RahXephon

Title: RahXephon Genre: Mecha, Drama, Romance Rating: 8.2/10

Review: For anyone who watches this anime, be prepared to actually think. Everything isn’t so straight forward, but that is what I actually liked about it. Everything seems to fit into place but then they throw some information at you that completely throws you off. There are parts of the anime that you can ignore and still understand the storyline, but it is the little details that make RahXephon so amazing. The story is of a young boy named Ayato Kamina, who happens to be the pilot of one of the most powerful mechas, Xephon. He was born and raised in Tokyo which had been encapsulated by an alien race. You learn early on that the alien race had altered the memories of the inhabitants of Tokyo, and were trying to teach them that the rest of the world had been destroyed. Ayato meets a girl named Haruka Shitow who promises to show him the “truth” and explain what the world truly is. That is the very basic story, VERY basic. If you are a fan of Evangelion you will like anime because it is much easier to understand, but still rather in depth story. If you don’t like Evangelion you still might like anime because the characters are actually likable. Ayato does have a bit of an emotional streak, but it is actually understand. He was ripped out of the home he thought was reality for years (or so he feels were years). The betrayals, alliances, and character development is what really turned me on to this anime. Everyone character has their backgrounds explained and you understand near the very end how everyone is actually tied together. The artwork is rather old, but still works fairly well. The voice acting was also rather poor (or at least in the files I watched), multiple occasions had the mouths still moving after the voice had stopped. Which at first I thought was the audio but they start to speak at the correct times. Action is pretty simple, and actually short for most of the anime which was a little depressing. There were so many fight scenes that could have been longer, so if you are more of an action than talking fan this anime is probably not for you. I really can’t say much about this anime or it would give it all away so I do apologize for that. Very minor problems were found in this anime on my end and I recommend it for anyone who enjoys heavy story, character development, and romance.

Final statements: This anime is not for everyone. I can think of quite a large population who would not enjoy the anime because of how much you have to remember from past episodes. Since the anime is actually completed though, it shouldnt’ be too hard to remember if you watch them back to back. Like I said earlier, I know this anime isn’t for everyone so for that I give it a preferred watch.