== Some reactions to *RahXephon*

I finished watching *RahXephon* last night and I want to jot down
some reactions while they're fresh in my mind. First, one striking
thing about the show is that [[it was almost compulsively watchable
https://twitter.com/cks_anime/status/407046170444591104]]. I ran through
episodes at a really high rate (for me), often watching four or five at
once until I ran out of time, and there was almost never a time where
I didn't want to watch the next episode.

Overall I feel that *RahXephon* is a good series that is somewhat let
down by its ending. Not that the ending is bad or incompetent, but
it's merely ordinary; weird but reasonably explicable stuff happens,
the show waves its hands a bit, and there is a nominally happy outcome.
In retrospect, even before the ending the show lacked the vital spark
necessary to lift it above merely competent and good (*Shingu* has that
spark, for example). With that said there's plenty of decent stuff in
the show; there are appealing characters, an engaging presentation (as
mentioned), and the show can be clever and subtle when it wants to be.
I do like how a number of things become clear in retrospect, including
Haruka's activities in Tokyo Jupiter in the first episode.
I certainly don't regret watching it.

(While the epilogue confused me initially I did wind up sorting out
what was going on and who was who, although the show seems to have
gone out of its way to be a bit confusing.)

There are unpleasant aspects, though. In particular an awful lot of
people die over the course of the show, especially at the end in a
very *End of Evangelion*-esque sequence that's essentially pointless.
The show dangles a bunch of mysteries in front of us that it doesn't
explain at all. There is a core romance in the show that I found both
somewhat unrealistic and somewhat disturbing.

After thinking about the ending for a while, sorting out more or less
what's going on in the epilogue, and reading spoilers in the Wikipedia
entry, I think that it's a happy ending and a decent one, one that
resolves what became the core issues of the series. I don't think that
it's very exciting or very powerful (this may be a generic failing with
'reset' style endings). The sequence of emotional development and so on
that led to the ending is okay but again not something I found exciting
or powerful; it was more an affirmation of what the show had developed
than anything more abrupt.

I wish it was possible for me to watch *RahXephon* without thinking
about the long shadow of *Neon Genesis Evangelion*. [[As I put it
on Twitter https://twitter.com/cks_anime/status/413538125995327488]]
I strongly believe that they're quite different stories, but the two
shows are definitely playing in the same territory and I couldn't help
but compare and contrast them as I was watching. I know that 'a better
*Evangelion*' is apparently something that Izubuchi was aiming for but
I don't think that's how *RahXephon* came out, except very broadly.

(I could write an entire entry about *RahXephon* versus *Evangelion*
and I probably will at some point.)

Liked: Yes. \\
Rewatch: Unlikely.

=== Sidebar: Some notes, especially on the ending

There are big spoilers here. In general [[the Wikipedia entry
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RahXephon]] clears up several things
if I trust it.

* I saw people wondering why Mishima Reika showed up to work for Isshiki
  Makoto when he was commander of TERRA. My view is that she showed up
  for the same reason as she had earlier; she wanted to hang out around
  Ayato and 'working' for TERRA was a convenient way of doing so. She
  disappeared again when there wasn't any point to this.

* Reika doesn't actually exist as a normal human person. I maintain
  that this is clear from her first appearance in the first episode
  (and other events in the first episode go out of their way to reinforce
  this). She is effectively a manifesting spirit or the like. Most people
  magically remember or forget her because that's what she wants.

* Ayato clearly returned at least some dead people back to life when
  he re-tuned the world, in particular Asahina. I'll assume that he
  revived at least everyone he knew about, so Souichi is alive again
  (Wikipedia states this outright but I don't believe we have any evidence
  for it in the TV series unless I missed something in passing).

* The 'Dandelion Girl Coda' post re-tuning part of the last episode
  is first in the current time, showing a married Haruka and Ayato
  (although he wears his hair very much like Itsuki) and baby Quon,
  and then in a flashback to when Ayato and Haruka first met before
  the series started (that explains the whole picture motif). I assume
  that Haruka's question about the painting is rhetorical and she knows
  perfectly well who and what it's about.

  This is not at all clear in the show and I've read people who think
  that something else is going on. However I think this version is the
  simplest answer.

(It's not clear to me if adult Ayato's voice is provided by Itsuki's
VA. Maybe I was mishearing, but his voice in the modern day segment
didn't really sound like his voice in the rest of the show.)