History YMMV / RahXephon

* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic: The entire soundtrack, composed by Music/IchikoHashimoto. Music/YokoKanno did the opening theme "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCDoifoKkLA Hemisphere]]", sung by Creator/MaayaSakamoto. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNHdbiZPdOo Here it is]] without the SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome action drowning it out.

** "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4x5SAseoJI4 The Garden of Everything]]", which is a sung as a duet between Maaya Sakamoto and Steve Conte, with the former actually singing in SurprisinglyGoodEnglish alongside the latter, and also singing a hauntingly beautiful rendition of "Polovtsian Dances" as part of the main chorus.

* HilariousInHindsight: Quite a few things once all the relationships tangled by time, cloning, and family become clear.
** Ayato's claim in the first episode that he's "not interested in older women" is much more amusing on the second viewing.
** There's much, ''much'' more, actually. This anime thrives on making small conversations much more interesting with a second viewing. For example, when Ayato first visits Itsuki's place, Itsuki mentions that it should be like visiting a relatives house. Ayato replies that he's never done that. The {{irony}} in this is that unknown to Ayato [[spoiler:Itsuki is Ayato's clone and Quon is their biological mother.]]
** An out of universe example. This series is thought to have been inspired by ''Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion''. Creator/MaayaSakamoto, who plays the softspoken, gentle, ethereal Reika, later plays (the HotBlooded AxCrazy BloodKnight of an Eva pilot) Mari Illustrious Makinami in ''Anime/RebuildOfEvangelion''. In addition (and in-universe), the uniforms of the crew of [[spoiler:AAA Wunder]] bear a pronounced resemblance to those of TERRA with their sleeveless jacket designs. (This might be intentional, as [=RahXephon=] director Izubuchi did costume designs for Rebuild.)
** The protagonist of a HumongousMecha anime is named [[Anime/TengenToppaGurrenLagann Kamina]] (albeit as his last name). That should speak for itself.
** To emphasize the strangeness of the in-universe history compared to ours, an offhand comment indicates that sometime by 2024 skateboarding became an Olympic sport. In real life, skateboarding made its Olympic debut during Tokyo 2020.

** The intro sequence to the show is done with the Overture to Die Meistersinger as the background music.

* TheyCopiedItSoItSucks: The most common criticism of the show is that it's a "rip-off" of ''Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion'', which is unavoidable given the similarities. Even among people who like the show, its similarities to ''Evangelion'' are sometimes cited as a negative.

** An out of universe example. This series is thought to have been inspired by ''Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion''. Creator/MaayaSakamoto, who plays the softspoken, gentle, ethereal Reika, later plays (the HotBlooded AxCrazy BloodKnight of an Eva pilot) Mari Illustrious Makinami in ''Anime/RebuildOfEvangelion''. In addition (and in-universe), the uniforms of the crew of [[spoiler:AAA Wunder]] bear a pronounced resemblance to those of TERRA with their sleeveless jacket designs.

* GeniusBonus: Things make more sense with knowledge of Mayan mythology and concepts.

** An out of universe example. This series is thought to have been inspired by ''Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion''. Creator/MaayaSakamoto, who plays the softspoken, gentle, ethereal Reika, later plays (the HotBlooded AxCrazy BloodKnight of an Eva pilot) Mari Illustrious Makinami in ''Anime/RebuildOfEvangelion''. In addition (and in-universe), the uniforms of the crew of [[spoiler:AAA Wunder ]] bear a pronounced resemblance to those of TERRA with their sleeveless jacket designs.

* WhatDoYouMeanItsNotSymbolic: Incredibly so. Some are:
** The intro sequence to the show is done with the Overture to Die Meistersinger as the background music.
** A recurring sequence (arguably a form of leitmotif) is, when Ayato meets Reika, she is in a higher place than he is with her back turned to him, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dandelion_Girl wearing a yellow dress]]. She than turns towards him and smiles. This is sometimes coupled with a picture of wings behind her that makes it look like she has wings.
*** She's also wearing a scarf. When caught by the wind, it looks like wings.

* CompleteMonster: [[InsaneAdmiral Commander Masayoshi Kuki]], the former superior of Jin Kunugi and the ruthless and heartless military leader of the Mu, is willing to kill thousands for [[AmbitionIsEvil power]]. Originally on the side of humanity, Commander Kuki forced his then-subordinate Kunugi to launch a nuclear strike against a Mu attack, knowing it would kill many innocent civilians, including Kunugi's daughter. He then defected to the Mu after getting trapped in Tokyo Jupiter when the Mu took over, becoming the military leader of the government. Spearheading the Dolem invasions, he was responsible of the many deaths from those invasions. When the Mu decided to go full-force against humanity, Kuki leads the initial charg,e ordering everyone to surrender or face the military might of the Mu, using an unsuspecting city [[MakeAnExampleOfThem as an example]] by obliterating it and its citizens. He then leads the attack against the TERRA main base, where he found out that his former subordinate became its leader. Amused, Kuki decide to sadistically taunt Kunugi about his past sins, claiming he alone is responsible for the nuclear strike and belittling him as a weak and useless commander as he slowly destroys TERRA's defense system to kill Kunugi. Despite his minimal appearance, Kuki shows himself as a remorseless monster who would do anything for power.

** With the possible exception of the SuspiciouslySimilarSong in [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNHdbiZPdOo The Chariot]]. It's a pretty blatant hybrid of [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5Qo9iAB9q0 Decisive Battle]] and [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uatJjTFAbZU The Beast II]], both from ''Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion''.