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Schwarzwald
Jul 27, 2004

Don't Blink

MarsDragon posted:

I think you mentioned having plans for others once upon a time? Or did I hallucinate that?

I've got a rough outline for a Combattler V video, but progress has been slow on account of 1) finishing schooling for my BS and 2) this past year was 2020.

Barring no further national or global disasters I'm hoping to have it out by the end of next summer.

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AtheistMantis
Oct 5, 2014

ImpAtom posted:

Raideen the Superior too.

Is nobody gonna talk about how bizarre that one was? How the hell did 1996 have like 7 different shows about 5 pretty boys piloting giant robots?

Gripweed
Nov 8, 2018
Probation
Can't post for 6 hours!

AtheistMantis posted:

Is nobody gonna talk about how bizarre that one was? How the hell did 1996 have like 7 different shows about 5 pretty boys piloting giant robots?

People had better taste back then?

chiasaur11
Oct 22, 2012



AtheistMantis posted:

Is nobody gonna talk about how bizarre that one was? How the hell did 1996 have like 7 different shows about 5 pretty boys piloting giant robots?

Because Gundam Wing started in '95, maybe?

Not sure how the turnaround time works out, but it was a reasonably big success, and it shows a route to crossover appeal, with boys watching for the robots, and girls watching for the prettyboys.

Schwarzwald
Jul 27, 2004

Don't Blink

AtheistMantis posted:

Is nobody gonna talk about how bizarre that one was? How the hell did 1996 have like 7 different shows about 5 pretty boys piloting giant robots?

IIRC, Raideen the Superior was the follow up work from the team who made Yuusha Dagwon.

Midjack
Dec 24, 2007



The second volume of the Full Metal Panic translations by J-Novel Club came out a few days ago. This one goes through Dancing Very Merry Christmas so they’ve already gone farther than Tokyopop did!

Gaius Marius
Oct 9, 2012

Oh poo poo they're getting good translations. That's sick, I read the old awful fantranslations on my psp years ago on a car trip, probably the worst reading experience of my life.

Midjack
Dec 24, 2007



Gaius Marius posted:

Oh poo poo they're getting good translations. That's sick, I read the old awful fantranslations on my psp years ago on a car trip, probably the worst reading experience of my life.

The TP ones weren’t awful but yeah, the fanlations were super rough.

MonsieurChoc
Oct 12, 2013

Every species can smell its own extinction.

Schwarzwald posted:

This is a hard question because it really defend how you'd define a reboot. Raideen the Superior and REIDEEN are nominally reboots. Rahxephon is kind of/sort of a reinterpretation of the ancient alien stuff from the '75 show, although it draws inspiration from so many places that its hard to call it "just" a Raideen reboot.

There's a very real sense in which you can argue that Combattler, Voltes, and even Mobile Suit Gundam were all Reideen reboots. Prince Sharkin is a character in all four!

...thinking on it, Rahxephon doesn't have a Sharkin analog. What a missed opportunity — even REIDEEN had a Sharkin!


Edit: if we are gonna talk about the '75 Raideen then I'm gonna self promote my video essay.

Nakahama worked on Rose of Versailled and Ulysse 31? That's a hell of a resume!

MarsDragon
Apr 27, 2010

"You've all learned something very important here: there are things in this world you just can't change!"

MonsieurChoc posted:

Nakahama worked on Rose of Versailled and Ulysse 31? That's a hell of a resume!

Yeah, he was a pretty prolific and talented director, he just gets forgotten because he died in 1980 (and didn't make Gundam beforehand). It's a real bummer.

Sakurazuka
Jan 24, 2004

NANI?

Is the original Raideen subbed, I'm kinda interested now.

GorfZaplen
Jan 20, 2012

Sakurazuka posted:

Is the original Raideen subbed, I'm kinda interested now.

They've translated 37 of 50 episodes

Sakurazuka
Jan 24, 2004

NANI?

Guess I'll wait then, cheers

Schwarzwald
Jul 27, 2004

Don't Blink

Sakurazuka posted:

Guess I'll wait then, cheers

You might be waiting a while. It's been translated on a 2 episode a year pace for seven years now.

Sakurazuka
Jan 24, 2004

NANI?

I'm not dying anytime soon

gimme the GOD DAMN candy
Jul 1, 2007
that's what people who die say

Schwarzwald
Jul 27, 2004

Don't Blink
Rahxephon Rewatch post #2

I was planning on covering more episodes, but I think episodes 4 and 5 are distinct enough that they should probably have their own post.

EP 4-5

_____

In these episodes the show switches gear. The "is this real life or is this just fantasy" stuff is much less up front and in it's place we have a combination military vs alien invaders thriller with some light harem comedy.

The military thriller aspect is solid. Ayato is both an uninformed an unhappy participant in the conflict. Haruka, Ayato's handler, is inept at her job. She's too friendly with him, and so avoids informing him of some of the more unpleasant truths of his situation. As a result, Ayato drat near throws hands at a fleet admiral when they requisition his robot.

Haruka is under some hardcore self-deception. She's caught completely off guard that the military operation that destroyed a dozen new cross-dimentional fighter jets and their pilots is considered something of a boondoggle, and that the school kid she kidnapped is seen less of a cute boy and more of a security risk. She's caught off guard again when Ayato makes it clear that he doesn't trust her, either.




Haruka had certain expectations on how this would play out. This wasn't it.

Now, the "is this real life or is this just fantasy" stuff isn't dropped altogether! Ayato's illustrations have a bad habit of moving around on their page, and Reika, who was presumed dead last episode, is back and walking around. That said, only he and Quon, the ambiguously neuroatypical weird girl with unspecified health issues they let wander around the military base, can actually see her.


This is Quon. I'd make a joke like, "marketing says our mecha needs a Rei character," but who am I kidding? The Rei liking is coming from within the animation studio.

_____

After Ayato is shown to be impossible to imprison, the military (TERRA) switches tactics. This is where the harem comedy stuff comes in. Since they can't force him to stay put, they're instead carting him off to an island paradise populated by cute, available women so he won't want to escape.

I am not joking. That is the plan. The island is named after a mythical paradise. The episode is called "On Earth As It Is In Heaven." The doc leading Ayato around makes a point to introduce him to every woman they stumble across, before dropping him off at his new home which next is next door to single older woman Haruka and her single younger sister, Megumi.

Research assistant Sayaka wears a low cut outfit for him. Haruka's fighter pilot girlfriend prepositions him. Even Quon pitches in, in a fantastically roundabout and obtuse fashion, by gifting him a set of her stepbrothers* bathrobes. For tonight's homework: try to interpret 𝓉𝒽𝒶𝓉 𝓈𝒽𝒾𝓉.


Megumi is filled in on the plan.

Ayato is not impressed with the calibre of state sponsored girlfriend he's being offered.

Ultimately it's Megumi who gets through to him. She's too awkward and unwilling to seduce the boy, so instead they (eventually) have an honest person-to-person conversation. Ayato is quite thankful for this.

Making Ayato feel at home and willing to trust TERRA is important because Dolem attacks from Tokyo Jupiter seem to be becoming more frequent and Ayato's robot is their most potent defense — if they can make use of it. The military monitor their manipulation of Ayato by observing the Rahxephon robot itself, which hardens and softens according to Ayato's temperament.

Speaking of which, while the dolem fight in these episodes isn't terribly dynamic, it's delightfully grody!


I don't like what the Dolem is doing to this submarine but I love not liking it!

_____

And that's the story of how Ayato was rescued from the Mu, a secret quasi-governmental organization which intended to keep him placid, into the safety of TERRA, a supra-national military which hopes to keep him compliant. The plot will slow down a little as the show becomes more motw-ish for some episodes.

I know comparing Rahxephon with Eva is a thing that's Been Done, but it is interesting reading Rahxephon in the context of being a post-Eva super robot show. TERRA cleanly maps to NERV, but so does the Mu organization (which is lead by Ayato's absentee mother with an spooky agenda). Both forces appear to be using ethically questionable tech derived from ancient aliens or the some such, both forces are employing giant robots backed up by complex infrastructure, and each side has their own equivalent reality-warper teen in Ayato and Quon. (Although TERRA currently has them both.) Mu maybe has better tech with less territory, and TERRA maybe is more overtly militaristic with less mind control, but they're in a rough equilibrium. In effect, rather than Eva's NERV vs the Angels, we have NERV #1 against NERV #2.

Or, if you're really paranoid, you just might assume that this whole conflict has another purpose, and Mu and TERRA are just the right and left hands of a single organization. Did I mention that Quon is into music, while is into Ayato's painting, such that their artistic interests have no overlap?

Schwarzwald fucked around with this message at 04:57 on Jan 14, 2021

Weird BIAS
Jul 5, 2007

so... guess that's it, huh? just... don't say i didn't warn you.
I know you've seen the show before but I'm reading this thinking of how my first watch last year went and it's funny how most of what you said makes sense to what I thought at the time (ah, we'll entice him with a harem!) But by end of series oh right a lot of this is because Haruka just could not get over Ayato and realizing he is as important to the plot as he is they try to remind him by going to the island where they first met to jog his memory. Just happens to be important to the plot as well.

MonsieurChoc
Oct 12, 2013

Every species can smell its own extinction.
I like a lot of the side-characters in RahXephon.

chiasaur11
Oct 22, 2012



Yeah, I've only gotten around to Eva relatively recently so RahXephon's still on my list of good intentions, but it's interesting to see shows released around the same time as it. It's like the original Gundam in that there's a clear impact pattern, where even if you never saw it, you'd be able to guess that there was some show like it in the mid 90s from how other mech anime responded to it.

Also, finally saw the first two Eva movies, and the Evangelion thread scares me, so I might as well say something here while it's fresh in my memory. Even if that something isn't terribly original.

The first film felt like it was trying to be more Evangelion than Evangelion, if that makes any sense. It's getting all the iconic bits, from the shots of NERV's geofront to the penguin in the fridge, and removing moments that challenge the basic feel of people's memories of the show. You don't get Kensuke and Shinji bonding as genuine friends, or Misato's inner monologue freakout at the car being wrecked, or any of the other things that I hadn't expected going in. It's like a game remaster. Not a replica of the original, but a replica of the memory of the original.

The second movie is more its own thing, and works better for it. Sure, Mari mostly provided an extra pilot so that Asuka could take Toji's spot in the activation test and didn't feel complete on her own, but the pacing felt smoother, the character dynamics felt more fleshed out than in the first one, and the climax was more dramatic. The films putting more emphasis on Shinji and Rei made some of Asuka's stuff feel more vestigial, but overall it was a good time. Heard people suggest that it's Eva-as-people-wanted to complement the first film's Eva-as-remembered, and I can believe that as the intent. You've got more angel fights that are straight up action scenes, Asuka actually gets to spend some time being the brash hero she tried to sell herself as rather than getting her pile of issues status put front and center early, and Shinji ends the film by breaking reality to save the girl. (Which is implied to be a terrible idea, but... details.)

Heard the third film is a bit of a trainwreck, so I'm going in with expectations low, but... it's an interesting project, and I'm curious how it's going to end.

Midjack
Dec 24, 2007



Train wreck is being unkind, though it’s fair to say that it didn’t meet the expectations of many.

Argas
Jan 13, 2008
SRW Fanatic




The fake previews didn't help.

Siegkrow
Oct 11, 2013

Arguing about Lore for 5 years and counting



Jan 23rd can't come quick enough, I nees a full version of Peaceful Times.

Also the next SRW.

Justin_Brett
Oct 23, 2012

GAMERDOME put down LOSER
https://twitter.com/gmanetwork/status/1349651613116370947?s=09

Siegkrow
Oct 11, 2013

Arguing about Lore for 5 years and counting



I know it is Combattler V and Voltes Five but my brain keeps telling me it is Combattler Five and Voltes V.

chiasaur11
Oct 22, 2012



So, second episode of Back Arrow is out, and until it has its own thread, I guess I'm posting about it here.

Second episode shows more of the world's politics, including telling us what the bandit in episode 1 was doing, and it has perhaps the least impressive mech reveal I've seen in a show. There are Zaku variants which have more of a production made of their first showing, which makes it wrap all the way around to funny again.

Seriously, the deputy just finds a second mech enabling thing in Back Arrow's pod, activates it... and falls into a pit. It's kind of amazing.

Darth Walrus
Feb 13, 2012

chiasaur11 posted:

So, second episode of Back Arrow is out, and until it has its own thread, I guess I'm posting about it here.

Second episode shows more of the world's politics, including telling us what the bandit in episode 1 was doing, and it has perhaps the least impressive mech reveal I've seen in a show. There are Zaku variants which have more of a production made of their first showing, which makes it wrap all the way around to funny again.

Seriously, the deputy just finds a second mech enabling thing in Back Arrow's pod, activates it... and falls into a pit. It's kind of amazing.

TBF, that one mainly seemed to be setup for a much grander reveal.

chiasaur11
Oct 22, 2012



Darth Walrus posted:

TBF, that one mainly seemed to be setup for a much grander reveal.

Eventually, yes. But for now, it's clearly a gag.

I'm seeing people compare this to Xabungle, and honestly? Yeah. That fits.

Babysitter Super Sleuth
Apr 26, 2012

my posts are as bad the Current Releases review of Gone Girl

Saw this floating around on the Twitter again and thought its always a fun history lesson for those who don’t know.

https://twitter.com/tayuta0079/status/1350487287252086786?s=21

Schwarzwald
Jul 27, 2004

Don't Blink
Y'all ready for a huge gently caress-off block of text? Too bad, it's:

Rahxephon Rewatch post #3

EP 6-10

_____

I mentioned earlier that I remembered the show having a weak middle, but after rewatching these episodes I'm not sure that's the right criticism. It isn't that they're weak so much as they don't quite follow what came before. It's almost like they're episodes from another show.

Ayato undergoes a sort of... diagonal character growth in these episodes. The show tries to tell the story of how he goes from being a unwilling participant who doesn't want people getting hurt to becoming a more reliable combatant. This doesn't quite work because his character up until now has not been reluctant but untrusting.

The what is the same (Ayato doesn't want to be TERRA's soldier) but the why has shifted between episodes (Ayato thinks TERRA is shady but will happily rip apart a Dolem for Reika VS Ayato is just too gosh darn sensitive to do fighting good).

In effect we have a story line of Ayato overcoming a flaw he hadn't exhibited so that:
  • the show can introduce more traditional super robot elements
  • Ayato's previously suspicious nature doesn't uncover the obvious conspiracy
  • Ayato's previously suspicious nature doesn't interfere with the romance
    and
  • the pacing can be throttled way back
Que the glowy teleport pyramid and a host of new weapons!


And what exactly did those doubts concern, again?

_____

Haruka keeps trying to make sweet with Ayato. We also learn Haruka has been holding a torch for some boy for like 14 years now, and she brags to a coworker about finally having a chance with an old crush after all this time. Probably for the best her coworker doesn't realize she's crushing on the highschooler they kidnapped, but the fact that her highly informed scientist coworker who's in on the conspiracy doesn't put 2 and 2 together has wild implications for things down the line.

For his part, Ayato is much more receptive to her advances. I have Thoughts on this, some of which I won't disclose until farther into the rewatch. Being charitable, we might say that he's more willing to play nice now that his average stress level has fallen below "constant paranoid terror." (Lets ignore the fact that he's put in a giant robot cage match every other episode.)



Sadly, Elvy will be relying on Ayato for a few episodes longer.

_____

Ayato's appearance seems to have prompted some restructuring in TERRA. It's senior members are frequently called away, leaving their juniors in command. Some seniors, such as Quon's guardian/stepbrother*, have been subtly encouraging their subordinates to act illicitly, suggesting some power struggles behind the scenes.

In addition to TERRA, we're also shown that there is another (as yet unnamed) group involved. This group is very interested in the artifacts of ancient Mu, along with Ayato and Quon's abilities. At one point they try to activate Rahxephon using a failed prototype protagonist, prompting the rare material appearance of (and an aggressive response from) Reika.

There's also some "Lord Bahben" guy that comes up a few times. I'm sure he won't be anyone special.


The folks in charge occasionally provoke or engineer dangerous situations, perhaps to encourage Ayato to expand and exercise his abilities. Nanamori is only in danger in the first place because she was given a cursed necklace.

The show establishes that Reika, whoever/whatever she is (an aspect of Ayato's unconsciousness? a manifestation of the Rahxephon as some intelligent machine? something distinct?) is not aligned with any of the above agencies, but is fully and cognizantly representing her own side in the conflict. This is not too surprising from what we've been shown so far... but keep it in mind.

She also calls herself "Ixtli" to Quon and tells her that she (Quon) will be getting her own robot later on. Reika even hands Quon her own egg. An astute viewer might recognize this as a visual metaphor. It means that she will be getting her own robot. Later on.

(Fun fact: Ixtli and Ollin are Nahuatl words meaning "face" or "eye" and "to move" or "to shake" respectively.)


Music, huh? I guess that would mean anyone who could shape the world would have to be some sort of instrument person.

_____

A lot of episodes revolve around Ayato's relationships with the newly introduced side characters. Most of them are quite likable, but their little dramas feel very bloodless. None of their stories have the impact of, for example, how in episode one some nameless tank operative got murked while speaking with Ayato.

I did like the bit where a woman turned into a monster because her unrequited crush gave her a cursed amulet, but that might mostly be my love of cursed amulets. Columbo the newspaper reporter also shows up and he's very entertaining.

The robot fights have some gorgeous artwork but are sadly dull. The enemy Dolems and their attacks are a little too abstract, and don't play well with how physical the Rahxephon machine is. Most fights boil down to: Rahxephon is subjected to some weird metaphysical attack, pulls through because of love/determination/whatever, and then wins because the opponent has no defense against being blasted. Watch a SRW MX attack compilation video and set the playback speed to 0.5 and you'll get the jist.


These abilities include Prevail, Sword Cut, Shield Defense, and Instrument Person.

_____

Here's my big complaint with these episodes: they pull a switcheroo on a major facet of Ayato's personality. The fact that these episodes are fairly enjoyable provides some temptation to look the other way, but I don't like it. Ayato being a little off putting and aggressive made sense given what he went through and how his character was presented, and it sucks that this is kind of swept under the rug so he can be a Nice Boy now.

If I had to guess, I'd say the writers lost control of how they intended him to develop in the early episodes, and rather than change the story they gracelessly shoved things back into place. I'd also believe that there were different ideas on how the story should progress that got haphazardly sutured together.

Worse, the show wants to have some things both ways. Ayato is being manipulated by TERRA and the secret agency behind TERRA and some of them are bad guys who spell disaster for Ayato at sacrifice and he better watch out oh no! But also, Haruka projecting her trauma onto and having feelings for this highschooler she's been fantasizing about since he was 13 is pure and good and will materially protect him in combat and is definitely not a kind of emotional manipulation comparable to what the bad guys are pulling.

Notice how both of these plot lines would be very different with Ayato's previous, more confrontational personality.


Don't worry, you've got some time before he wises up.

There's other stuff, too, like how Ayato is frequently shown being drawn back to Tokyo Jupiter. This is weird for a number of reasons, not the least in how its framed as if he's subconsciously trying to escape to there. (In one episode he goes for a walk and just ends up astrally projected some miles above it.) It's the kind of plot point that would make perfect sense for episodes 1-5 Ayato, but feels out of place with the episodes 6-10 character. Again, the show wants it both ways.

It's not a good tension, and it's an awkward thing to reconcile.

...it kinda stinks to end a long post on a sour note, huh? The next post should cover episodes 11-14. These will be more monster-of-the-weeks, but IIRC they'll have some meat to them.

Schwarzwald fucked around with this message at 00:01 on Jan 18, 2021

chiasaur11
Oct 22, 2012



Just figured I should say I appreciate the wall of text. It's really interesting to get deep dives into shows I haven't seen (or that I have seen) and it's nice when it's not "this sucks" or "this rules", but a more complicated view of the faults and virtues of a show.

Schwarzwald
Jul 27, 2004

Don't Blink
Thank you! I didn't expect to have this much to say when I started this. :lol:

Zero_Tactility
Nov 25, 2007

Look into my eyes.
I appreciate both the analysis and sassy captions of your RahXephon write ups so far!

Schwarzwald
Jul 27, 2004

Don't Blink
Again, thanks for the kind words. :)

Rahxephon Rewatch post #4

Bad news: this is going to be another wall of text.
Good news: these four episodes (mostly) loving ruled.

EP 11-14

_____

Last post I complained how I felt the series had been inconsistent with Ayato's character, and in particular how they underplayed his earlier difficulties adjusting to the "real" world and his habit being confrontational.

These four episodes focus heavily on:
  • how Ayato is losing trust in other people
  • how he's developing a fear of women and intimacy
  • what The Big Conspiracy is, how it operates, and a rough sense of its goal
This is basically what I wanted, but it does make the previous episodes seem all the more strange.

_____



I've tried to avoid straight episode synopsis, but I think it's warranted for Episode 11. This is a "trapped in a dream" episode, with Ayato subjected to a Dolem attack that returns him to a sort of shadow version of the Tokyo he grew up in. The dream world is denoted by a wider aspect ratio.

He's subjected to weird visions that seems to play off his anxieties, such as Asahina and Mamoru (his two friends from eps 1&2) being intimate with each other. Later, when Mamoru is distracted, Asahina attempts to be intimate with Ayato as well. Afterwards, Haruka tries to force herself on him. Then he has a lovely dinner with his typically distant mother, who tells him that in dream Tokyo can experience the maternal affection he's been denied but desperately wants.

To quoting dream!Haruka directly, "You don't have to restrain yourself. Why don't you just be a man? It doesn't matter that I'm older than you. You shouldn't hold back. Just do what you want. Just do things as you please. [...] no matter how you hide it, it's what you want." This, understandable, causes Ayato to freak the gently caress out.

Ayato finally meets up with Reika, whom he suspects has the power to return him to the real world.


I'll take "Extremely Ominous Foreshadowing" for 800, Alex.

Reika frees Ayato my pulling an extremely large, phallic stone from Ayato's human throat. This returns Ayato to the Dolem fight, where he discovers the Dolem has gagged the Rahxephon's mouth. Ayato then dislodges the gag, shoves Rahxephon's hands into the Dolem's mouth and rips it apart, bloodily.

_____

Let's talk about Rahxephon's robot fights. One thing that bothered me earlier on was how each enemy Dolem would be controlled by just some faceless woman that Ayato would never meet. There weren't any reoccurring Char or Ramba Ral characters. There wasn't any personal connection. Ayato overcomes each Dolem in the episode he encounters it, and that's that.

But consider: the Rahxephon is male. All Dolems (so far) are female. Dolem attacks frequently have some bondage or smothering imagery — they entangle, immobilize or engulf the Rahxephon. Being trapped in an episode-long dream sequence is just a more extreme version of that. Ayato has to project violence through the Rahxephon to defend himself.

All of those elements were present in previous fights, but now that we're shown a Dolem sexual assault Ayato the imagery is now much more pertinent. It makes sense, now.


...y'all.

Quon later comments that Ayato's aggression is leading him "on a path of destruction." I hope his continually subjection to sexual violence doesn't inhibit his ability to respond to in a healthy manner to his libido, leading to tragic consequences. That would be bad!

_____

Plot stuff:

So the Bahben Foundation? They're behind everything. They established Tokyo Jupiter, they're funding TERRA, they're big into recovering the magic-science artifacts of ancient Mu, and they play with genetic engineering. The 500+ years old Lord Bahben, who runs the joint, has manipulated conducted the entire conflict.

Itsuki, resident mad scientist and Quon's "stepbrother," is in charge on monitoring Ayato and Quon's development. He's been deliberately feeding the Bahben Foundation false data, because he's terrified they'll take Quon away from him if they knew how much her powers have developed. Itsuki was brought up within the Bahmen Foundation, hates it, and hopes to protect Quon from their abuse. This is also why he falsely claims Quon is his stepsister.

Speaking of which, Quon was actually born some 40 years ago. She's aged less presumably because she was kept in a facility with slower time, much like the Tokyo Jupiter Ayato grew up in.

Ayato is slowly becoming more aware of all of this even as he's in the middle of it. Quon seems to look at Ayato as a positive example of a capable ollin/instrumentalist/Mu-type, and for his part Ayato is very protective of Quon as someone who's going through the same poo poo as him. That said, Quon's difficulty communicating, her poor sense of self-preservation, and her lack of control over her powers makes protecting her difficult. For example, her attempt to manifest her own robot causes her to teleport from her hospital bed into the Rahxephon while Ayato is in combat. Ayato has to stop fighting (letting the Rahxephon be vored by a Dolem in the meantime) to help her out.

(Quon is one of the few women Ayato gets along easily with. The other is Megumi, the girl who introduced herself as having no sexual interest in him.)


Somehow, all fictional conspiracies ultimately come down to controlling young women.

Everything comes to ahead when the Bahben Foundation finally catch on that Quon is awakening to her powers. In the chaos of their efforts to strengthen their grip on TERRA, and with some help from Newspaper Reporter Columbo, Ayato finds some poo poo out. Namely, the woman who raised him is the military head of the Tokyo Jupiter Mu organization and is not his birth mother. Moreover, he isn't genetically human.

When the Bahben Foundation gift TERRA a new mecha, Ayato is able to read the writing on the wall. Now that he's not their only defense against the Dolem attacks, they're going to have other plans for him and his abilities. He's seems less and less sure he wants to play nice.



This was a long time coming.

_____

Ayato's relationship with Haruka shifts wildly episode to episode. After escaping from his dream imprisonment, he seems to have a lot of difficulty being near her. At one point, he nearly has a panic attack just from standing in the same elevator as her. The next episode ...he's back to meekly fawning after her, and gets heartbroken when he sees her kiss someone else.

This show's unwillingness to stick to a lane here is an unforced error. What was going on with the show that this became a problem?


Which home would that be, Ayato?

We are done with the MOTW stuff and the pacing is ratcheting back up, which means the next post will cover fewer episodes.
These next handful of episodes are what people most remember about Rahxephon.

Schwarzwald fucked around with this message at 19:42 on Jan 22, 2021

Weird BIAS
Jul 5, 2007

so... guess that's it, huh? just... don't say i didn't warn you.
Macross Plus 13 years ago to Macross 7 3 years ago to Super Dimension Fortress Macross is a hell of a way to experience this series but I'm currently enjoying the hell out of og Macross.

Gaius Marius
Oct 9, 2012

What compelled you to watch 7 before the OG

Weird BIAS
Jul 5, 2007

so... guess that's it, huh? just... don't say i didn't warn you.
I wanted cheese butt rock and it delivered.

e: also timing and availability for where I could watch it meant og wasn't available to me at the time.

Justin_Brett
Oct 23, 2012

GAMERDOME put down LOSER
https://twitter.com/Hellishplight/status/1343328676503547910

Weird BIAS
Jul 5, 2007

so... guess that's it, huh? just... don't say i didn't warn you.
Frankly how could anyone argue with Starship?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hzagb1jQjxo

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chiasaur11
Oct 22, 2012



Weird BIAS posted:

Frankly how could anyone argue with Starship?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hzagb1jQjxo

Feels like it could be matched to the track better. I mean, the basic concept is good, but it doesn't go the extra mile.

Then again, the original Macross 7 OP doesn't sync the action to the music too impressively either, so Starship can hardly be blamed for the same failure.

(Also, the third episode of Back Arrow is out. 'salright. We've got the battleship, at least.)

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