What is this?
Rah Xephon is a rather strange take on the "mecha" genre of anime. It includes tons of sub-plots intermingling, an extensive background, wonderful art direction, and many, many references to music theory and history. It's one of those stories that you have to watch closely, since if you blink you'll likely miss something important.
Okay, that's what show you're watching. But what is this?
I'm doing a "Let's Watch" of this show. It's been a few tries on this forum, by different people, to get a complete run of this show from beginning to end, and after ponicalica's run unfortunately ended in the middle, I've taken up the mantle. I have the full collection with me, and I'm going to try to produce at least one update per week. Unfortunately, these updates take a while to compose, so I can't promise I'll stay consistent with updates.
I've heard Rah Xephon's just a ripoff of Evangelion anyway. Is that true?
Eh... no. It's inspired by Evangelion, but they're not the same in the least. Think of it as what happens when people who grew up after having seen Eva rip the Super Robot genre a new one react to that, and try to create something of their own, something beautiful. Eva looks at the world and tears it down, claiming it's worthless. Rah Xephon looks at the world and claims it's flawed, shows you those flaws, then shows you the beauty that lies there also. Then it brings the world back from its ashes.
In short, where some reconstructions of the genre tried to bring back the old formula, Rah Xephon chose to throw aside formula entirely, and tells its own story. I think it does a pretty good job, but it's nothing if not mind screwy.
How will you be doing this?
Mostly text, but peppered with images here and there. So as not to make Fast Eddie scream bloody murder at us all, I'm going to try to keep the images small in size so their footprint on the server is likewise small. I'd do without the images, but let's face it, walls of text with no reference to go by isn't going to help anything, and this show is defined heavily by its art direction. To not take screenshots would be a great disservice to the show and to you.
So is this blind or not?
Half of it's blind. I haven't seen past about episode 14 or so. The first half I've seen before, but I wasn't paying very close attention. By the very nature of this LB, I'll be paying tons of attention to the story this time. Consider this an analysis that you're free to add to as you wish. (That's what comments are for, after all!)
That said, do not post spoilers. It's more for readers' sakes than mine, but seriously, just don't. This is your one and only warning.
Alright, let's do this thing.
Couldn't agree more. Be with you in a moment.
