RahXephon

All over the internet, there are reviews ranting on how good RahXephon is, so I decided to get the whole box set for my birthday. What a waste. RahXephon IS Neon Genesis EvangelionIt really is. It’s terrible plagarism. The plot devices are the same, the character the same, to goddamn introspective sequences the same.There is not much I really like about RahXephon, probably because it pisses me off I wasted my money on it. The characters are all obviously from NGE, the main character, Ayato, is like a slightly chirpier Shinji, and the rest of the cast are pretty straight forward in their rolesI.e. They are painfully similar down to fault. If they’re not similar, they’re just flatout boring.. One thing that does tend to wind me up is the fact that the characters do tend to flip-flop between personas, and I think it’s pretty unfeasible that everyone has skitzophrenia, so I just assume it’s the writers indecision.

One credit to the series thought are it’s visuals. They are very well done and drawn. Not like NGE, where often the reuse the same clip all the time, but crisp, clean and actually animated consistently well. The enemies are also quite impressive, whichs makes up slightly for a rather lacklustre plot conercing Aztecs or somethings. Oh, the battles between our favourite Xephon (as in Rah-, pictured above) and these giant enemies (all named after musical notations) all feature the same pattern. Xephon confronts the enemy, enemies whoops Xephon to point of near destruction, Ayato is visited by his hallucination of a girly friend, Xephon whoops enemy to destruction. This happens about 15-16 times in the series. Not fun.

Overall, go watch Evangelion if you want to see the original and GOOD big scary mecha/big scary philosophical plot series, because RahXephon is a poor clone.

Rating: 3/10

Bleach

This is just another ‘all about the fighting’ anime. Just like Naruto. Just like the totemic Dragonball Z. And it really really works well. Tite Kubo, the series creator, adds a few twists and turns to the old formula and creates a highly enjoyable and successful anime.The story revolves around Kurosaki Ichigo, a young man who lives in the suburbs somewhere in Japan. Just when he getting over all his troubles, he is thrown, literally head-first, into the Spirit world. Now in the spirit world, you have Hollows, who are evil spirits who have lost their souls, signified by a hollow in their chest, who like going eating human souls when they die. To combat them, you have the Shinigamis (Death Gods) of Soul Society. These clever sword-wielding ninjas combat these nasty Hollow fellows using Kidou (like magic, but better) and their very cool Zanpaktou swords, which I will get to later.

The plot is very enjoyable. Nothing instantly classic, but great fun to watch and enjoy immersing yourself in. But it is the characters and their interaction that really makes Bleach shine. All the characters, and they are quite a bundle, are memorable and although seem fairly generic at first, all have small facets of themselves that make them interesting. And the humour is fantastic as well. Ichigo and his classmates, for example. Everytime they get together, something funny happens and I jsut crack up. Also when Ichigo, or anyone for that matter, is in a battle: the dialogue is cleverly done, so as not to overwhelm the situation and diminish the battle. And of the course all the battles themselves are great. As is common with this genre, each new character has a new set of abilities that you slowly learn about, especially the Zanpaktou (now you watch the series).

The music is great fun as well. I actually do find myself humming it every now and again, and all the little tidbits used in episodes add spice to the flavour of the situation (terrible, I know). The visuals are probably the let down of the series. They’re good, nice and shiny, but you sense that a lot more energy could be put into them. But such is the problem with an ongoing series like Bleach, compared to a finite series like Full Metal Alchemist, where the animation was fantastic. Bleach also uses a very clever plot device, particularly in the manga, which helps the make the story continually interesting. In some series, you get certain things set out in stone, and with these there is generally no variation. For Bleach, a prime example of this not happening would be Shingamis and Hollows, but in fact, you find out, which is actually fairly monumental, that are actually pretty much interchangeable. This, and other similar things, provide great twists in the storyline, which makes much more enjoyable than many other similar series.

This series is a great find in every sense that a good, enjoyable anime series should be. Find somewhere to watch it and just enjoy!

Rating: 9/10

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 12th, 2006 at 5:47 pm and is filed under Anime. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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