RahXephon

Related Topics:
RahXephon

is a popular science fiction anime television series about young Ayato Kamina, his ability to control a godlike mecha known as the RahXephon, and his inner journey to find a place with the world around him. The story begins in early 21st century Japan; a seemingly peaceful Tokyo is suddenly attacked by invaders while Ayato is stalked by a mysterious woman.

The 26 episode television series was directed by Yutaka Izubuchi, produced by BONES and aired January 21–September 10, 2002. The English language translation was produced by ADV Films, and was released on 7 volumes of DVD video. It was released in Singapore by Odex. A summary movie was made based on the TV series; most of its scenes are adapted from the TV episodes, but it also features some new scenes. Novels, computer games, an extra OVA episode, an audio drama and several illustration books were also created. There is also a somewhat tweaked manga adaptation.

Music, mystery and personal intrigues are central elements of RahXephon's plot. The series shows clear influences from philosophy, Japanese folklore and western literature, in particular from the writings of James Churchward.

Characters

This section represents the story as told in the television series. The manga and movie are different in some respects, including cutting and merging characters. Character names are in western order.

At the beginning of RahXephon Ayato Kamina is a modest 17 year old living in Tōkyō. Not exactly a model student, he enjoys his spare time painting and being with his class mates Hiroko Asahina and Mamoru Torigai. Ayato's mother Maya spends a lot of her time at work, making his relationship with her rather distant though still loving.

Reika Mishima, another class mate of Ayato's, meets him during an attack on Tōkyō and leads him to the RahXephon. Haruka Shitow, an agent of the agency TERRA, takes Ayato and the RahXephon to TERRA's base.

At the base, Ayato pilots the RahXephon and gets to know the TERRA personnel Megumi Shitow, Jin Kunugi, Elvy Hadhiyat, and Dr. Itsuki Kisaragi among them, and moves in with professor Rikudoh, Megumi's uncle. Quon Kisaragi, a girl living with Dr. Kisaragi, seems to share some of Ayato's abilities; she is a musician.

Ernst von Bähbem of the Bähbem Foundation sponsors the work of TERRA, while the Federation (a future UN) takes an interest in TERRA's operations.

As the story progresses, friendships, past romances, adoptions and family relationships are revealed. Some of these revelations may be surprising, but hints to them may be found earlier in the story.

Plot

Background

The premise of RahXephon is the fight between Humans, and pan-dimensional invaders known as the Mulians, short Mu (pronounced "moo", or "moo‧li‧ans"). The Mu appear to be human; the only noticeable physical difference seems to be their blue blood.

The Mu first invaded Earth in the late 1990s. After a conflict with humans that escalated to nuclear war, in 2012, the Mu enveloped the entire city of Tokyo and some outlying suburbs within a trans-dimensional sphere resembling Jupiter. The sphere is referred to as "Tōkyō Jupiter". This "absolute barrier" is generally considered impassable, although it turns out that with enough power and technology it is possible to cross and even destroy it. The Mu control Tōkyō; its citizens are completely cut off from the outside world and have been led to believe that the rest of the Earth has been destroyed. The barrier has a dilatory effect on time, with time inside Tōkyō-Jupiter passing about one-sixth as fast as the outside time.

Although RahXephon is usually placed in the mecha genre of anime, its "mechas" aren't mechanical at all. They are referred to as "Dolems". Dolems are made of clay, like golem, and are animated by a musical force resembling magic. Further, each Dolem is bound to a controlling "instrumentalist" Mulian; when a Dolem is destroyed, the Mulian piloting it is killed as well.

The underlying theme of RahXephon is one of music and sound. A Dolem attacks while singing, and sometimes the attack is the song itself. The RahXephon can also attack by having its pilot — the instrumentalist — sing a song. These songs in turn unleash powerful forces (such as light-energy blasts or heat waves) that cause destruction on an apocalyptic scale. Each of the Mulian Dolems has an Italian name which references musical notation, like "Allegretto", "Falsetto", or "Vivace". The ultimate goal of the RahXephon is to "tune the world". According to the show's creators, the name "RahXephon" is composed of "Rah" (the Mulian sun-god), "X" for the X factor (the unknown), and "-ephon" as a suffix for instrument (en:-phone).

Central plot

The unusual relationship between Ayato Kamina and Haruka Shitow is one of the most important plotlines of the series.

Ayato and Haruka first met before the Tōkyō Jupiter incident. Haruka lived with her mother, who was a widow at that time; their family name was "Mishima". Ayato, a boy genetically engineered by the Bähbem Foundation to become an instrumentalist, was also living in Tōkyō with his adoptive mother, Maya Kamina, who was in charge of his education. His clone, known as Itsuki Kisaragi, was being raised at the Bähbem Manor at the same time.

After their initial meeting, Haruka and Ayato fell in love with each other and were rarely parted. However, during the Tōkyō Jupiter incident, Haruka Mishima and her mother were away from Tōkyō on a holiday trip while Ayato remained inside. Some time after this forcible separation, Haruka's mother married again and her family name became Shitow. Haruka's sister, Megumi, was born. In the meantime, Haruka had a relationship with Itsuki Kisaragi (probably because he was so similar to Ayato), but her heart always belonged to Ayato. Another change in Haruka's life after Tōkyō Jupiter was that she started to have her hair cut shorter.

Ayato sustained heavy mental damage from losing his beloved one, and Maya modified his memories to make him forget Haruka. There is considerable evidence scattered throughout the series that the entire population of Tōkyō Jupiter has also been collectively brainwashed by the Mu. Though Ayato had forgotten Haruka, visions of her continued to haunt him, which is clearly visible in his paintings. Ixtli, RahXephon's soul, also adopted Haruka's appearance and family name (Mishima) but took a different given name, Reika.

By the time Haruka infiltrated Tōkyō Jupiter and met Ayato again, she (as well as Dr. Itsuki Kisaragi) was considerably older than he (because of time dilation) but despite his original mistrust, Ayato gradually re-discovered his love for her. By the end of the series, Ayato ascends to the status of a new god (together with his genetic mother, Quon Kisaragi). Haruka flies to be with Ayato, or perhaps to wake him from his fury, but her fighter jet is destroyed by a point-blank shot from the RahXephon's energy beams that were actually aimed at Quon.

In any case, after Ayato's RahXephon "defeated" and merged with Quon's, he "re-tuned the world" (i.e. modified the past) so that he and Haruka would not have been separated in the Incident. In the final shots of the series, adult Ayato (who can now easily be mistaken for Dr. Kisaragi) is seen with Haruka and their daughter whom they named after Quon.

Production and media

Anime

Episodes

Each episode of RahXephon has a title screen that provides an English title for that episode, which generally does not correspond to a translation from the Japanese title. The titles listed below are the official English titles, with the official translations from Japanese in parentheses.

OVER LORDNamed after Operation Overlord – The 1944 Allied invasion of Normandy. (Invasion of the Capital)
AWAKENING (God and Man Awaken)
Welcome to our town (City of Two / The Town with Two People)
Watch the year hand (His own Watch)
On Earth As It Is In Heaven (Nirai-Kanai)
Lost Songs Forgotten Melodies (Obliterated Cities)
Phantom in the Cloud (Day of Assembly)
The Dreaming Stone (Bitterly Cold Holy Night)
SANCTUARY (Small Shrine of Time)
War In The remembrance (Sonata of Recollection)
Nightmare (Continuing Path of Empty Wickedness)
Resonance (The Black Egg)
Sleeping Beauty (Human Specimen #1)
Time After Time (The Boy in the Mirror)
Child Hood's End Named after the novel Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke. "The overlords" appear as characters. (The Children's Night)
The Moon Princess (Island of Others)
Ground Zero (Return to the Labyrinth)
The Memory of Lost City (The Bond of Blue Blood)
Ticket to Nowhere (Blue Friend)
Interested Parties (The Artisan's Battle)
Good Bye My Friend (The Carved Seal of Xephon)
Downfall Named after Operation Downfall – The planned Allied invasion of Japan at the end of World War II. Imperial Japan surrendered before the plans could be carried out. (Operation Jupiter Obliteration)
Where the Sweet Bird Sings (From Here to Eternity)
Twin Music (Doorway to the Tuning)
Deux Ex Machina (God's Uncertain Music)
Time Enough For LoveNamed after the novel Time Enough for Love by Robert Heinlein (Far Beyond Eternity)

Production trivia

The original music, except for the opening theme, is composed by Ichiko Hashimoto, who also plays the character of Maya. The closing theme is performed by Ichiko Hashimoto and her sister Mauymi Hashimoto.
The theme song is composed by Yoko Kanno and sung by Maaya Sakamoto, who plays Reika.

Manga

The manga was created by Yutaka Izubuchi and BONES, with artwork in the characteristic hand of Takeaki Momose. It is published in English in North America by VIZ Media and in Singapore by Chuang Yi.

As previously mentioned the manga adaptation of RahXephon presents the same overall scenario as the anime but features some differences, ranging from significant to minor.

Anime	Manga
Ayato Kamina is a more sensitive character	Ayato is a bolder, occasionally sensitive character
Reika Mishima is distant and enigmatic to Ayato	Reika and Ayato have grown up together as adoptive siblings
Reika is a more serious figure with a conscious role and motives	Reika is more comical and unknowingly a Phoenix-like being, with no motive
Megumi is an employee of TERRA whom Ayato has recently met	Megumi is only a minor character acting as Reika's classmate at Niraikanai
Haruka competes with Megumi for Ayato's affections	Haruka competes with Reika for Ayato's affections
Two or three beach scenes. Otherwise little "fan service".	Panty shots and nudity frequent in first volume.
Quon is privy to secrets and quite prominent	Quon is equally knowledgeable but less prominent
Characters have somewhat different looks
Dolems are used regularly	Dolems appear less often
Tokyo time is the year 2015; outside time is the year 2027	Tokyo time is the year 2015; outside time is the year 2033

Other books

Hiroshi Ohnogi, one of the screenwriters on the TV series, has written a series of RahXephon novels. These novels are being published in English by DrMaster.

Two different illustrated guide books have been published.

RahXephon Bible: Analysis Phase covers the series as far as episode 15, and is available in English; it contains episode notes, character pages and brief profiles of staff members.
RahXephon Complete covers all episodes, the OVA, movie and video game; it contains longer interviews with staff members as well one pair interview with Yutaka Izubuchi (director of RahXephon) and Hideaki Anno (director of Neon Genesis Evangelion); this book is only available in Japanese.

There are also several art books available.

RahXephon video game and OVA

The RahXephon video game^* was released for the PlayStation 2 by Bandai Japan in 2003; there is no English version. The game is mainly an adventure game with some action sequences. The player moves around in a 3D environment, learning about places and relationships, and moving the story toward one of forty different endings. Cut scenes feature hand-drawn animation, some of which was made for the game; in-game characters are voiced by their original seiyū and are fully animated while speaking. In the action sequences the player fights Dolems with the RahXephon; weapons and other RahXephon variants can be un-locked.

The special Plusculus edition of the game contains a bonus OVA episode called "Thatness and Thereness" (Her and Herself). This episode shows Quon Kisaragi's dialogue with her other self as a series of dream sequences. By the end of the episode, Quon remembers something crucial about her past and makes a decision for the future.

Super Robot Wars

The RahXephon characters and mecha have appeared in the Super Robot Wars series by Banpresto. It has so far only appeared in one single game, Super Robot Wars MX. The RahXephon is a very powerful unit, with the power of a Super Robot but much of the agility of a Real Robot. This made it extremely deadly. Although not quite as overwhelming as the Zeorymer, it is one of the more effective units in the game.

RahXephon's storyline also had a major role in the game's overall mixed plot, as the series' climax was also the climax of the game: It goes away a few stages before the last, but comes back in the final fight in Shinsei Ayato form.

Audio drama

An audio drama titled RahXephon Sound Drama was released on CD in September 2002. It consists of 13 scene tracks and 4 other tracks.

Influences

Ancient civilizations

RahXephon has many references to the Mayan culture. The Dolem's control system appears to consist of the pilot wearing a helmet shaped like a face from a Mayan sculpture ^*. Also, the cities of the Mu contain artwork that appears to be Mayan in origin. In addition, the date that the RahXephon awoke was December 21, 2012, which is the end of the Mayan Long Count calendar (according to the Mayans, December 21, 2012 marks the end of the Age of the Jaguar, and the transformation of Earth into the fifth and perfect phase). Even the leader of the Mu is named Maya.

This is probably not coincidental, since the series draws many of its references from James Churchward's 1931 novel The Lost Continent of Mu; it is a story about an advanced ancient race from a large island in the South Pacific which had sunk, like the legendary continent of Atlantis.

Creation stories

The tuning of the world resembles the idea of creation by song, found in creation mythologies like that of the Hopi ^* and fictional mythologies like J. R. R. Tolkien's Music of the Ainur and the creation story of C. S. Lewis' Narnia.

Another symbolic element is that of the Golems, creatures made from clay, recalling Biblical imagery from Genesis as well as more recent stories in Jewish kabbalism and folklore. In Genesis, Adam is made from clay, reinforcing Bähbem's image, or aspiration, of being God.

Post-classical literature

A possible basis for Ayato and Haruka's relationship is found in Robert F. Young's short story The Dandelion Girl. In Young's story the protagonist encounters a girl standing on a hill in a dress, the breeze blowing in her hair; this girl comes from the future, while the girl in RahXephon comes from the past. The Dandelion Girl is also referenced in the 'Coda' after the credits of Episode 26.

The summary movie explicitly references Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll; the series itself does not mention this book, but they have commonalities: Both use mirrors and reflections, and both feature the stopping and reversal of time. In the manga version of RahXephon, the choice of literature is different: Some of the manga characters compare themselves to those in the book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum; this book also appears briefly in the anime series.

The philosophy of Novalis may also have had a general influence on the themes in RahXephon: Novalis was a Romantic philosopher who said that "the world becomes a dream, and the dream becomes reality." There are several clearly dreamlike sequences in RahXephon—for example where Ixtli appears—yet those dreams are, in fact, reality on another level. Novalis also wrote the unfinished novel Heinrich von Ofterdingen, about a young Heinrich who is searching for the "blue flower" that he once saw in a dream and has yearned for ever since. Ayato thinks he has seen Mishima somewhere, and is likewise yearning for her. Actual blue flowers also appear in RahXephon, here as symbols of the Mu.

Michiru, the blue bird which Kunugi keeps, is named after his daughter. As well as being a Japanese given name, "Michiru" is the Japanese pronouncement of "Myltyl", the name of a character in The Blue Bird. Blue birds later come to symbolize Haruka in the last two episodes.

Visual arts

A reoccurring significant image in the anime is a picture that is a modified version of noted Surrealist artist René Magritte's Le Grande Famille ^*. Bird wings, black and white feathers and eggs appear as central story objects.

The anime makes many other references to the French Surrealist movement, from the dreamlike sequence between Haruka and Ayato when he thinks he is back in Tokyo Jupiter, to all the references to retuning and reworking the world and the desires of man.

Music

The motif Quon sings or hums repeatedly is the theme from Polovetsian Dances from Alexander Borodin's opera Prince Igor, about a warrior prince. The melody is also found in a song from the 1953 musical Kismet titled "Stranger in Paradise", dealing with the love between two people of different worlds.

Japanese culture

TERRA is based in Kanai City on Nirai Island, part of the Ryukyu Islands. These places have been named as a pun on Nirai-kanai. In traditional Ryukyu beliefs "Nirai kanai", also called "Nira-hara" or "Niraasuku", is the place out at sea where the gods live. These gods are believed to visit the islands of humans during certain religious festivals^*. In RahXephon, Mu is suggested to be the real-world basis of the Nirai-kanai legend.

The impermeable barrier between Tokyo and the rest of Japan with the Tokyo-Jupiter effect might be interpreted as representational of a perceived cultural barrier between the urbanized, seemingly more Westernized primate city of Tokyo and the comparably more rural and traditional rest of the country. This analogy would make the Mu into a representation of the Japanese view of Westerners from just before the Meiji Restoration to the reconstruction following World War II: similar anatomically except for a few minor variances, an invading force, both militarily and culturally, an initially technologically superior enemy that causes the Japanese (or in RahXephon, humans) to require rapid advancement in military technology, and a scapegoat used to inflame nationalistic (or in RahXephon, non-Mu) jingoism.

Two Japanese folk tales are explicitly mentioned: Ayato compares himself to Urashima Tarō, and professor Rikudoh compares Maya to Princess Kaguya.

Reception

Comparisons to other Anime

Many similarities can be found between RahXephon and other mecha and romance anime shows.

Raideen the Brave

In an issue of Newtype magazine the director of RahXephon has said this series is meant to be a sort of modern-day Raideen. As such there are many similarities between Raideen and RahXephon, particularly having to do with the titular "robots". The main difference is that RahXephon generally does not have "attack names".

Akira Hibiki and Ayato Kamina both have mothers who are from a race called the "Mu". This in turn means that both Akira and Ayato have Mu blood.

Akira and Ayato both "meld" into a surface in order to enter the cockpit of their respective robot. Akira enters via Reideen's forehead; Ayato can enter the RahXephon both directly and through a portal that is separate from the body of the RahXephon.

Raideen and RahXephon both

are portrayed as intelligent, sentient beings.

possess similar general aesthetics, particularly the human-like face that is covered on the sides.

can attack with a sword that protrudes out of their right arms.

can form a bow on their left arms with which they can shoot arrows.

can attack with their voices. Raideen uses the technique "God Voice" while RahXephon sings.

In Super Robot Wars MX, Raideen and RahXephon's plots are closely related.

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Many fans have compared RahXephon to Neon Genesis Evangelion (NGE), favourably or unfavourably ^*. Some say that RahXephon can be favoured to Evangelion because of its clearer ending and more active protagonist. Further, RahXephon used less still images and recycled footage from previous episodes than NGE did, a result of Gainax's notorious tendency to go overbudget at the beginning of a TV series and having to finish it on a shoestring budget, a tendency also manifested in The Secret of Blue Water. NGE had expanded the adult and non-Japanese market for anime, thus breaking the ground for later anime shows to follow. RahXephon benefitted from this larger market, as well as from technological advances in anime production.

RahXephon was made several years after NGE, and because of similarities in the respective protagonists and in the style and execution of events it is often criticized for not being as original or groundbreaking as NGE It is also criticized for lacking NGE director Anno's strong and psychology-filled writing, and also his unique, gritty, unpredictable visual style. NGE itself had its share of similarities to previous mecha anime [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0364863/, but its iconic status and fame makes it a natural target of comparison to other mecha shows.

One aspect of RahXephon seen favorably by some is that it devotes less time to battles than NGE does, counterbalancing this with more character development, and an ensemble of characters that have complex relationships. This complexity—as well as early foreshadowing of events—suggests that RahXephon's story was planned and written early in the production cycle. In contrast, NGE's writing was sketchily pre-planned (as admitted by assistant director Kazuya Tsurumaki) and was influenced by the reactions that TV executives and viewers had to previous episodes.

At the very beginning of the series' first episode, Ayato disparagingly comments that "All's right with the world, huh?" This may be interpreted as a reference to Evangelion, as NERV's logo bears the words "God's in his heaven, All's right with the world" (from Robert Browning's poem Song from Pippa Passes).

= Other similarities

Elvy's cross necklace is the same as that of NGE's Misato. Both characters are outgoing women who hold important command positions and enjoy drinking beer.

The primary NGE enemies, Angels, had a "Blue Blood Type" at the height of their malignancy. As noted, the blood of RahXephon's Mulians is also blue.

In the RahXephon OVA Thatness and Thereness, Quon Kisaragis's dialogue with her other self seems to visually reference Rei Ayanami's dialogue with Armisael, the sixteenth angel in NGE.

NGE's Rei and Quon are both emotionally remote, soft spoken characters with odd colored hair; also, they are both keys to a man's master plan.

The main antagonists, NGE's Angels and RahXephon's Dolems, are both colossal other-worldly creatures that appear and attack seemingly from nowhere. (The Dolem Allegretto also has a very angelic look.)

NGE's NERV and RahXephon's TERRA are both similar tactical defense forces specially formed to fight these supernatural enemies.

NGE's SEELE and RahXephon's Bähbem Foundation are both organizations that sponsor the defense forces (NERV and TERRA, respectively). They are also secretly following their own agenda in order to bring forth an apocalyptic new age of mankind. In both cases, the legitimate political bodies (the UN and the Federation) have formal responsibility but little real control.

Mitsuo Iso, who was a writer and key animator on NGE, wrote and directed RahXephon episode 15 "Child Hood's End". Yoji Enokido wrote the screenplay for an episode of RahXephon and is credited for the script of NGE episode 11. and credits for Neon Genesis Evangelion

Several voice actors from the original ADV Films english dubbing of NGE, including Tiffany Grant (Asuka Langley Soryu), Allison Keith (Misato Katsuragi), Laura Chapman (Naoko Akagi) and Kurt Stoll (Kensuke Aida), voice characters in RahXephon.

Gundam SEED

In RahXephon, we follow the story of Ayato, who is forced to leave behind a peaceful life in Tokyo, and who then chooses to pilot a giant mecha, the RahXephon for a planetwide alliance against the Mulians, his people, who are perceived as invaders. In Gundam SEED, we follow the story of Kira Yamato, who is forced to leave his peaceful home in the colony of Heliopolis, and eventually chooses to pilot a giant mecha, the Strike Gundam, for the Earth Alliance, against ZAFT, a military organization representing Coordinators, despite being a Coordinator himself.

Both protagonists suffer from guilt at fighting against their people, and both suffer from discrimination due to what they are. Both characters have been genetically modified, with specific intent. Ayato was the first successful Instrumentalist, while Kira was the first successful Ultimate Coordinator. Both characters also have a sibling previously unknown to them. Both characters are motivated by a desire to protect those who are important to them, and both must also deal with the death of a close friend they failed to protect. Both characters must also fight against a close friend from their pasts.

Infinite Ryvius

In Infinite Ryvius, each Vaia ship shares with its mecha an avatar that interacts with the human characters. The RahXephon has an avatar called "Ixtli" (commonly translated as "Ishtori"); the Ryvius' is called "Neeya". In both shows, the avatar takes the form of a person familiar to one of the human characters. The avatars feel the pain and express the will of the vessels.

The Dolems establish a psychic link to a given person; they both control and are controlled by this individual. The Vaia establish a similar link to a ship's captain, but also—to a lesser degree—to other crewmembers. This idea of a bond is fairly common in mecha shows, though not in the traditional shows where machines were lifeless objects.

Notes and references

External links

Official Japanese website
Official English website
Mu timeline by Philip R. Banks. Contains story details (spoilers).
RahXefun contains an episode guide with music information

Gourt Home::Gourt :: RahXephon