Disclaimer: Reviews contain my personal opinion, and I don't claim to be the authority on these things. I appreciate and respect that other people may have different opinions. Friendly debate is welcome, but name-calling and other such immaturity will be ignored. My reviews assume you've either seen the series/movie already or aren't planning to. They're full of spoilers, but they won't necessarily describe the whole movie beginning to end... more likely I'll rant about some aspect or another in detail, but leave huge gaps about the plot. And oh yeah, I'll be cursing
Going into this series, I'd heard there were two kinds of anime fans: those who like Evangelion, and those who like RahXephon. Being a HUGE fan of Evangelion, I was still determined to give this show a chance. In all the reviews I'd read, people were saying it was a better-paced, less cryptic version of Eva. Eva certainly has its flaws, so I wanted to see if they were right. However, after seeing the show, I can definitively say that these people are FULL OF SHIT.
Before I launch into a list of what I couldn't stand about this series, though, I will say that the movie was fantastic. It was a sort of truncated version of the series, but with a few major differences. It jumps right in and immediately explains what the series couldn't be bothered to. The extraneous characters are eliminated (including a few I liked, but there are just so damn many to begin with), and the most obnoxious character in the show is changed entirely, making her much more bearable and also much more clearly explaining her role. There is still an issue of creepy middle aged adult/teen romances, but for the most part the movie is awesome. If you take away anything from this review, save yourself the frustration of slogging through the 26 episode series and just watch the movie.
That being said, on to the show. I tried very hard while watching this series NOT to compare it to Evangelion, but it's incredibly difficult, especially in the first few episodes. It just smacks you in the face with comparisons, especially in the case of one of the main characters, Haruka. In appearance, she is literally Misato with a haircut and some jeans instead of a skirt. If you want to know all the similarities, this is a more extensive list than I care to compile in a review blog, but it covers pretty much all the visual stuff I noticed: Eva Xephon: Comparison Gallery . Warning: there are 17 pages of this. I think some of it is reaching, but most of it is pretty accurate. Not to mention, most of the music sounded like it was right out of End of Evangelion, with the exception of "Stranger in Paradise," which I've heard used in a lot of anime (even Sonic the Hedgehog), and still weirds me out... at least it was the most appropriate use of the song I've seen in an anime.
Anyway, the show starts off with a bang, and has a spectacular budget for most episodes, but after the first few it suffers from the same meandering plot-stalling tactics as Eva did. Boy leaves home for world of military and robots, boy gets frustrated, boy spends way too much time running away from responsibility. Only, where Eva started to pick up around episode 8 and the introduction of Asuka, it feels like RahXephon flounders around until nearly the end, with the exception of some seemingly randomly placed epic episodes. Pretty much anything in Tokyo Jupiter was awesome, but that was very few episodes.
As much as I fucking HATED Shinji, at least he felt like a very consistent, well-developed character. There was no question as to where he stood or where he was coming from. Kamina Ayato, along with almost the entire cast (aside from Haruka, and Dr. Kisaragi's crazy stalker assistant) were incredibly vague and wooden. Ayato barely reacts to anything, including the fact that people are constantly calling him "Orin"; he asks about it once, and someone says "don't worry about it," and so he doesn't ask about it again for the ENTIRE SERIES. I don't know about you, but if multiple people were calling me by the wrong name for the better part of a year, I'd *at least* correct them! He would also have completely random attitude changes, even within the same episode. In one in particular, he spends the first 2/3 of it insisting that he doesn't want to get on RahXephon and fight, and then suddenly he's just in the mech and really enthusiastic about fighting. WTF? And I can't even count the number of times that he has absolutely no reaction to major plot revelations.
Speaking of characters, there were roughly a bajillion of them. I had a hard time keeping track of who was who, because the character design was very similar for the most part, and many characters were referred to more than they were shown. Some of my favorite characters ended up being really extraneous, and it wasn't made clear until the movie why they were there at all. And weirdly, one of the biggest showdowns in the series is between characters who hardly get any screen time until the very end, when they have an epic battle. To let you know how un-essential these characters are, one of them was cut from the movie entirely, and one was combined with another to help simplify things.
One of the weirdest things about the show is that it was very close to being a harem anime. Everyone seemed to be in love with the 17-year-old main character. I was completely mystified by this, seeing as he lacked a personality. But there were at least three characters who were in love with him, some who flirted with him all the time, and several others who claimed him as being "very important" to them. The ones who loved him included a girl who already had a very committed boyfriend, and a 29-year-old (there were time differentials going on due to plot reasons, but still...).
I know, there are people out there saying "But what about Shinji and Misato??" The difference is, Shinji and Misato kissed once. Misato having an attraction for Shinji was supposed to be more about her traumatic past and resulting refusal to grow up. The kiss was supposed to be her way of shocking him into waking up and taking action, and she knew she wasn't going to be able to follow through with her promise of doing more. In Evangelion, most of the character relationships were incredibly unhealthy, a striking commentary on society, and an illustration of the baggage that all people carry regardless of the front they put up. In RahXephon, some of the same relationship dynamics are present, but they are glorified instead.
Anyway, I know there are going to be people out there who disagree with me - people who couldn't take the self-loathing and angst of Evangelion characters, or couldn't stand to see the psychological breakdown and utter mental desolation as the series wore on, or people who just plain didn't like the mindfuck aspect of it. If you're one of these people, RahXephon might be for you. I just think it still has major issues with pacing, storytelling, and character development. I have to assume that all the rave reviews I've read of it are from people who also saw the movie, and after seeing it explained and wrapped up in such a way, immediately forgot about all the flaws of the series. But that's just me.