Monday, June 6, 2016

Rahxephon Part 8 The Motion Picture-Pluralitas Concentio


Ayato Kamina and Haruka Mishima were high school sweethearts, totally in love.  And then the Mu came to Tokyo and closed it off behind an unbreakable barrier, separating Haruka from her one true love.  Years later, Haruka undertakes an operation into Tokyo Jupiter to free Ayato and bring him to the real world.  With him, Ayato brings along the Rahxephon, the instrument he is meant to play to tune the world.  This is a story of tragedy, of loss, of confusion.  But ultimately, it is a story of love and the unbreakable bonds it creates.  You think you know the full story of Rahxephon?  You were wrong.

Rahxephon: Pluralitas Concentio is a pretty interesting epilogue to the Rahxephon tale.  As a sum up, I both enjoy and am befuddled by this flick.  On the one hand, I think this flows pretty well, even for a compilation flick.  On the other hand, why couldn’t a lot of this had been folded into the main series?  There’s a lot of opportunities to simplify and clear up some of the mysteries that hampered Rahxephon right until the end.  So it feels like this is one last effort to tell the story a bit more clearer…but even then it fails as much as it succeeds.

As you might guess from the synopsis above, the focus is almost squarely on Ayato and Haruka and their love story.  We get to see their time before Tokyo Jupiter was created and aren’t treated like idiots as to Haruka’s true identity like with the show.  This works in expanding their bond and giving us a reason to care…plus we actually get a sex scene between the two (kind of wrong but also feels right).  At the same time though, many of the side and secondary characters get very little time to shine.  Elvy and Kim are almost non existent (Kim more so.  Elvy’s still in many of the action scenes).  Futagami and Watari are totally absent.  Most criminal is Quon being relegated to a literal sleeping beauty watched over by Itsuki for the bulk of the movie.  Quon still has the same role she had in the series finale but there’s little lead up to it, so little that Quon could have been just entirely absent and it wouldn’t really matter (same with Itsuki).  On the plus side, Kunnigi gets a little more to do and, much like my thoughts with L in the Death Note movies, he gets to see the end of the story, rightfully deserving.

This being both a retelling and a compilation film rolled into one, events move at a different pace, though the end result is, more or less the same (complete with a brand new ending to differentiate things a bit…and I think I like it a lot better to be honest).  But, as youd expect, a lot is left out.  Events come rapid fire, like a clip show, trying to cram 26 episode of material into a two hour flick.  So besides Ayato and Haruka, you don’t really get much connection with everyone else.  Of the many action scenes involving the titular mecha, only two big ones are saved for the movie.  Thankfully, one of those is the tragic Asahina battle from Episode 19.  That episode gets cut down a lot here.  But it has a purpose seeing as Asahina’s has a bit more importance to Ayato’s story.  The gist of it is still there and that final battle itself remains untouched.  If you liked it in the series, you’ll still feel all the feels here too and ive gotta commend the movie on that.  Other important events like Ayato’s dream state encounter with a Mu, Operation Downfall and a lot of the Babhem subplot are either totally absent or scaled way down for time and content.  Babhem himself isn’t really much of a presence besides the beginning and the end.  His outcome is still the same, just at anothers hand, and he freaks out a bit more when he gets whats coming to him.

There does feel like there’s a lot of handholding with this movie, as if it’s trying to not let new viewers feels so lost while also trying to appease fans of the series with a new vision.  Oddly enough, I don’t mind that.  I was pretty confused by the end of Rahxephon, even though I still love it.  And again, I don’t see why a lot of these revelations and explanations couldn’t just be folded into the series, strategically placed so as not thrown on everyone at the last minute.  I hope that one day, should a remastering or retelling of Rahxephon come to pass, much of this movie does get merged in with the series.  I think it will be a nice treat to see this fusion come to pass.

If you want a quick brush up on the Rahxephon series and don’t want to commit to the 26 episodes, then the Rahxephon movie might do it for you.  Die hard fans will either love or hate the renewed focus on Ayato and Haruka’s romance.  I personally feel it’s done a lot stronger here and makes Haruka less annoying than she was in the series, being needlessly cryptic and mysterious.  The lack of action may be a turn off, as is the downsizing of several beloved characters.  As a final word on Rahxephon, I don’t think it’s bad at all.  It doesn’t fully reach the heights of the series…but as far as encores go, it could have been worse.

7.5/10

Hard to believe half a year has gone by and we’re into the Summer of 2016.  Ive got a couple of big titles to review coming up.  And we’re gonna start that with the anniversary of a certain Mecha Anime that debuted on Toonami this summer 15 years ago, yes I’m dating myself a bit.  Next week, we kick off Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team.

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