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Reviews Anime / Rah Xephon

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Bartzv Since: Mar, 2013
03/19/2015 05:51:21 •••

It's alright, but it's not as good as Evangelion

I just finished watching RahXephon, and as many people have said, it really is Neon Genesis Evangelion lite. The similarities in both characters and plot are too numerous to ignore.

It's less angsty than Evangelion, and while that will definitely appeal to some people, it leaves most of the characters feeling very flat and bland. The Evangelion characters were engaging because they had deep emotional problems that informed their personalities and actions, making them complex three-dimensional characters that felt real. Take that away and the characters become less interesting and more stock; that's how most of the RahXephon characters felt. Because of this, the emotional element doesn't pack as much of a punch as it did in Evangelion. That being said, the romance between the two main characters was the most emotionally resonant aspect of the show.

As for the plot, it starts off pretty slow but begins to pick up around the halfway point. It's also surprisingly difficult to follow. Eva gets a lot of flack for being incomprehensible, but it really isn't hard to understand at all. I was watching RahXephon attentively and by the end I only had a vague idea of what was happening and why because so many plot points are either unexplained or only vaguely explained at best. The details weren't always clear in Evangelion, but I could always get the gist of what was happening at any given time and why it was happening. Ironically, it's only because the plot is so similar to Eva's that I was able to grasp what was happening at all.

The show looks fine visually, though the RahXephon and the Dolums don't really stand out to me design-wise when compared to the Evangelions and the Angels. The music is pretty good, but one track that stuck out to me was the battle theme. Continuing the Eva comparisons, the battle theme sounds very similar to some of Eva's battle music, suspiciously similar.

If it sounds like I'm being hard on RahXephon, that's because its being so similar to Evangelion is practically inviting comparisons; and when compared, it comes off like a watered-down version. In spite of all that though, I did think the show was alright for what it was overall. I can see why some people would prefer this to Evangelion, but it just didn't resonate with me the way Eva did.


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