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NEWS: Sentai Filmworks Licenses RahXephon Anime With BD Release in July

Honestly, the TV series HD remaster looks a bit smeary and overfiltered, but the movie looks much better because they actually recomposed every shot from the TV series in HD so that they'd look good on a big screen.

I own all of RahXephon (including the movie) on the original DVD releases but don't think I've rewatched any of it since the movie came out in the States. That's mostly because I always felt that the series was going out of its way to obfuscate things, and that irritated me.

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Speaking of Evangelion, RahXephon was such a blatant imitation of Eva that it kind of made it feel more derivative and pretentious in comparison.

For the millionth time rah is not a rip-off of eva.
Rah is inspired by megazone 23 (1985) & brave raideen (1975)

"According to RahXephon director Yutaka Izubuchi, the similarity of designs and powers of the title robots and the basic plots of RahXephon and Raideen are intentional." animenewsnetwork.com/convention/2006/anime-expo/11

And on that note Eva is a little derivative of space runaway ideon (1980)

RahXephon is one of the best anime I have ever seen, and I've seen a lot. The first time I watched it in 2002, it would enthrall me at some points and frustrate me at others, and then the ending blew my mind. This is a series that is close to impossible to "grasp" in one viewing. The second and subsequent times I've been inspired to watch it, I realized all the little things it does, and it's amazing. It has such a naturalistic vibe to it in how it crafts its world and characters, and there are layers upon layers of details to its world. It really takes you away to another place that feels real and lived-in. The design work is gorgeous and meticulous and I found the emotions of the character stories much more balanced and nuanced than in EVA. Yes, it's convoluted, and it has its weak points within the complications/implications to some of those convolutions, but that sense of mystery becomes one of its charms. This isn't a fast-paced series; it's more of a meditative experience with flashes of brilliant action. That's what threw me off in the first viewing. It will sometimes ask you to just sit with the characters and/or hang out with them, to experience their world in its day-to-day reality.

I think there are similarities with EVA, but I wouldn't call it a ripoff, and I would say that it's a better series than EVA overall. It's more consistent in tone and gives a more rounded look at humanity. I feel like the first two Rebuild films of EVA had more of a RahXephon tone. They rarely make anime like this anymore. This is one of BONES' best.

The movie version is really not very good, though, in my opinion. It strips away and alters too much of what made the series good. The new opening prequel minutes of the film version are great (and spoilery)...but they should have been included in the series as flashbacks. That they are used to set up an alternate telling of the story that is substantially different is a disappointment.

As far as Fafner, it does pull from RahXephon, but it really is its own thing and is far more expansive of a world than either EVA or RahXephon. Fafner is sort of like if RahXephon and Macross and Gundam fused. 2015's Fafner Exodus, in particular, is one of the best anime of the last 20 years, in my opinion.

For the record, Hades Project Zeorymer is also a series that EVA has similarities with that predates EVA.

By pigeonholing RahXephon as an EVA clone, it does a disservice to the quality of this series. There are some really talented episode directors on RahXephon, too, like Gundam 0080's Fumihiko Takayama, and without saying too much, it definitely shows. The biggest regret I have about RahXephon is it didn't have maybe one more episode of runtime to fit in the movie flashback and expand on the epic climax of episode 24. But the series crams in so much, there really wasn't much time to do more.

Of note, I would think this new version fixes the smearing of the credits ADV did in the original during the opening minutes to paste in English credits over the cold-opening animation of episode 1.

Really glad this series is getting a rerelease. I don't expect it to have too much of an impact these days, but it's one of those landmark series that kept my interest in anime going. I love this one.

EDIT: If you're new, and think you might be interested at all, don't read any summaries. This series is best going in blind. I didn't know anything about it when I first saw it, and that made a huge difference, since there are so many twists, especially early on. I got to experience the disorienting weirdness with the characters.

Zhou-BR wrote:

Honestly, the TV series HD remaster looks a bit smeary and overfiltered, but the movie looks much better because they actually recomposed every shot from the TV series in HD so that they'd look good on a big screen.

I was just ready to ask about this. Thanks.

But... I still believe RahXephon was very apparent with its Eva inspiration. I think RahXephon made its story more obtuse in order to make it more confusing in order to match with Eva's storytelling. I think certain camera shots from RahXephon were also directly inspired by Eva. I also feel that RahXephon's mecha and character designs were meant to evoke Eva, even if their not a total one-to-one. The surreal ending of RahXephon also feels like it was trying to copy the nonsensical ending of the original Evangelion, yet that one maybe can be more of a coincidence.

I even have that first Newtype USA issue from Anime Boston with a Rah Xephon cover. Park Plaza peeps, was that then? I still have the shirt that came out of the box set!!!

Of note, I would think this new version fixes the smearing of the credits ADV did in the original during the opening minutes to paste in English credits over the cold-opening animation of episode 1.