Anime Review: Rahxephon

The city of Tokyo has been overthrown, taken over by invaders who have devastated the rest of the planet (Mu). For 15 years, the remnants of the human race have fought a losing battle against the Mu invaders and their Dolem, knowing the key to victory lies within the domed walls of Tokyo Jupiter, where time flows in a different path and none of the mind-wided citizens even know that the city has been conquered. But no one has been able to get into Tokyo-Jupiter until now."




That is the story we get with Rahxephon: We start the series with a young man named Ayato Kamina, a normal young man who with his friends Hiroko Asahina and Mamoru Torigai are living life normally, until one day on the subway the train car crashes. As Ayato gets out to look for help, he finds that the entire city is at war with invaders! As he runs amid the chaos and falling buildings, he runs into Mishima Reika, a friend from school.





Returning to the subway, it seems Ayato has gone too far and loses Mishima. He is captured by agents, then enter Haruka, a mysterious woman who wants to tell Ayato about the "blue blood". It turns out he loses her and ends up on a subway train, and then finds Mishima there! (getting kind of suspiscious here, wha I can't even tell what is going on now! By now some sort of suspense is building, that or you are affixed to biscuts and gravy nothing more.) Both end up at "The Shrine of Rah" and enter. Well if it gets any weirder, the room appears like a seperate world, but it is not. There is a giant egg nestled inside a colloseum, and then "singing" begins. Ayato falls to the ground as Mishima (I was confused too) starts to sing. The Egg cracks, and we find a wing protrudes through the shell. The Rahxephon is awake! Ayato is absorbed into the Rahxephon (which we can safely call a giant robot of some sort). In short (I won't spoil the story further than I have) Ayato, with Haruka and the Rahxephon, will break out of the room of Rah, and escape through a barrier known as Tokyo Jupiter. From that point on, Ayato learns that he has been living in a seperate world in a different time span known as Tokyo Jupiter. The world he thought was destroyed? It is still here. Ayato must now find a way to get back through the barrier, which at that point is impossible with the current technology. It would take a colossal amount of energy to rip open the sphere. How will Ayato get home? What will wait for him there? and what about his journey outside the barrier? Check out Rahxephon to see the rest.


Now that I have discussed a little bit of the storyline, lets get to the DVD setup. The Box Art for the "Thinpak" is really nice; it's made of harder cardboard than other cheap boxes and is very sturdy. The Art on the cases themselves is beautiful, at least I found it. The disks were also beautifully produced, they are more than just a label tacked onto the top of a CD. The backs were very informative (as they should be). I found the menus to be clean cut and everything looked great. The only weird thing I found is that with volumes 1-7, Volume 1 may have 5 episodes, Volume 2 may have 4, then Volume 3 may have 3 episodess. Just a weird irregularity there, nothing bad at all since it is the complete set. I appreciated some of the extras like the production art and voice actor interviews (American Voice Actor Interviews, GOOD stuff) Yet I wish we could get more of the Japanese voice actor interviews as well. Anime Title Previews are always included and so on. Rahxephon sounds truly great on surround sound, if you have the means of a surround sound system, pop in this series and watch it, its FANTASTIC. The animation is top notch, coming from Bones that is second to none. Dubbs were exact, and in very rare cases extremely close (so it sounded like everything was from the characters). I must say that the translation in English was a lot better than the original Japanese, but I digress because I know very little Japanese (language). It would not be fair to say that the English is better than the Japanese translation, but I found that the English translation did a lot better. Voice Actor wise, I enjoyed both the dubb and the original. They nailed it down, both in English and Japanese, to an exact science.

Rahxephon is full of plot twists, suprises and action. ADV films does another spectacular job in bringing us a clean cut and fun anime to watch. I would not say Rahxephon is in my top 5 of all time anime, but it is in the top 10 of my favorites; a prime example of a well done series. The series spans 26 episodes and about 650 minutes (a little over 10 hours) of anime. Honestly I think they could have extended the series a little farther, but what they did within 26 episodes is absoloutly perfect, and that is why we also have a seperate Rahxephon movie. Would I recommend picking it up to watch? Is it worth the money I paid for it? Yes it is. Rahxephon is a keeper if you were looking to watch the series. Rahxephon doesn't break through any new barriers in terms of new art or production methods, but from Bones this is a very well done anime. I can hardly think of anything to say that is negative about it. All in all this is a good anime to pick up, especially if you can find it used or at a discount.

Quick Glossary
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Aria- A sound wave that will cary over a vast distance. An aria can also be defined as a pitch in singing, or a signature. In Rahxephon (the series), Aria is commonly used with The D-1. The aria is picked up on Radar and intercepted.

D-1- A named used by Terra to describe the unknown enemies sent at them by the Mu. See Dolem. A D-1 and a dolem are the exact same thing.

Dolem- A large figure made of clay that has been given extra-ordinary powers from the Mu who pilot them. Once a Dolem is killed, the Mu operator controlling it will die as well. (Reference Episode 1, Allegreto). They are not to be confused with robots.

Mu- An alien race that settled upon Earth and battled mankind. They formed Tokyo-Jupiter, and are at a stand off with mankind. The difference between a human and a mu is that Mu will have blue blood, Humans Red. (To add a factual note, Blood in real humans is both red and blue [Purpleish sort of]. When blood is oxygenated, it is red. Coming out of the lungs to gather more oxygen, Blood is blue, but this fact has nothing to do with the Mu or the Rahxephon series.)

Ollin- A term you will here a lot in Rahxephon. The "Ollin" is the instrument that is used to tune the world. In this case, the Ollin is the pilot of the Rahxephon.

Rahxephon- "The Tuning of the World". The Rahxephon, or "Xephon", is a mechanical giant capable of breaking through the Tokyo Jupiter barrier and defending itself from a large array of enemies, including the dolem.

Terra- an anti-Mu organization founded to study Mu technology, culture, and defense.

Tokyo-Jupiter: A sphereical world that encompases the entire city of Tokyo and 10 kilometers outside of it. This is a parallel world created by Mu technology that will bar out anything from the outside. People trapped inside Tokyo-Jupiter were told that the outside world was destroyed (They have no idea they are in a seperate world). Tokyo-Jupiter revolves inside a seperate dimensia, and because this is so, time flows much slower in Tokyo-Jupiter, by about 6-7 years slower (If memory recalls correctly, don't quote me on that).

Ocean City 2006

Ocean City, Maryland. If anything, Ocean City is not only known for its fabulous beaches (Rehobeth Beach is right down the road) but also for it's crab and ribs (JR's Ribs). I took of from work to spend some quality time with the family and relax a little. Ill go by and caption each frame as it was taken.

We got to the Ocean on July 5th; you can imagine that it was PACKED for the July 4th weekend. To illustrate my point, we took this picture when we got here. Seems everyone checked out (signed out) of the hotel that evening or the next morning (saw many people packing up to go home). That is how busy the beach was, at 2:00pm on July 5th. Not too many people, perfect kite flying weather, but I needed to get a kite!

We stayed at the Dunes Manor Hotel, a nice Victorian style hotel with its own hottub, pool (wow big whup) but also an amazing lobby, a huge chandolier, antiques, HUGE paintings, a piano, its own gift shop, and of course its own gym, bar and casual restaraunt. I love coming down to listen to the piano player in the evening; they play everything from folk onto classical (thank the heavenly maker there was no singing of Opera or such sort). The gift shop is cool, sells what you think it would: Postcards, keychains and what not, but as a Victorian Style hotel, they specialized in Jewelry (at affordable prices) and a lot of porcelin... The only thing I did not like about the hotel is that some of the dolls were not only porcelin, but clowns. More on this in the future, but clowns frighten me; they are the agents of the Devil. Discussion Ended. The food is pretty good there I must say, but it is nothing spectacular or amazing. I had a quick burger there for lunch and I would give it a B+. Tasty, edible, but nothing "OMG this is sooo good!" The picture is of the boardwalk from the 4th floor of the hotel. The Dunes Manor is located not even 150 feet from the boardwalk, a 3 mile long stretch of walkway where shops galore sell their wares. We call it the boardwalk because the walking surface is planked with boards. There you can find all kinds of shops, antiques, a picture gallery (Seinfeld fans, my dad bought a picture of Kramer for his office), home items and decor, T-shirts, beach necessities, tatoo parlors and what not. The one place we always stop at on the boardwalk? THRASHERS French Fries. The absoloute best french fries that have EVER had the PLEASURE of entering your mouth. They are so good I would go as far as ordering them shipped to my house kind of good. Not overcooked in grease, and at affordable prices, you know your paying for good stuff. 3/4 of a medium bucket is enough to fill me for the afternoon. Sometimes there are long lines; trust me it is worth waiting for.

There is a tram entrance/exit at the end of each side of the boardwalk so you can get to the end and back within about 10 minutes, instead of walking for an hour and a half or so (Hey, good exercise!). One thing I would like to point out though, is every year sand sculpturs come and sculpt beautiful art into the sand about 1/4 to half way down the boardwalk. They are usually done by Christian artists; and the art and attention to detail is absoloutly amazing. One was done of Jesus on the Cross and it read in sand: Thankyou Jesus. I felt guilty letting myself know I didn't put money in that water cooler jug. Probably the best art I have ever seen not on some form of paper.

My advice to you, is WEAR TENNIS SHOES YOU SOCK WEARING SANDLE LOVING TOURISTS. Wear tennis shoes while walking on the boardwalk, or its blister paradise for you back at the hotel. I warned my Dad not to wear his sandles because I wanted to walk a bit, but nooooo. I ended up going to the Kite Loft about half way down the boardwalk, and ended up purchasing a better kite for myself. I wanted a kite that could withstand heavier winds, faster winds, but still be freaking big and awesome. I ended up buying a 10ft wingspan kite along with a nice windsock (its 24 feet long but I thought it read 24 inches, go fig) and a 110lb line, heavy duty stuff. I didn't take it up until the day after due to thunder storms.

Another Shot of the beach that morning on July 5th, later on when the sun was going down.

And then everyone else shows up! more Tourists! there will be no kite flying here, and I stayed up in the hotel room watching TV and playing the Playstation 2.

Me the next day getting my kite up at about 6pm. It was easy to put together and behaved VERY well in the wind I was given. No heavy tension on the line, no flapping of the kite, It behaved like a gem. The sock really helped out, I nearly flipped out (in a good way!) when I saw the tail sock! This is a shot of me (see my pretty face) from the 4th floor of the hotel getting the kite somewhat up there. Later on I let it out fully, and I was amazed at how big the kite was; but how tiny it was in the sky!!

The kite, zoomed in. I forgot to move the side bars down a little, thus the "V" shape, it still held up fine despite MY screwup. Notice the length of the tail, hehe. The end did not have an opening in it, but the front did, adding extra stability to the kite. Always, when you can put a tail on the kite, because nose-dives down back to earth can tear open the kite (old one, fixing it it wasn't that badly damaged). I bought it of Nylon material so it will last, and the pockets are extra big for the side bar. Awesome kite, but for something that is reliable and works, with accessories, it cost me $95 USD, or 75 Euro, 52 GBP, or 11,054 Yen. The money variations are linked, because although the links will always change with the fluctuation of money, other currencies vs. each other ALWAYS change.

Backside view of the Dunes Manor Hotel. It is all beachside viewing and it is great. We stayed on the 4th floor (the lowest rooms count as 2f, so count up 3 from the deck and thats the 4th floor) all the way to the right. It was PERFECT viewing.

And that is it for now on my 2006 vacation! you can visit the gallery of it at http://www.maj.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=118630 , I will add new pictures as I find them and obtain permission. You may use these photos that I have posted and taken, but I ask that credit is given is all. You don't need too, but it is appreciated. Thanks!