The Shadow
Member
I recently started watching Rahxephon specifically because people mention how much it's like NGE, and sometimes they say how it's so much better (I disagree but I'll get into that later). Having just finished the series, I have to admit that it does have an ending that gives it solid closure, unlike NGE(IMHO anyway). Still, there were some things that I and a few of my friends were wondering.
Was Reika a real person or just something Ayato made up?
There was some debate as to who Reika really was. I'll just explain what I thought first for simplicity sake.
Reika wasn't real. She was basically made up of fragmented memories of Ayato "remembering" Haruka way back when they were in middle school. Because of those mind control devices that the Mu used, the memory was changed and distorted but never really disappeared which is why Ayato thought she was real. The girl he was trying to draw was in fact a slightly altered memory of Haruka when she was younger.
A counter-theory that one of my friends suggested was that Reika was a real person and was at one time someone he desired the most but by meeting the older Haruka, he re-tuned the past so Haruka took the place of Reika. I disagree with that so like I said, this is still debated.
Who is who to Ayato. What is his family tree?
When Maya in one episode said she didn't carry Ayato, everyone assumed she wasn't his true mother(she may have actually said "I'm not your true mother", I don't quite remember). Later Quan calls Maya "sister" and I remember actually blurting out, "Oh shit, Quan is Ayato's mother" to the confusion of my friends. No one is quite clear on who is who to Ayato. Is Quan really Ayato's mother? Is Watari Ayato's father?(this may have been actually said, I don't remember). There was one point where Haruka calls Maya "aunt" IIRC. WTF is going on here?
I feel like this is something I need to diagram to really understand.
What/who exactly are the Mu?
Again, no one who watched it with me was exactly clear on this so this is my theory. The Mu aren't really "aliens" but aren't human either. They're from some other dimension that's parallel to our own and occasionally they get "spirited away" from their dimension and stay in ours. The head of the Foundation, that Barbem guy, was one of the first Mu to do this.
What I don't get is how a war started between Mu and Humans. Why do the Mu, through D-1s, attack human settlements? When one D-1 started attacking and seemed to be linked in some way to Hiroko, she didn't even understand that she was Mu and seemed pretty naive as to what was going on. She also didn't seem to want to attack but did so anyway. Why? Was it just something in their nature? Makoto was also referred to as a D-1 by the foundation in a few episodes, does that mean he could have attacked Humans via a D-1 or was he himself a D-1 in humanoid form?
It was the humans that created Tokyo Jupiter in that final attack against the Mu, correct?
Eh....I had more questions but I've forgotten some of them. We finished the series and talked about it last night but I guess when I fell asleep I forgot some of the things I wanted to ask.
As for comparisons between Rahxephon and NGE, I'd still give the edge to NGE if just for one major reason, the cast of characters.
The characters in NGE were complex and had their own motives. It was hard to say who was "evil" and who was "good" in NGE. You could hate a protagonist and still hope they make it through, and you could like a bad guy and not want them to die. All the characters had their hang ups, even the likable ones which IMO was very refreshing when you look at a lot of other Anime with one-dimensional characters.
Rahxephon was like a lot of other anime. Good guys were good guys and bad guys were bad guys. Characters were pretty one dimensional and even characters they attempted to expand upon to give them complexity failed miserably, Makoto in particular but also Ayato in a sense. Almost everyone associated with the Foundation was a one dimensional bad guy and just about everyone associated with Terra was good.
Ayato, like Shinji, had the raging teen angst but it seemed so artificial and wrong compared to Shinji. Though a lot of people find Shinji to be a whiney bitch, I'd defend him and say he has very good reason to be angsty. His life sucks balls, big time. In contrast, Ayato has what looks like to be a pretty good life, both in Tokyo Jupiter and out. He had a stable cast of friends in both and people who cared for him, in both worlds. He had very little reason to be angsty but he was anyway, which IHO was a lame attempt at giving him more complexity. Likewise, they dedicated a whole episode to Makoto's past in order to give him depth and yet at the end, I still didn't give a shit about him at all.
Look at a character like Asuka in NGE. All the stuff she says and does makes you absolutely hate her and yet, she's probably one of the most interesting characters ever developed in an anime IMO. You can hate her but at the same time you can sympathize and even root for her all at once. I never felt that for any of the characters in Rahxephon.
Now, that's not to say that I didn't like Rahxephon or that I didn't think it did some things right. I loved the character artwork in Rahxephon and prefer it over NGE. I think the only other anime that had similar character design was in Witch Hunter Robin.
I also liked the whole time/space distortion idea that separated Ayato from the rest of the world and did appreciate their attempt at making a more concise and clear final episode. Though I still have questions, I felt like I understood enough and the final episode was enough closure. With NGE, I had to watch EoE before I really felt like it was complete. I don't feel like I need to watch the Rahxephon movie, and from what I've heard, I might even avoid it.
So yeah, I enjoyed Rahxephon but I can't see it as a better series than NGE.
*edit*
Holy shit. They may in fact be my longest post ever.
Was Reika a real person or just something Ayato made up?
There was some debate as to who Reika really was. I'll just explain what I thought first for simplicity sake.
Reika wasn't real. She was basically made up of fragmented memories of Ayato "remembering" Haruka way back when they were in middle school. Because of those mind control devices that the Mu used, the memory was changed and distorted but never really disappeared which is why Ayato thought she was real. The girl he was trying to draw was in fact a slightly altered memory of Haruka when she was younger.
A counter-theory that one of my friends suggested was that Reika was a real person and was at one time someone he desired the most but by meeting the older Haruka, he re-tuned the past so Haruka took the place of Reika. I disagree with that so like I said, this is still debated.
Who is who to Ayato. What is his family tree?
When Maya in one episode said she didn't carry Ayato, everyone assumed she wasn't his true mother(she may have actually said "I'm not your true mother", I don't quite remember). Later Quan calls Maya "sister" and I remember actually blurting out, "Oh shit, Quan is Ayato's mother" to the confusion of my friends. No one is quite clear on who is who to Ayato. Is Quan really Ayato's mother? Is Watari Ayato's father?(this may have been actually said, I don't remember). There was one point where Haruka calls Maya "aunt" IIRC. WTF is going on here?
I feel like this is something I need to diagram to really understand.
What/who exactly are the Mu?
Again, no one who watched it with me was exactly clear on this so this is my theory. The Mu aren't really "aliens" but aren't human either. They're from some other dimension that's parallel to our own and occasionally they get "spirited away" from their dimension and stay in ours. The head of the Foundation, that Barbem guy, was one of the first Mu to do this.
What I don't get is how a war started between Mu and Humans. Why do the Mu, through D-1s, attack human settlements? When one D-1 started attacking and seemed to be linked in some way to Hiroko, she didn't even understand that she was Mu and seemed pretty naive as to what was going on. She also didn't seem to want to attack but did so anyway. Why? Was it just something in their nature? Makoto was also referred to as a D-1 by the foundation in a few episodes, does that mean he could have attacked Humans via a D-1 or was he himself a D-1 in humanoid form?
It was the humans that created Tokyo Jupiter in that final attack against the Mu, correct?
Eh....I had more questions but I've forgotten some of them. We finished the series and talked about it last night but I guess when I fell asleep I forgot some of the things I wanted to ask.
As for comparisons between Rahxephon and NGE, I'd still give the edge to NGE if just for one major reason, the cast of characters.
The characters in NGE were complex and had their own motives. It was hard to say who was "evil" and who was "good" in NGE. You could hate a protagonist and still hope they make it through, and you could like a bad guy and not want them to die. All the characters had their hang ups, even the likable ones which IMO was very refreshing when you look at a lot of other Anime with one-dimensional characters.
Rahxephon was like a lot of other anime. Good guys were good guys and bad guys were bad guys. Characters were pretty one dimensional and even characters they attempted to expand upon to give them complexity failed miserably, Makoto in particular but also Ayato in a sense. Almost everyone associated with the Foundation was a one dimensional bad guy and just about everyone associated with Terra was good.
Ayato, like Shinji, had the raging teen angst but it seemed so artificial and wrong compared to Shinji. Though a lot of people find Shinji to be a whiney bitch, I'd defend him and say he has very good reason to be angsty. His life sucks balls, big time. In contrast, Ayato has what looks like to be a pretty good life, both in Tokyo Jupiter and out. He had a stable cast of friends in both and people who cared for him, in both worlds. He had very little reason to be angsty but he was anyway, which IHO was a lame attempt at giving him more complexity. Likewise, they dedicated a whole episode to Makoto's past in order to give him depth and yet at the end, I still didn't give a shit about him at all.
Look at a character like Asuka in NGE. All the stuff she says and does makes you absolutely hate her and yet, she's probably one of the most interesting characters ever developed in an anime IMO. You can hate her but at the same time you can sympathize and even root for her all at once. I never felt that for any of the characters in Rahxephon.
Now, that's not to say that I didn't like Rahxephon or that I didn't think it did some things right. I loved the character artwork in Rahxephon and prefer it over NGE. I think the only other anime that had similar character design was in Witch Hunter Robin.
I also liked the whole time/space distortion idea that separated Ayato from the rest of the world and did appreciate their attempt at making a more concise and clear final episode. Though I still have questions, I felt like I understood enough and the final episode was enough closure. With NGE, I had to watch EoE before I really felt like it was complete. I don't feel like I need to watch the Rahxephon movie, and from what I've heard, I might even avoid it.
So yeah, I enjoyed Rahxephon but I can't see it as a better series than NGE.
*edit*
Holy shit. They may in fact be my longest post ever.