Monday, May 16, 2016

Rahxephon Part 5 Episodes 17-19


Ayato returns to Tokyo Jupiter with Quon.  But it’s not the homecoming he expected.  His mother has a lot to answer for but that’s just the beginning of his new nightmare.  Old friends return, far different and far more dangerous than he last remembered.  And now, on the run from TERRA, ones Ayato used to call allies are now after him and the Rahxephon.  After all this trouble, will Ayato find the answers he’s been looking for?  What unbearable cost will come with these revelations? 

So…we got back to Tokyo Jupiter and…didn’t find out too much.  We did get a couple of new additions to the mix and the return of some familiar faces…though not how we remembered them.  In all honesty, the best part of the return trip to Tokyo J (hey I like that) was when Ayato left.  Not just because it was kind of a letdown inside but because Episode 19 ended up being the absolute best episode of this series so far.  But more on that in a second.

The return to Tokyo J started off well enough.  We got to see the world changing a bit.  Dolems were in the skies and the population of Tokyo was pretty oblivious to it.  Even when the Rahxephon was squaring off with them, everyday life carried on in the city below.  Apparently Ayato’s slow change and awakening is causing this.  But that wasn’t made too clear as Maya kept her cryptic clues well…more cryptic.  In fact we didn’t learn much more about Ayato’s situation with her than we already knew.  He’s got blue blood (why it hasn’t turned is another mystery) but there was that little bit where Maya said she wished she bore him.  Wait does that mean she’s not his birth mother?  Or is she too busy standing around looking pretty to give us a clear answer?  Not doing any better in the answers department is Reika, or Ixtli, who is basically just telling Quon it’s not time for her egg to hatch just yet.

I wish we had gotten some more time with Mamoru and Hiroko before this set of episodes.  Besides the premiere, we’d only seen them one other time in Ayato’s dream world state a couple weeks ago.  So seeing the jarring shifts in character has some effect but maybe not all it could have been.  Had they escaped with Ayato sooner and been more in the series, I could care a bit more.  In the case of Mamoru that approach would have been tougher since he’s apparently in Maya’s inner circle.  Hiroko though…oh man, to be honest it doesn’t matter she only got a small dose of decent but too little too late character development.  She was still front and center of one of the best Anime episodes I have ever seen.

Yes, Episode 19 ranks up there with Cowboy Bebops’s “Ballad of Fallen Angels” and Evangelion’s “Knockin on Heaven’s Door” as one of the best all around made single episodes of Anime ever made.  Narrarated almost entirely by Hiroko, we see her slow decent into sad madness as she begins to realize two things: one, she’s in love with Ayato and two, she’s becoming a full blooded Mu.  But nothing compares to her tragic end.  Awakening as a Mu Dolem arrives, Hiroko is powerless to tell Ayato her feelings while he, unknowingly, fights her in the Rahxephon.  The only way she can sort of get through is via lights on display billboards that Ayato doesn’t notice until the very end.  The way this battle is choreographed, animated, scored and dialogue driven is the best mix and a real heart tugger, especially for a character we didn’t have a lot of time with.  Let’s put it this way, I felt worse for Hiroko’s tragic love story with Ayato more than I have Haruka’s not so secret love story.  Come on, we figured out she was Ayato’s old high school sweetheart a long time ago.  What’s shocking is “I’m racist against Mu” Elvy is so accepting of this revelation. 

Still Ayato wasn’t in a sure place coming out of Tokyo J and he’s sure not in a good place now that he’s killed one of his closest friends, someone he wanted to try and have a future with.  As we head into the penultimate week of Rahxephon one thing is certain, this isn’t the last tragedy he’ll endure.  Let’s just hope he handles it better than Shinji. 

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