So RahXephon and Evangelion. It feels like no matter what happens in my life, I will always watch something Evangelion followed by RahXephon or RahXephon followed by Evangelion. That feels like my own lot in life and I am ok with that because I do like both. RahXephon a little better, but that doesn’t take way from my like of either of them. After the Evangelion rebuild films, our #AniTwitWatches group choose to watch RahXephon and it was a very good decision honestly. It feels like a special series and I wanted to write about RahXephon again. Sometimes, that sort of motivation can come from watching something again with other people. If you want to join us, check out the latest round of that here: Link.
Before going further, I do think that a lot of you know that I’ve written about RahXephon before in a review sort of thing. If you want to read more about the show, you can look at a wiki or read about it here: Link. In short though, RahXephon is a story about a boy named Kamina Ayato. A boy who has a fate. A destiny. A choice. A self worth. One day, he stepped onto the mysterious RahXephon led by a god to escape his confinement of one city by a Jupiter eye into the unknown rest of the world at war with that city. A city of people with blue blood called Mulians. A mysterious girl named Quon also exists with markings on her too. There is other plots and stories, but to the gods nothing else matters. It all belongs to Ixtli.
RahXephon is a series that takes place where there is a true feeling of omnipotence in it. The cast is made out of human beings that have no choice but to live in it. They are a great cast too, but they are not in control of the situation that the gods want to play with. Time and space do not matter to a god. The time difference between Tokyo Jupiter and the rest of the world is something that affects humans and how they grow and develop, but those are such small things compared to the rest of the universe where chaos lives and reigns. Temples exist where a person can disappear for 5 minutes and come out days later. This is world is beyond any mere mortal’s control.
People are literally nothing. Mere trifles and play things that exist to be controlled. Ixtli can step into whatever situation is at play just by using their power. Like that one time when Itxli appeared in a school and just naturally just belonged by using their mind control. Same in the series where there is nothing to do but control the White Snake and give his dreams and ambitions become true faster because they wanted it to happen. This unknown force can do so much and manipulate people for their own agendas because they feel like it. There is power and control for what they want to achieve vs what our characters in the story have to face and achieve.
Of course, there are the chosen few. The ollin who are marked to be tuners of the world. Savers who listen to their gods will while the rest of the world are mere play things. Ayato is one of those people who was chosen and watched over by a god. Quon is the other. Copies were made to fulfill that role to perhaps pilot the Xephon machine that saves them everyday. A mere copy is nothing. Not the original, not chosen, not fated to change or be chosen by anyone. The RahXephon only responds to the natural, the original, the chosen. Those who will have the possibility to be an instrument of the will of Ixtli.
The world is filled with approximations of the god’s powers. Not just people, but machines and technology. Every episode feature Kamina flying into battle in the RahXephon against a dolems sent out by the Mulians to take out Terra and subjugate the world. It wins almost everytime. Yet, TERRA wants nothing to do with it and makes what they think can take on the Dolem, the Vermillion. A tiny piece of human technology that feels like it can play in the realm of the gods. It can even travel inside and outside of Tokyo Jupiter itself like the RahXephon can. The Excelsior to the Enterprise so to speak. Yet, when it actually plays into the realm, it fails to compete against forces beyond their control.
Yet what makes Ayato so wonderful is the fact that he can stand up to that control. When the direct control comes to where he will just straight out destroy the world, Kamina Ayato says no to the painting of the god he has been trying to replicate the entire series. Or at least the way he sees this god. Turns out down and instead forms a pact with Ixtli that will benefit both of them. The opposite of Quon who has always been Ayato’s opposite. The opposite that has been trained and pressured by the foundation to become the darker Xephon form. So began a competition for the fate of the world. Can pure human will have a say in what happens to the world or will it be the system design who wants the system to exist they want it to. That is one of the questions that RahXephon asks. Its what makes it so interesting.
To compare RahXephon to Evangelion one time, RahXephon is a series that lives in the realm of gods. It doesn’t hide that fact in anyway, it enjoys and thrives in it. There are a lot of small moments where the god figure will be in front of wings to make that message obvious (for a reason) or have some strange incidents that happen beyond human control and it’s just normal for these characters. There is a clear difference between something mechanical things humans made and the unexplainable.
Evangelion does a lot of work to make the surrounding areas possibly more real robot. The Evangelions are treated like mecha usually are with all the dialogue behind them while keeping them functional and the pilot alive. There are explanations and work to make it all function in a grounded way. When the mystical happens in Eva, it’s a big shock because of that effort. RahXephon is about the character surviving the affairs of the gods. Little people in the way of big things. Passions and wonders that may or may not count.
Mechanical Anime Reviews 