Starting last year, an anime series called RahXephon was released on DVD in the US, but my viewing of the series was sporadic due to the vagaries of Netflix availability and the staggered nature of the release of the 7-disc series. Now I'm near obsessing. I'll do my best to avoid spoilers.
My viewing of the series was so sporadic that by the middle discs, the already complex story was incomprehensible because I couldn't recall details from previous discs. By the end of the 6th disc, I was rating the series pretty low. But then the 7th disc came out and intrigued me enough (alright, it blew me away) to give the entire series another try, so I queued up the whole series in a row on Netflix and watched it in a week.
After the 7th disc, I thought, "I have no idea what just happened here, but it was brilliant!", and gave it five stars.
It is a brilliant anime from start to finish, even though I still haven't quite figured out the very complex storyline, and the interpersonal relationships are also mad complicated. But it's anime, different standards are required. An open mind is required. Allowing for artistic license is required. Remembering that we're dealing with wacked-out Japanese creativity is required. Even the director stated that his hope was that people don't think too much about it, and that it would evoke certain feelings without explanation. Kind of a cop-out for poor plot plotting, but alright.
But I like thinking and putting pieces together. And yes, there are huge holes in the plot and the logic, but the parts that can be put together to reveal something about a larger whole are brilliant. There are a lot of things to put together over the span of several episodes, including characters, back story, names, and even the music (a music theme is central to the concept), so unfortunately, this is a fan anime, not conducive to watching it only once. And I do accept the director's emphasis on the emotional impact. They did the emotional impact well enough for me to overlook the plot and logic holes.
I've heard RahXephon compared to another anime, Neon Genesis Evangelion, which was released 10 years ago and I think it's already considered a classic. It's true, the comparison is uncanny. It's possible to draw direct lines between various characters in the two anime, and the whole giant-robot-defeating-approaching-nasties thing is pretty stock in anime; almost tired.
RahXephon definitely owes a lot to Evangelion, but Evangelion's storyline is linear* compared to RahXephon. There's one episode in RahXephon that was totally heart-wrenching, and I don't think Evangelion had a comparable episode. And whereas Evangelion ultimately focuses on the theme of the individual*, RahXephon takes on a much wider view, one involving our planet as a whole, and I found that much more intriguing and challenging.
*original series ending. the alternate ending in the separate "The End of Evangelion" changes the focus and feel of the entire series. for the better in my opinion.
Oh, and being a conservatory-trained musician, I have one pet peeve. The proper pronounciation of the word "timbre", the identifying characteristics or "color" of a sound, is "tamber". I think pronouncing it "timber" is accepted in the dictionary, but you would be in "the know" to pronounce it "correctly". I prefer watching anime in the original Japanese with subtitles, but when I saw the word "timbre", I had to rewind and check the English dub to see if they got it right. They didn't. Gr.
OK, I'm not conservatory-trained, but I did go to school right next door to a conservatory.
Not to be afraid.
All the people I've ever known.
all the lives that have touched mine
brushed against mine
grasped mine.
And it all goes on.
It all transforms.
it all passes and continues.
Different dimensions, different realities
they all go on and continue.
You can stay stuck in the one
you're conditioned in,
the one you know.
Or jump dimensions, or
jump timelines.
You can even be granted to
live in the memory you
most cherish.
Haruka, the moment she...
