Genre: Mecha Action | Drama | Psychological
Company: BONES | ADV Films
American Licensing Company: ADV Films
Format: 26 episodes
Dates: 01/21/2002 to 09/10/2002
Original Creator: ???
Age Rating: Not suitable for young children; 15-18 and up

Synopsis: In a world where time passes at a crawl and the blood of your neighbor runs blue, 17 year old high school student Ayato Kamina goes about his daily life within Tokyo Jupiter oblivious to the world around him, having been educated with the fact that the all civilization but Tokyo has been destroyed. But all that changes when the mysterious civilization "MU" invades his home, raining destruction down from the sky in the form of strange monster called Dolems. The events that occur next will lead Ayato to the mysterious woman named Reika Mishima, to the truth of their existence, the discovery of what and who he is, and to the powerful angelic robot RahXephon.

SCORE: 75%

Plot: I really enjoyed this series. To be honest, this is everything Eva probably should have been. At least Ayato doesn't pull many Shinjis, which tends to run rampant with many main male characters, especially in mecha series. The plot works, but this series is still a lot like Eva in many aspects, to the way the RahXephon works and also how all the characters interact in a Soap Opera type fashion. That's the reason why I docked the score of this series so much. This is a good series, and I liked the characters, but it didn't come across as being very orignal at all. In fact, the few things different about this series from Eva is that it's more of a mystery story about Ayato, has a hidden love story, the enemy is more human, there is a music underlying theme and symbolism is done with ancient Egyptian symbolism instead of Christian.

In fact main characters in RahXephon can be matched exactly to Eva characters. Ayato is Shinji, Kuon is Rei, and Haruka is Misato. At least the Asuka role was eliminated. ^_^ However, it is better than Eva by a long shot, and it would had been great if this series had came out before Eva. At least then, it would have been more original. Besides that, the mecha story almost seemed unimportant among all the Soap Opera action. The whole mecha thing was only important when Ayato wondered about his existence and when the end of the series started coming together. But that's fine too also. Too much mecha action, even in a mecha series, can get very boring.

I wish some of the story was clarified a bit more, so I'm still trying to figure out details. But, it's not as confusing as Eva by a long shot.

I'm proud to say that I did figure out who and what Reika Mishima was before the series was over though. ^_^ I'm proud of me, lol.

The bad thing about this series is that you have keep track of the many characters. Remembering their names is the easiest way, but it is hard since most anime fans can't remember Japanese character names right off the bat, since they find these to be difficult names.

Also, if you don't pay attention to every detail episode, you might miss some important detail or symbolism which helps the audience pick up on solving the mystery of Ayato, which is the key plot point in this series. So, you have to pay attention.

Visual: The stylization of characters in this series is like I've never seen. Noses were rather low and didn't really follow the sharp nose stylization common in most anime, but were really rounded. However, in this style, most faces looked alike in both guys and girls. This made for a series with A LOT of bishoujo and bishonen.

The animation was very clear and clean cut, and never confusing. This series is one of the best I've seen animation wise in a long time. Reused footage was rare, and so was recapping. At the moment I can't recall a total recap episode, which is good. Some of the trippy sequences are awesome, as are the final fight scenes of the series.

Nudity didn't run amuck, but I did see enough ass towards the end of the series. But all nudity was rather censored, meaning no nipples on boobies being seen my friends. Thank God. However, I'm happy to say that the nudity was equal between the genders. You do have to have some respect for a series that shows a guy in the nude twice in just the opening, (and not a girl for once) and isn't ashamed of it. Hee-hee, Ayato is one sexy boy in his exclusive shots, lol.

Sound: For pop music, I really enjoyed this series, since the pop tunes were actually interesting and didn't follow run-of-the-mill pop sound. The soundtrack music for the mecha fights however sounded VERY Eva, and the soundtrack is probably the one thing that makes this series seem like Eva the most.

Sounds worked fine. ^_^ Not much more to say about that, but some of the sounds were really good and gross.

Voices were excellent. Hearing Sailor Mercury's voice coming out of Haruka was enjoyable, and I didn't know it was her until looking at the credits, which means I didn't recognize her voice and it didn't become a distraction. Ayato's voice was also very good, and I would like to find out about his seiyuu more (I'm not even sure if he was voiced by a man or not; I think this seiyuu is either very new or not well known). Megumi's voice sounded familiar, but I could think of who it could be, but her seiyuu did a good job too.

The Dub: At this point, there is no dub.

Extra Rants and Bitching: Wow, so a RahXephon movie is being produced? This will be interesting...but anyway, this series should make its plot points a little more apparent. I got the idea of the story, but I still wonder about some of the characters origins and motivations, especially when it comes to the guy known as white snake (can't remember his name at the moment) and Kuon. I hope the movie will answer some of my questions, and all I've got to say is that the movie better not be something completely different or I'll be pissed.

Just look at how many times Eva is referred to in this review. This either tells you a good thing or a bad thing. The bad thing: if you want a completely original series to watch, this is not it. The good thing: if you want something like Eva, but isn't Eva, here ya go!

Score Comments: This was a good series, not bad at all. Everything seems to work. However, hardly a shred of this series was original, and Eva was definitely it's biggest influence, or in fact, its only influence. Bad, bad RahXephon! But, for all it's unoriginality, I'd pick this series over Eva any day.

Websites:

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