Bye Bye All of Evangelion, Hello All of Rahxephon

As the final film in the saga of the Rebuild of Evangelion series hits Amazon Prime, the candle light can finally be put out for its creators. After what seems like an eternity of speculation, delays and countless questioning, Evangelion 3.0  +  1.0 is here and Studio Khara can finally sit back and exhale. Evangelion is over. But with Eva’s story being finally over, it has my mind wander over to one of my old favorites. An anime of the early 2000’s often accused of being a rip off of Evangelion, merely whispered about by those few who cherish it:

RAHXEPHON

Though it reads like I’m claiming Rahxephon is this lost to time rare gem of anime that few have heard of and fewer have witnessed… that’s actually not true. When it debuted in 2002, Rahxephon was immensely popular: reported to be pulling in viewers by the 10,000s as it aired in Japan, it was an amazing success, the best Animation Studio Bones could hope for their first Tv original anime. It won ‘Best Anime’ at the 7th Animation Kobe Fair, was popular enough for a theatrical film to be commissioned and had very healthy American DVD sales. Rahxephon was a success, that cannot be denied. But it breaks my heart that that success isn’t remembered… so here I am. Join me as I take this time to write a love letter to a classic of anime yesteryear. Who knows, maybe if I can convince you to remember Rahxephon as more than just an Eva clone.

A brief synopsis of Rahxephon:

Early in the morning, 17-year-old Ayato Kamina finishes a painting of a girl overlooking an oceanfront. After a sudden airstrike on his home of Tokyo, he meets a girl that looks just like his painting among the destruction and soon finds himself questioning his entire reality as a woman calling herself Haruka Shitow promises to tell him the truths of both Tokyo and the rest of the world he believes to be extinct. Ayato soon finds himself as the pilot of the winged God-like Titian ‘Rahxephon’ and now fights for the Earth’s military: TERRA, against the world where his friends, his mother and his old life remain.

Before we dive into the deeper story, I’d like to give some background on Rahxephon, and the landscape of anime when it was released.

Rahxephon’s Background

Directed/created by Yutaka Izubuchi, a veteran mecha designer, Rahxephon was the first anime television show from the new hotshot Studio Bones; a company formed from high profile former employees of the sci fi juggernaut studio Sunrise (Mobile Suit Gundam, Vision of Escafllowne, Cowboy Bebop). Bones had several film productions under their belt with the feature adaptation of Escaflowne and Cowboy Bebop: Knocking of Heavens Door. Both titles had proved that the studio could handle emotional sweeping fantasy and cool as ice sci-fi action, but that was on film schedules that were attached to well-beloved and established properties. Striking out with their own property in an age of new technology would be a hell of a mountain to climb for any new studio. But Bones put on its gloves and got busy.

Rahxephon was Studio Bone’s first tv anime and in a time where anime was going fully digital: An entire medium having honed its craft on cellular animation had now flipped the table with the unanimous adoption of digital animation/painting. Whilst cheaper and easy to produce, the early days of digital anime were rough. With studios desperately getting used to new colouring, lighting techniques, character designs etc. There were many stumbles in the early years of the 2000’s. Even titans like the aforementioned Sunrise fell prey to this; with their flagship franchise Mobile Suit Gundam, having its latest entry Gundam Seed, with stale, flat and muted colours, stiff animation for both characters and mobile suits alike and character designs with a severe case of same face syndrome.

Gundam seed’s choice of muted colours, and over corrective shiny lighting led to its characters and backgrounds being noticeably not up to par with prior Gundam series as Sunrise struggled to adapt to new animation technology.

Rahxephon’s choice of colours and organic character designs help it achieve a timeless look whilst setting a high standard that Studio Bones would follow for the rest of its career.

Why Rahxephon is worth watching 

Rahxephon stands tall as one of the most vibrant, expressive looking anime of that entire decade. Using a luscious colour pallet of warm yellows, oranges and reds, Rahxephon elicits a welcoming yet infinitely mysterious tone through its colours alone. Added to this, wonderful, experimental cinematography would play with aspect ratios and framing. Bold expressive character designs that would become the golden standard of Bones for years to come. With shows like Wolf’s Rain and their original adaptation of Fullmetal Alchemist, Bones was firing on all cylinders in the early 2000s with original bold anime that would have not been possible without Rahxephon’s runaway success. I dare say there might not be a My Hero Academia anime if Bones had stumbled and fallen in these first critical years of making anime. From expressive character animation to bold weighty battles between gold like machines, Rahxephon boasted an animation quality that few other anime airing that year cold hope to match.

Add luscious and ominous music that would not only fit the series’ themes about emotion through song, but also stand-alone as gorgeous compositions of their own merit and you have a universe that emanates a harmony between real robot sci fi, fantasy (the mechanical design of the robotic titans are truly marvellous) and painfully relatable interpersonal drama. Ichiko Hashimoto gives the music in Rahxephon a rich diversity of genres and tones. Haunting piano pieces emanating mystery and danger, mixing in seeds of Hashimoto’s Jazz routes are met with pieces fused with electronic synth rhythms and bombastic, operatic horns and violins. As mentioned, music is a major theme with Rahxephon:

 With Ayato being called an instrumentalist, the Rahxephon mech itself using a devastating musical scream as an attack and the concept of ‘tuning’ the world tying the show that much closer to its utterly stunning soundtrack.

 If you’re the kind of anime fan that adores long contemplative dialogue scenes against the backdrop of intrigue, symbolism and high concept sci-fi this will get your motor running. Rahxephon is the perfect blend of contemplative and cool, the golden standard we prescribe to properties like Ghost in the Shell and a certain Gainax show I’ll get to. A great mixture of high stakes action, sci-fi realisations and dramatic revelations both romantic and malicious. 

Characters are nothing to sneeze at all either. Series protagonist Ayato Kamina is one of my favourite characters in fiction. I can see a lot of myself in Ayato in his highest and lowest moments. Ayato is an impressively active protagonist that is very easy to like and someone I aspire to emulate as a human being. His conflict of personal identity, overcoming depressive phases and accepting himself and the world around him is one that gives me great strength. Inevitably Ayato will always be compared against Evangelion’s Shinji. Both are teenagers thrust into worlds of military mecha action against their will, both have visions of psychological disparity and both deal with self-hatred. Granted this is a firm trope of Mecha anime in general, that was in place far before Evangelion took the stage. But I can forgive people for making the comparison.

What makes Ayato stand tall as his own man and firmly step out of Shinji’s shadow is his ability to act as his own agent. Shinji is penned as being an innately passive protagonist, this isn’t a criticism. It’s merely an observation. Both works are trying to tell different stories with different characters. What I find so enthralling about Ayato and the cast of Rahxephon is their ability to suffer hardship and still walk forward. Its easy to write a cynical show about cynical people. Its much harder to write a story with loves lost, hearts broken and people destroyed and still have said people have kindness left in their hearts.

A key moment for me is about halfway through the series when a dramatic revelation about Ayato’s origins that I dare not spoil is brought to the forefront of the story. Ayato is understandably distraught, not knowing who is lying to him, not knowing if the people around him whom he has come to care for are really his friends and colleagues. Has he traded one invisible prison for another?

The Winged Titan Rahxephon is among the most unique Mecha designs in all of anime and a personal favorite of mine.

He sits alone in a sunlit rock garden, wondering why he pilots the godly Titan that brings him pain and distrust. With military personal scrambling jet fighters, chaos and firefights peppering the towering clay mecha attack the Terra base Ayato finds his answer…

Because he can

Ayato realises that regardless of the pain or the paranoia, he has the ability to protect lives at stake. That responsibility as the one person who can pilot the Rahxephon finally clicks with him and he sprints towards the Rahxephon, knowing he has a duty, not to Terra, but to himself. This kind of character revelation would usually happen towards the tail end of a series, but in the capable hands of Rahxephon’s writing staff, Ayato comes to terms with his role as the Rahxephon’s instrumentalist with about a third of the series left to unravel.

‘But you will be Back’

The development Ayato and Haruka’s relationship is an undeniable highlight of the show.

Co-star Intelligence officer Haruka Shitow is wonderfully complex and caring, in many ways she’s the heart of this show as we see her deal with her responsibilities as a military officer and at home with her family (As you can imagine I developed a heavy crush on her). Her dynamic with her younger sister Megumin is also a wonderful highlight, bouncing between icy cool and competent one minute, bubbly and childlike the next (despite being the older more mature sibling, at times its like Megumin is the voice of maturity). The Shitow family welcome Ayato in with open arms and it’s often they who remind the audience of the good that still remains in this world of conspiracy and dark mystery. I could gush and get teary-eyed at the extended cast until the stars turn cold, but I’ll let you fall in love with them in your own time. Whilst you’re fine with either language I have to recommend the English dub as ADV films created what might be their best work. Magnificent performances from Chris Patton as Ayato, Hillary Hagg as Megumin and Monica Rial stealing the show as Haruka. Rahxephon was a big step up for English dubs of the time and would usher in a golden age for ADV as the 2000s rolled out with dubs like Full Metal Panic and Welcome to the NHK.

However, as much as Rahxephon attracted praise it also built up a reputation as a pale imitation, a copy of another popular robot show that even 26 years after its debut, is inescapable from anime discussion…

Stepping out of Eva’s Shadow

 An important aspect I can’t help but bring up is Rahxephon’s relationship to Neon Genesis Evangelion. Rahxephon is often touted as being an ‘Eva clone’ or a rip off of Anno’s tv show and whilst there are undoubtedly similarities, once they get going both shows have very different souls when you look at them side by side. The truth is English speaking anime fandom has a tough time distinguishing between what Evangelion brought to the table of mecha anime, and what was already there, but that’s an article for another day. Evangelion and Rahxephon have a shared ancestry, in many ways they are blood brothers of Mecha anime. The directors of both shows were actually old drinking friends who had worked together on projects like Mobile Suit Gundam: Char’s Counterattack as mechanical designers and grew up on similar mecha anime such as Mobile Suit Gundam and Brave Raideen. Both Hideaki Anno and Yutaki Izubuchi made shows sewn from the souls of robot anime they held close in their hearts. Stories that encapsulate everything they knew was great about the genre that they love, even if their future audiences wouldn’t recognise that effort.

If you like Evangelion you owe it to yourself to watch Rahxephon. Not as direct comparisons, but as complementary pieces. There’s even an episode that tackles similar themes to the End of Evangelion but in the span of a single episode; Episode 11 ‘Nightmare’. Its penned by the legendary Chiaki J Konada (Serial Experiments Lain) and is one of my personal favourite episodes of anime ever.

Ayato running between his realities. Episode 11- Nightmare

I discovered this series when I was 20, a scared third-year university student longing for a world to escape and envelope me, and appropriately to the show in question, I fell in love. Whilst Rahxephon may be a tale of science fiction mystery, cool mecha fights and inter-dimensional mythology, at its beating warm heart it is a love story about reconnecting. Rahxephon was rescued with a Blu ray release after 20 long years of being stuck in standard definition and is currently available to stream on HIDIVE along with its film retelling Pluralitas Concentio (which I also heartily recommend as a solid recap film with original plot elements added in). Whilst I doubt it will have the renaissance that Evangelion had when Netflix acquired its streaming rights, I hope it gives at least a few more people the chance to bask in one of the greatest anime of the 2000’s.

 I truly love Rahxephon with all my open soul. It was a time in my life where I was desperate to fall in love, and through these characters and their stories of struggling identity and self-acceptance, I felt at one with myself.

Thank you Rahxephon.