, the emotional core has remained intact, and the story benefits from being condensed. 

Anime: RahXephon (series overview)

 

Content Warning: Violence, explosions, death, and some weird stuff

I remember seeing ads for the this show back in the day. When I was watching some old DVDs for a review here, I saw one of the ads and remembered that it had been on my list but I never had a chance to check it out. When I was discussing this with a friend of mine, it turned out that he had the complete collection on DVD. So, here we are.

Let me just get this out of the way now: this show is “mysterious” and almost all of it is unnecessary. While I did enjoy the slow pacing, I think it could have used the time much, much better to explain away the mysteries it tried to set up. Also, I am going to be spoiling some major things, so you have been warned.

Our story begins in Tokyo, in that far off year of 2015 (which was the future when this show was made), where we meet Ayato and his two friends, Asahina and Mamoru, typical high school students. Things seem to be fairly normal for them, with Ayato’s distant mother and his artistic talent being the only two things that tell you that he’s the main character. If you pay attention to some things in the first episode, you’ll get some hints that things aren’t quite what you think they are. Things start rolling when Tokyo is attacked by “Invaders” that use very advanced aircraft. These aircraft are later shot down by some of the most unique mecha you’ll see, and was part of why I wanted to watch the series. Ayato ends up in a train station and is accosted by two “government agents” to get on a train. Ayato is saved by an older woman (Haruka, but you don’t really learn her name for another episode or two) but ends up getting on a train with another friend from school, Mishima Reika. Together they arrive at “Xephon Station” which looks like ancient ruins, and then discover a giant egg, from which the titular RahXephon hatches from. Ayato ends up aboard the mecha and fights the Invader planes.

Now, I’m going to do some skipping around, because this show takes a long time to get on with it, and I don’t want to bog this down too much.

Now, there’s a lot of questions we have at this point. During the fight Haruka has with the agents, they bled blue, not red. We also saw that Ayato’s mother, “Lady” Maya, also bled blue. When Ayato gets outside of Tokyo, we come across ruins. Ayato has been told that there’s nothing outside Tokyo because of a war. This is a lie. Tokyo is now called Tokyo Jupiter because there’s a dimensional barrier around the city that looks a lot like pictures of Jupiter. And that barrier slows down time. Inside, it’s 2015, but outside, it’s 2027. Tokyo was sealed away from the rest of the world by a group of dimensional invaders known as the Mu, or Mulians. Why they did this is unknown, but they’ve been controlling the people inside, making them think that the rest of the world is in ruins. After a whole episode of explaining this and just spending time with Haruka and Ayato, they’re rescued and taken to Nirai Kanai, the base of operations for TERRA, part of the Earth Federation. While there, we meet a lot of other characters: the leader of the base/group, Kunugi; Megumi Shitou, Haruka’s younger sister, Kim, Megumi’s friend, Souichi, the chipper second in command/Megumi’s crush/Kim’s secret boyfriend, the mysterious Quon, Dr. Itsuki who is Quon’s older brother, and several others that I don’t even want to get into.

From this point on, the series starts to do several things, starting with slowing down. Mind you, it takes three episodes to even start to explain what the hell is going on, but it starts to fill in more and more details. There’s also more battles, this time against the mecha using the fighters and the RahXephon. These mecha are absolutely beautiful and unlike anything else I’ve ever seen in a mecha show. They look more like pieces of art than weapons. But, these battles are usually short and don’t look the best, it’s hard to explain. It also takes time to explore characters. We get episodes with almost no combat, but instead follow around one character and see what kind of people they are, what relationships they have, and the like. We get to see why Megumi starts to develop a crush on Ayato, for example. And the show takes time to set up more and more mysteries. There’s this whole thing about the Mulians and blood markers. Ayato has them but still bleeds red, but he has to earn the trust of the higher ups. Of course, they kept that from him, and when he finds out, it takes him a while to stop being angry with everyone about not telling him. We also keep seeing Mishima when Ayato is thinking about or inside the RahXephon, and she talks to him about joining or something to that effect. There’s so much going, I would really have to do an episode by episode review.

Things start moving quickly again when Ayato takes the mysterious Quon into Tokyo Jupiter. There, Ayato confronts his “mother” about what the hell is going on, and we do find out that she’s not his biological mother. Which is good, because she’s also Haruka’s “aunt” and Haruka and Megumi have been lusting after this boy (goddamn it, Japan). We also run into Asahina and Mamoru again, which is nice, but goes sideways pretty quick. Asahino is in love with Ayato and her brain is fucked up because she’s been forced to forget so much, but it isn’t completely gone. Meanwhile, Mamoru has been drinking the Mu Kool-Aid and has the hots for Asahino. When he tries to force a kiss, she hits him in the nose and we see he’s also bleeding blue. Of course, this leads to her getting shot and then freaking out about bleeding red when she runs into Ayato. He lies to her and says that he sees red, too. Well, now it’s time to go, and Ayato takes Asahino with him. When they get out, Ayato has to hide because he’s in a lot of trouble, and Asahino is with him. This episode is so touching, as we’re having Asahino narrate the whole thing but she can’t tell Ayato what’s going on in her head or heart. And that leads to episode’s great tragedy. You see, Asahino ends up creating or controlling or something with the mecha of this episode. And when Ayato defeats it, he kills her. It was devastating. And that’s not even the lowest point of this show.

From this point on, there’s a ton more drama, games within games, and just more mystery layered on to muddy the waters even more. Not all of these are cleared up by the end of the show, sadly. New characters are introduced, new groups that have agendas that are only hinted at, and Ayato is in a very deep hole. I think this is one of the harder parts to get through. And it gets bad. Asahino’s death signals that a lot of people are going to die. And I mean a lot. No one is safe. But, there’s also some victories. TERRA succeeds in taking down the Tokyo Jupiter barrier and that’s good. Unfortunately, it also unleashes the floating cities of Mu on the world, as well as their Dolem (which is what they call the mecha). The island that we’ve been at is destroyed.

Tangent time: I do like this show, I really do. It’s not my favorite but I have to respect the unique mecha design and use of music and sound. I haven’t gotten into it so far but there’s a lot of musical references and mentions in this thing. It really is pleasing in a lot of ways. Shame it’s all wrapped around a messy plot. A little bit more editing, make things a little tighter, and this would be one of the mecha shows you would mention in the same breath as Neon Genesis Evangelion. And that show is the elephant in the room. You see, NGE was a deconstruction of the mecha genre as a whole and every show that came after it, including this one, took elements from it. This one has a lot of stuff in it that I reminded me of NGE, usually visually. But, since NGE also broke down the archtypes of the genre as well, you can easily draw direct comparisons between NGE characters and ones from this one. A good example is Quon. She’s a lot like Rei from NGE. She’s enigmatic and odd, and has an odd hair color, but unlike Rei, there’s something more endearing to her, at least at first. And I say this as a Rei fan. I just couldn’t stop myself from going “Oh, yeah, they did something like this in NGE..” because it’s everywhere. Towards the end of the series, there’s some biological stuff going on with the mecha and it looks like something right out of NGE. However, there’s a difference here and I will point it out. Unlike most other mecha shows, which have technological basis, and NGE, which had a Theological basis, RahXephon has a spiritual and perhaps historical basis to its world. To me, it was the use of Mu, a fictional vanished civilization much like Atlantis, that makes it work. The architecture of the Mulian floating cities, with massive faces carved into stone, trees and grass growing, and even flowing water, brings a wonderful mix of ancient history and power to the designs and you can feel the weight of history when you look at their stuff.

Now, I’m going to spoil the ending because I really need to talk about it. If you’ve read this far and think you’re going to watch the show, go ahead and scroll down to my rating and then click away. Feel free to come back after you’ve watched the show.

The last six episodes of the show are emotional torture porn, I swear. We lose so many characters, it’s not even remotely funny. I think the part that hits hardest for me is the fact that Kim is clearly pregnant. After Ayato’s return from Tokyo Jupiter, and the discovery of Kim and Souichi’s relationship, she starts throwing up and stops drinking coffee. Is this absolute proof that she’s got a bun in the oven? No. But, like much of this show, it’s a subtle way of letting you know what’s happening. The writers of this show took “show, don’t tell” and ran away with it, I swear. So, when Souichi dies, it hit me like a hammer blow. And when Kim tries to kill Ayato after he killed Souichi, I felt for her so much. However, by far, the hardest thing is the whole thing with Haruka and Ayato. She’s been in love with him for so many years, only to find him again, and be 12 years older than him. I really wish they hadn’t tried to keep this some secret for as long as they did. There’s so many hints, it wasn’t hard to figure it out. Of course, there was a red herring or two that kept me wondering, but I really wish they had shown us a bit more, and not waited until almost the last episode, to let this come out. And then, in the last episode, after Ayato has joined with the RahXephon, and then is going to “tune the world” you have Ayato kill Haruka without even realizing it? That scene physically hurt me. And made me cry. Of course, that’s not where things end. The one saving grace of this whole series is the last few minutes.

Ayato seems to be battling Quon, both in their mecha that have merged with them, and he wins. He then “tunes the world” effectively restarting things. We see Haurka and Ayato have a baby girl, Quon, and are both the same age. Tokyo Jupiter was never created. Megumi seems to be living a good life. Asahino and Mamoru might be married. In short, everyone is living happily ever after. And then we get the best part of the show. Now, I haven’t really touched on this, and I’m sorry. You see, in the first few moments of the episode, Ayato has just completed a painting of a girl standing on a rock. This girl looks like Mishima Reiko, and he continues to redraw it over and over again in the show. He even paints it again before everything goes to hell. Well, now here’s the thing: Mishima Reiko is really an echo/memory of Haruka. She was Mishima Haruka before she was Shitou Haruka (her mother remarried). The last part of the show is showing Haruka and Ayato meeting for the first time, which her standing on a rock like the painting Ayato has been creating and recreating over and over again. Honestly, it took too damn long to show it to us but I loved it all the same. Sometimes, one moment changes the course of your life forever...

Rating: 3 out of 5

Suggestion: If you like old school mecha shows, and don’t mind the overdone mystery elements, it’s got a lot of heart.