Episode 1:
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Rah Xephon starts us off with no idea what to expect. We catch a glimpse of a strange aircraft carrier as powerful, uplifting music plays. Military music.
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We see our pilot, though it's a poor shot — don't worry, we'll see more of her later. We also get our first glimpse of the fancy watch she wears.
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The music turns out to be the listening material for this guy.
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A strange purple-haired woman lifts the speakers off his head and listens to them for herself, commenting on "the sounds of war. Wings creak, the sounds of a beginning."
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Then the strange aircraft of our pilot, complete with its newly attached nacelle jets, soars onward into a large Jupiter-like globe in front of the station. The sky above is red.
Don't know what the hell is going on? Welcome to Rah Xephon. Please keep your tray table up and your seat in the full upright position as we prepare for liftoff.
First Movement: Invasion of the Capital «OVER LORD»
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Now the sky is blue, and we're in Tokyo. Our hero Ayato's house is weird-looking, but he seems to be a good painter, if one having a rather weird sense of backgrounds.
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Good morning, Kamina Ayato. Either you're a morning person, having been up before your 8 AM alarm, or you don't sleep. His mom's left food out, wrapped, on the table for him. "I'll be late again because of work. Good luck on your mock test." "Not late today, you mean 'late today too,' right?" Ayato says to that note. Ah, the family separated by the breadwinner always being at work. Such a classic element. Surely this is just another high school drama. But, y'know, with giant mecha!
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Meanwhile, who is this strange woman cam-cording him from across the street as he heads off to school?
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Whoever she is, she's followed him on the train (that's him on the left) and that earring she's holding isn't just jewelry. She tucks it in his bag.
Ayato becomes suspicious of footsteps — a bit too late, seeing as how he missed all the actual clandestine activities — and then gets accosted by Asahina, aka Random Genki Girl Not Appearing In The Rest Of This Series #1. Orange hair, happy smiles, no bearing on the plot. This mostly cements Ayato's position as an antisocial prat and a space-case.
It also makes me wonder if "Cheese" was ever at one point an acceptable "cool" way of saying "hi" in Japan. (Even the third time through this episode, this scene still makes me "wat" at it.)
Now Asahina's claiming they'll be late. Wait, he woke up before his alarm and he's going to be late!? Who the hell is this kid? I mean besides a boy with "protagonist" stamped on his forehead.
His worries about being stalked may not be all that far off. There are strange men in his house reporting back to someone that "he's not here, he may already have had contact." Also, he didn't eat his breakfast. Eat and sleep, kid. They're good for you.
Kids are studying for chemistry on the bus. Genki girl thinks it's useless this late. Ayato says "Effort is something to watch, not do." . . . eh? Then he talks about how ungifted people wouldn't understand. Bleh. Kid's got some serious growing to do don't h— wait train's braking!
Far above in a military helicopter, two other men talking about trying to make their way into the area. A scan of traffic reports appears on screen, noting, "Subway Number 2 Ninomaru line: Entirely Impassable. New Gorakuen Tunnel: Damage Level B."
The train didn't brake. It broke. Everyone's things are scattered on the floor. Asahina's hurt, and her shoulder's bleeding. Red, of course. Other passengers appear to be hurt, maybe unconscious. Ayato tells the others to sit tight, and Asahina to look after their friend while he goes to get help. After all, he's the only one unhurt. Escaping from the damaged tunnel, he spots the debris at the end, hears air raid sirens, and sees a military aircraft falling out of the sky. Others fly in, as tanks tell him to get out of the way. The planes look like our pilot's plane from the beginning... they take out the tank with little effort.
Ayato proceeds to freak out and yells at the sky.
The strange woman is still on the train, also unhurt, and uses her super-tech glasses to spot the target, Ayato, moving. She goes in after her. Meanwhile the pilot in the red plane takes out local military vessels. Their high-tech planes look almost alien — can this really be human technology? Fortunately Ayato stays focused on getting help for his friends even as the scenery starts to crash down around him.
Then he hears singing. He walks towards it, curious... and sees this.
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He calls to her, and she turns around... he recognizes her as "Mishima Reika."
He goes to a tumbled over vending machine to get some orange soda for the two of them, after the break, and they sit in a tunnel protected from the destruction above. "Is this a war?" she asks. "Yes. It's a war. Fancy meeting you there, though" "Same for you." "But what were you doing up there? Were you also..." This will go unexplained for quite a while, I can already tell. Mishima stands suddenly and chases after ethereal singing in the sky, walking forward. She recognizes the singing as a Dolem.
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Meanwhile, Ayato's friends seem to be doing well. The military found them and has taken them to a safe haven. They hear the singing too, and now we get a shot of the dolem in its impossible flight, lying belly-up. It rises to stand upright, and fires in a wide circle. This takes out several of the enemy craft, but also the top of a nearby office building.
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"A secret weapon of the Defense Force?" Maybe, Ayato. The defense force black suit guys up in the helicopter seem to confirm this. Then they spot Ayato. Man, everyone seems to want this kid's hide.
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Now we see the singer controlling the mech, with her weird headdress, and a military man refers to the Dolem as "Allegretto." They're worried about something waking up, but the woman at the monitor says "it won't awaken without Ollin." Seconds later, one of the monitor watchers calls back that they've spotted this Ollin.
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Meanwhile in the temporarily-closed subway station, SYMBOLISM.
Then Mishima suddenly disappears. Two people claiming to work for the government ask him to come with them. The train is coming. When he resists, one of them takes a gun to his head. Then, incoming stalker lady! DYNAMIC ENTRY. She knocks one guy out, then kicks the other guy in the head.
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He bleeds. Blue.
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Some of it gets on Ayato, and he checks his hand much like he did for Asahina.
After taking out the trash, our mysterious benefactor turns to the kid, finding him training a gun at her — completely inexpertly. His stance is horrible and he's got his elbows bent. If he fired it now he'd clonk himself in the head, and probably miss horribly even at this range. (Wait now I'm overanalyzing, nevermind).
She manages to charm him into calming down soon after, explaining that she just saved him as a "Champion of justice." He thanks her in a very Japanese fashion after handing the gun back. He then starts walking away, and she brings the point home "Whyyyyy in the world was their blood bluuuuue? That must be what you're wondering. I'll tell you, if you come with me... about everything in this world."
You're in the Matrix, Ayato. It's a mind game played on you by alien overlords to keep you from thinking about things too hard. You can take the blue blood, go back to your normal life, and call this a bad dream... or you can take the red blood and I'll show you just how deep the fugue goes.
Ayato, not knowing to bring up such a reference, says he's "not interested in older women." So she trains her gun on him — much more expertly. Locked elbow and everything. "You shouldn't embarrass a woman. :) Come on then." Mishima appears in the train car behind her, smiling. He runs to the train before it leaves, just as this strange blue-haired woman has to kick the other goon to the curb. She doesn't make it onto the train in time.
She cries to Ayato "Don't go!" But of course he has no choice. Also, she sounds less like someone unrelated chasing after him for business reasons, as her training would indicate, and more like there's something else going on... It's interesting to note as well, that we only see Mishima when the view is from Ayato's perspective. The blue-haired woman doesn't see anyone else on the train.
Meanwhile he swears while on the train, and the metal protective guards go over the windows. Mishima asks him what will happen to them. Meanwhile, the train takes them to the Shrine of Xephon. The lighting here is weird. Deep reds, bright blues downt he tunnel, "Where are we?" That's what we want to know, Mishima. The train's doors close, and the power dies. "We've got no choice but to go, I guess." Toward the light. Always a good idea, right?
A strange figure, looking vaguely like one of those limbless wooden dolls they have in Japan and also like an Egyptian pharaoh, is the first thing they see — over a hundred feet tall and suspended in the middle of a large circular cavern of some kind. It's probably another Dolem. The military spot them through security cameras nearby and note that they're heading towards the Room of Rah.
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"Send Fortissimo out as well." The mystery woman in front of the monitors again. Here we get a good shot of her, though we never get to see her eyes here. Those clothes are pretty distinctive. "But doing so would—" "Send it out."
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Here we get a good shot of the loading docks for the various Dolems — the open one is where Fortissimo emerges. (I had a cleaner shot, but frankly two images at the same angle aren't worth the bandwidth.) We also see Fortissimo itself, and soon after, the singer for that Dolem behind the monitor lady (shot missing, it's not important right now. We'll be seeing more of her later.)
Meanwhile, Ayato and Mishima walk forward, and straight into a place full of partly cloudy sky, strange columns forming a circle around the place, and water with floating hexagonal platforms in the middle. Mishima points out this.
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Giant egg wat.
Meanwhile, outside, Fortissimo and Allegretto begin to resonate, causing huge amounts of glass nearby to shatter. (It's a pity I can't do animations quickly and well, and still shots wouldn't do this scene much justice.) This also causes the thruster nacelles on one of those weird supertech planes to implode. followed by shattering the plane itself. Next we get a lovely scene of our mystery pilot in the red fighter jet flying towards this spot in the sky, which dissolves into a floating city.
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The singing seems to've penetrated into the Room of Rah, and is causing Ayato to go into conniption fits. Mishima just looks on and smiles. The egg glows. Mishima sings a tone in response. Then as the egg's symbols start to appear, Mishima commands Ayato to awaken. A sound of a drop of water, and all voices but Mishima's drop out. Ayato speaks.
"Rah... Xephon."
The egg cracks open, revealing a wing and a lot of wind. (I'd give you images for these, but the final shot is washed out, and so much of this works better in motion.)
Just then, outside, the mystery blue haired woman looks up at the floating city (which we now get a decent view of) and identifies it as the Mu, "our enemy."
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Thus ends the first episode. Wild ride, eh? Don't worry, I've been told everything will be revealed in time.
Let's listen to the haunting Ending theme, shall we?
Not that I can understand what's being said.
If you're wondering, I'm taking tons of screenshots for the first episode because there are a ton of images that will be repeated throughout this series. Also, at least for the beginning scenes, I wanted to make sure you got an idea for how utterly weird things are the first time around. This entry is not indicative of how image-heavy the rest of this LB will be. I plan to take far fewer screenshots in future episodes.
I sometimes call the dolems "mechs" or "mecha" but in reference to other shows. The Dolems are very different from normal mechs, since they're sort of made from clay. It's a little weirder than that, but we'll get to how weird as we go along in the story.
I'm trying not to spoil anything with my words, but sometimes things I show or talk about will be directly connected to future events. This is meant to let the reader have an "aha" upon seeing it, much as one would watching the show itself. Of course, it's preferable if you watch the show yourselves to follow along, especially if you can offer the original creators their share.
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