RahXephon the liveblog take three or so

Regarding the stockings thing - My impression is that Sayako has ruined her stockings and is asking if Haruka has a spare pair, and Haruka is interpreting that as Isshiki and Sayako having done something together to ruin them, If You Know What I Mean. Hence Haruka's reaction - she's wondering when the two linked up. (Of course, Sayako's only motivation in this is to help Itsuki, and I wouldn't trust Isshiki as far as I could throw the Rah Xephon.)

And look, the memory of vision!Haruka's come-ons is getting Ayato all bothered around the real Haruka. Nice continuity touch there.

So Maya is the head of Tokyo Jupiter. Hmmm.

Quon's deal will become a bit clearer in the seond half of the episode.

Yep, ememeber how Sayoko asked if Quon had been listening? And how she was straightening out her hair as they left? The implication is that they were having sex.

I guess some girls just like white-haired jerks.

Episode 12 Act 2

Haruka has returned to the shrine that Ayato previously was trapped in. It seems she's looking for the missing Quon. Ayato is sitting at the edge of the water, when he suddenly starts hearing Quon's singing from...somewhere. This singing seems much happier than Quon has ever been. Ayato then sees Quon at the end of the pier. This whole thing is interspersed with images of the egg, which suddenly starts glowing. And now Quon decided to open her mouth. "I found it. She showed me, Ollin." And now we get the revelation that Quon is also Ollin, i.e. the thing that I was just spoiled about a few posts back. At the base, we can see that TERRA is responding to a dolem, probably related to Quon's "instrument". Souichi(?) then asks for it to be put on the monitor, and we then see...an egg. I'm guessing this is Quon's Xephon egg. Alpha Squadron is put on standby, and Ayato is being called in to ready the RahXephon. Back at the pier, Ayato tells Quon he has to go, and that she should return to her hospital room as well. She doesn't seem to care, and keeps singing, until Ayato turns away, after which Quon turns around, and the camera pans to show us Mishima fucking Reika. Haruka then scolds Ayato for wandering off, and complains about Quon, who she didn't see—only Ayato saw Quon there.

The planes of the Alpha Squadron are firing up their engines, in preparation for launch. Ayato walks into the base, ready to be deployed into the RahXephon. He enters the weird cone-thing, and is now in the RahXephon. "It's just one photograph..." so you can see he's still rather shaken about his mother. He looks very glum while the mission is being to explained to him, but then puts on the "steely-faced determination" face and says "Yes!" when asked if he's ready. A bunch of exposition is overlaid on top of each other, none of which seems to be particularly important except for the fact that the island the dolem probably came from is under Bahbem Foundation control and that the dolem is fighting against the wind. We then get a young girl talking to Lord Bahbem about how the dolem noticed the egg, and may have noticed the island. Also, I know I've heard that voice before *does some google searching* A-ha, so it is the same voice actor as Father.

We get American Stereotype Girl screaming "Yahoo!" over the radio, and then Elvy has the planes enter Formation Delta, which apparently means "everyone fire missiles at the dolem". Also, the dolem looks like a flying mushroom. The missiles, as always, do nothing. Why do they even try? Shapplin then says something about how mushroom dolem isn't firing or countering and this means they can take it down, oblivious to the fact that if an enemy isn't firing back at you, that means it's so much more cosmically powerful that it can swat you down in seconds. They fire plane-shaped missiles that each contain a bunch of little missiles. Those missiles, as predicted, also do nothing. The dolem then opens up to reveal what looks like nothing so much as, I am not making this up, a giant pair of testicles◊. American Stereotype Girl yells out "Goddamnit! You damn mushroom!", thus showing that she had the same impression of the Dolem's shape as I did, and fires missiles at the testicles.

We then see Ayato finally having caught up to the site of the battle, and then, he starts hearing Quon's singing again. A glowing egg flashes on screen. Quon is inside the RahXephon and singing, floating right above the water in the cockpit. Goddamnit, has she turned into Mishima Reika 2.0? As Ayato goes over to see what's up with her, the front of Ayato's windshield screen thing turns into a black and white target, as the testicles change shape bizarrely in order to eat the RahXephon. This is kind of disturbing. Back in the cockpit, Quon starts rising up into the air, as a red symbol that I think is her birthmark on a white circle appears above her. Apparently Quon wants to hold her egg. The same symbol appears over the sky, but with a black circle, near the dig site in the beginning of the episode. Bahbem says something about things an instrumentalist yet to awaken cannot do, and Quon holds her hands into the air. After she does, a bunch of black feathers start coming out in both the RahXephon cockpit and the dig site, with a pair of black wings coming out in the latter as well. The dolem finishes consuming the RahXephon and then grows spikes which start glowing. We then see black wings and a huge number of Quons surrounding her egg, but then she suddenly falls away, in a sequence that is totally not a mindfuck.

The testicles reattach to the main dolem and start closing up as Ayato returns to the cockpit, but as the main dolem is almost done closing, a hand grips something in the testicle part, cuts around it, and the RahXephon escapes! He then cuts through the main dolem, which now has a bright blue wound on it and is screaming. The mushroom closes, despite having a huge chunk cut out of it and the testicle interior missing, and then cloaks itself into invisibility. Ayato holds Quon in his hands as the episode ends.

Nope, this episode doesn't make much sense either.

Ponicalica just curious, but which Dolem do you like the best?

Personally for me it's a tossup between the Allegreto and the Obligato.

I suspect the testicle-thing is entirely deliberate. Given the show.

Goggle Fox says that Japan associates mushrooms with penes, which explains both the testicle thing and Quote jamming Ma Pignon into Curly's mouth. As for my favorite dolem, probably Sforzando for building itself out of ice like that.

Falsetto here is the first dolem to escape alive since Ayato left Tokyo Jupiter. Notice that it seems to be trying to capture the Rah Xephon rather than kill it. (Do the Mulians want it back?)

So Quon seems to have her own Xephon egg - but this one is black as opposed to the white egg Ayato's Xephon came from. And black feathers, black mecha hands - we can probably guess the colour of what's inside.

Shit shit shit.

Fuck my compulsive spoiler-highlighting tendencies.

Fucking fuck.

I just learned who Mishima was! *fake smile*

There's going to be a pause in my liveblog as I try to forget.

Because fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.

EDIT: I haven't decided whether it'll be a short pause followed by me continuing, an indefinite hiatus, or me dropping the liveblog and watching the series normally.

But fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.

I seriously apologize to Arilou, hollow, and the other people following my liveblog. But I'm not sure I can continue to liveblog like this.

edited 25th Sep '10 9:33:36 PM by Ponicalica

I understand, and sympathize greatly, and if you need to stop the liveblog go ahead and do so.

I hope that the spoiler doesn't prevent you from watching the rest of the series, even if you decide not to continue the liveblog.

Oh, I'll definitely be continuing the series, even if I terminate the liveblog. I might even post a few one-line comments in the thread. I just wouldn't feel right trying to speculate while knowing pretty much the main mystery of the series.

Goggle Fox has been IMing me and suggests that they or someone else would continue the liveblog after actually watching up to that point. With that in mind, I think I'm going to drop this liveblog up until the point where Goggles or someone else comes in and picks it up.

I just watched episode 13 normally and noticed two things:

1. I would not be able to liveblog this knowing what I know now
2. The episode is a lot shorter now that I'm not liveblogging it, considering that each half-episode segment took about an hour to liveblog for me.

Well, that's a shame, Poni, but you're right. Now that the big secret's out for you, you really won't be able to watch it the same way. It's a shame, but I'm glad you'll still watch the show.

So I finished RahXephon. That was very enjoyable.

Glad you enjoyed! ^.^

I should have the resources to get what I need to pick this up, if you like. It'll just take a bit of time. I need to get it first.

As a note, I have not seen the series all the way through, and only vaguely remember much of it. I'll essentially be covering it blind from this point forward.

Update before this falls off the map and into the archives: I have ordered the complete collection of Rah Xephon. It should arrive within two weeks.

I'm uncertain at this point whether I should start where we left off, or start anew — and given that, whether to start a new thread at that time or to follow from here.

Start wherever you feel comfortable. Just know that Rah Xephon threads that start from the begining tend to run into problems.

The Rah Xephon liveblog is like this fora's Defense Against the Dark Arts class.

Well, it looks like the biggest part of it is to carry on to the end (which I'm fairly sure I can do — no technical issues to fight and I have three backups in case one of the players craps out — gotta love modern technology)... and also to prevent spoiling oneself, or to not let on one knows about what comes after so you don't spoil the audience.

Just take it at your own pace and hope no-one has left any massive unprotected spoilers on the wiki. Oh, and don't watch even the beginning of the movie until after finishing the series - the very final reveal is given away in the beginning of the movie, since the movie doesn't use the same degree of Jigsaw Puzzle Plot.