Was?
Well thanks to NOHAMOTYO it is probably buried under a few pages.
edited 19th Jul '10 1:08:59 PM by Alkthash
All those spoilers are really tempting. Luckily there's a new page, making me less likely to see them.
Episode 2 part 2
We start out with a nighttime shot of some circular-looking military base. We see Fortissimo slowly regrowing itself. So I'm guessing that the dolems are, unlike Evas, more openly biological. And the other dolem(the one that destroyed Fortissimo) is apparently completely dormant. Then we see who I think might be Mishima sleeping, with a door that starts out open and gets closed(someone looking at her, I'm guessing), and immediately cut to two MIBs knocked out with blue-haired lady in their car. She's apparently hacking into their systems or something—no, wait, out comes Ayato, she's probably spying on him. He sees a car drive by, and then we immediately see Shinji in the car with Misato Ayato in the car with the blue-haired Champion of Justice whose name I still don't know, and it's getting kind of awkward having to describe her every time. She talks about how everything's suspicious, and Ayato is, despite thinking it's a good idea to get into the car with her, not curious enough to, oh, I dunno, have her explain these things to you. She asks the question "Do you know how many people are on Earth right now?", which I'm guessing is a pretty important question. Ayato answers with "23 million people", but the Champion of Justice gives the answer "six billion", meaning that the teacher was wrong and England and America probably still exist. Also, she's just as reckless a driver as the Evangelion character I'm trying and failing not to compare her to.
We come to some security checkpoint, and the yawning soldier tries and fails to stop not-Misato from speeding her car through it. The alarm starts, and Ayato is justifiably freaked out. We then cut to the two MIB apologizing to Ayato's mom, and apparently our Champion of Justice is holding Ayato hostage, which means that either the MIB are lying about what not-Misato is actually trying to do or not-Misato was lying to Ayato. In the control room itself, we see good news and bad news—the good news being that Fortissimo is repaired, the bad news being an "unknown response pattern" in the Room of Rah thanks to Mishima walking on water and probably doing something to the dolem inside the egg. (RahXephon itself?) Meanwhile, not-Misato and Ayato are trying to escape on one of the futuristic planes. Since "VTOL" was mentioned earlier, I guess that's the reason for their interesting designs. While the control room is still unsure what's happening(and Ayato's mom is in a car heading for the Shrine), not-Misato's VTOL suddenly starts acting weird. And once she takes her hand off the joystick it starts moving on its own. "This can't be!" Apparently it has a mind of its own(or is being remote controlled from the control room) now?
We then cut to Mishima, letting out a single note. I really want to know what her deal is. The RahXephon opens up; one of the MIBs sees the VTOL flying uncontrolled, not-Misato is utterly confused, and Ayato's mouth gapes open. Ayato's mom and the MIBs are going down an elevator while she announces her intentions to go into the Room of Rah, and inside the VTOL, Ayato is apparently being mind-controlled by Mishima or something and it forces him to struggle against his seatbelt in order to try to get out. One of the MIBs comments on how the only way into the Room of Rah is by foot, and then the VTOL is flying down into it. Mishima causes the plane to break open its windshield, eject Ayato, and fly not-Misato into a pillar. Mishima is the most suspicious character on this show, and when you consider what I'm watching, that's saying a lot. Not-Misato manages to just barely survive as the plane sinks into the water. Ayato, of course, is making his way towards the RahXephon. Holy shit, as he walks up to the dolem, his eyes are red. The RahXephon opens up for him, and as he comes in, he's engulfed in light. And that ends the show, with our main character eaten by a giant robot. Thanks for reading my liveblog, guys!
Just kidding, of course. There's the sound and image of a raindrop, and then Ayato finds himself inside the control seat of a mecha, the room now darkened. Its eyes open, and then the darkened room opens up to become a view of the outside world. Ayato, for his part, is utterly terrified either by the fact that he's piloting a mecha, or all the pillars in the Room of Rah. His mind then turns to all the prior plot events, which causes him to have a mental breakdown. This seems to lead to a bunch of shaking and a tidal wave coming out of the RahXephon's egg. Next, we see Allegretto and Fortissimo singing, apparently to cause resonance which cracks the glass around them. Next, we see Maya(Ayato's mom) being hurt somehow, and an MIB worrying for her. Ayato sees this, and sees her bleeding. Her blood, by the way, is blue.
She's bleeding blue.
I'd also like to note that Maya would have had to avoid bleeding at all costs around her son for him not to realize that. However, she then stands up to look at the RahXephon, and despite the giant blue gash on her face, she has the same stern look as always. And then, the ending song.
Even after learning that, I still have pretty much no idea what's actually going on yet.
the future we had hoped for
Taller than Zim
You're going to get some bits of exposition, but really, "What the hell is going on" isn't going to be resolved until the last episode (post-credits!)
"No, the Singularity will not happen. Computation is hard." -Happy Ent
Rah Xephon is a good example of a Jigsaw Puzzle Plot - everything fits together when you have all the pieces and can put them together, but you start out as disoriented as poor Ayato.
The VTOL looks peculiar parly because it has special equipment attached in those two huge pods; you won't understand why the pods are needed until episode 3. Our secret agent lady will be named at the end of episode 3, as well.
Note that the Rah Xephon is not technically a Dolem - it is not of the same construction.
Ayato is more than a little traumatised by these events so far, but not unreasonably so. And there is a reason he doesn't remember ever seeing Maya bleed blue before, but that won't be revealed for a while yet.
null
The RahXephon isn't a dolem? That's news to me. But then again, I probably wasn't paying enough attention.
There's no space in the name.
Taller than Zim
It's fairly interesting to see what you're catching (and what you're missing, or at least not commenting on) Episode three should be fairly interesting.
"No, the Singularity will not happen. Computation is hard." -Happy Ent
ALMSIVI
You're going to get some bits of exposition, but really, "What the hell is going on" isn't going to be resolved until the last episode (post-credits!)Y'know, I'm pretty sure I was still confused about the ending. Not that confused, and I was able to figure it out after reading a bit in Alky's old liveblog as well as the RahXephon thread, but still confused.
"I can't imagine what Hell will have in store, but I know when I'm there, I won't wander anymore."
I always like to put a slightly amusing statement here, but I can't think of anything.
Episode 3 part 1
We start back up with Maya still just staring at us despite a giant gash on her face. Do aliens just not have to worry about bloodloss? We then hear a voice that sounds like a filter was put through it, meaning that it's Ayato speaking through RahXephon. Wait, no, then Maya starts speaking, meaning that it's some sort of alien telepathy. We then hear some stuff about Ayato's blood awakening. Then we cut to the control room with Fortissimo, and they give off some quantum physics terms I don't really feel like looking up to see if they have any relation to what's actually happening. It's probably bullshit, though I doubt it could reach the level of complete lack of relation to the actual scientific concept that the Dirac Sea in Evangelion did. But this is a RahXephon liveblog, not an Evangelion one, so I'll keep that rant to myself. Besides, it's mostly there for flavor. But they're worried that Fortissimo is going to awaken. We then see the person in the headdress covering his/her eyes start singing as well, and then the pillars behind Maya and the MIB start to collapse as a mech rises behind them. Ayato is worried, but it turns out that Maya is safe thanks to the power of alien telekinesis, and stands up on her own dolem. Then we see not-Misato running across a bunch of suspended-in-the-air rocks, presumably towards Ayato, but I'm not sure. Then we see a shot of Mishima looking totally evil(and Maya being surprised to see her), and then a bunch of rocks start falling at not-Misato, killing her.
Whoops, I meant that Ayato freaks out a bit, extends his hand out, and blocks the rocks from hitting not-Misato. He then somehow manages to create a ball with his hand, holding not-Misato inside. Odd. After picking up not-Misato further, he suddenly starts his bizarre "singing" thing again, and then thrusts out into the sky, coming through some darkened rooms, and then the actual night sky. And I just realized that I never made the connection that the sky was artificial, despite it being day in the artificial sky and night in the actual sky several times last episode. This is because I am an idiot. One of the dolems follow RahXephon up into the sky, and then Maya makes a comment about Ixtli. That definitely sounds Mesoamerican, and I'm guessing that it has some meaning that I don't know—I'll let hollow49 tell me what the source of that name is. And now Mishima wants RahXephon to sing the "forbidden song" that will cause "all to become one". Then Fortissimo fires its weapon at RahXephon, which passes through it with only minor damage but utterly destroys a section of the city behind. After seeing Mishima's scarf, Ayato thinks that she is dead(silly protagonist, creepy waifs like Mishima don't die) and starts having an epic freakout.
And back at the control station, blah blah blah his quantum power level is over 12. Fortissimo tries that giant energy beam attack, but because Ayato is screaming, the Xephon has a shield around it that deflects the energy. And then Xephon grabs Fortissimo's fucking throat. I'd like to see you try to sing now. This causes intense pain in one of the jar people in the control center, followed by Fortissimo completely breaking apart, and a weird energy vortex thing. As Fortissimo's head finally cracks apart, the hologram or something of the person with the Egyptian headdress thing completely disappears, and some more quantum babble. The only actually important words in that are probably "boundary" and "corridor". And then the corridor zaps Xephon away. "It appears Xephon has leapt the Barrier." The other guy talks about how this is a terrible thing, but of course my next question is: "Terrible for whom?" The corridor then dissipates. Maya seems strangely unfazed by any of this, as she's absolutely sure Ayato will come back. With Ixtlishima, apparently.
"Third movement: City of Two / Welcome to our town" Is it just me or are the Japanese episode titles more interesting than the English ones?
Ayato finds himself on the ground looking at a bug. Did the whole corridor thing knock him out of Xephon? It appears that it did. Hmm, the sky is red. Sort of like that initial painting with Mishima. I assumed that was just sort of a color scheme thing, but maybe this is in fact connected. Very striking to see it where one would expect a blue sky though. And then, out comes not-Misato. I hope I can give her an actual name soon—this show isn't near deserving enough of snark for me to refer to the characters by description for the entire thing like I would for a Chick tract. And apparently the red sky is actually a wall, and it has the name Tokyo Jupiter. But just as she's about to actually explain what Tokyo Jupiter is, she hears something and runs off to investigate, because it's a well-known fact that if someone actually just straight-out told Ayato anything, rather than teasing out the information in short chunks, they would actually spontaneously combust. She comes up to the edge of a boat, and as Ayato comes over to see what's happening, he tips the boat over and causes the animation to suddenly switch over to slide-show format.
Next, we see not-Misato and Ayato wet and angry. We then come across an old, worn-out map, that apparently shows some peninsula in Japan that implies that they were not in Tokyo. This surprises Ayato because he was under the impression that the outside world was obliterated. I'm guessing that this has to do with Tokyo Jupiter. Then a bit of conversation about how you shouldn't believe everything you hear, blah blah blah, and then they change clothes. Ayato changes into a bizarre outfit with a star on it. He then sees a dusty old phone, and dusts it off in an attempt to call it, but not-Misato tells him that it's no use because there's no power. He attempts it anyway, and gets no response, so he puts the phone back. Not-Misato's outfit looks a lot less ridiculous than Ayato's. She sees Ayato's outfit and has the exact same reaction to it that I did. Ayato changes into much less ridiculous-looking clothes. Next we get some scenes of them going through a grocery store taking the non-perishables. And now we hear a radio transmission giving us the bombshell that it's 2027 instead of 2015, meaning that Japan is in some weird time dilation with the outside world. Ayato thinks this means that not-Misato is from the future, which causes her to burst into laughter. We then get a bit more conversation, leading up to not-Misato assuring Ayato that everyone in Tokyo Jupiter is in fact alive. Video time: 14 minutes 10 seconds
So I know a little bit more of what's going on. On the other hand, I suspect that I missed a lot more things than I caught this time around.
the future we had hoped for
null
Don't worry, things start getting explained about where you are. You'll be a lot less confused by the time the fourth episode's over.
There's no space in the name.
Was?
Good point catching the fridge logic of Maya making sure she never got a cut around Ayato. There is actually an implied explanation later on
...Wait this means Ayato was temporarily a Rummage Sale Reject.
Points to take from the episode so far:
- Ayato has terrible taste in clothing.
- Central Tokyo thinks that the rest of the world is gone (only 23m population) but this is not the case.
- Destroying the Dolem kills the pilot (the helmeted hologram) - in the show, pilots are called Instrumentalists, as the Dolem use music in battle. (Later episodes will reveal more about the mechanics of piloting Dolems.)
- Reika Mishima was referred to as 'Ixtli' (face), probably short for the phrase "in ixtli in yollotl" (face and heart), which (when you learn her secret) is remarkably apposite.
Now this is the first time I'm doing this in Linux *. Chances are, nobody here cares about that.
Episode 3, part 2
We start out inside the boat, with not-Misato just waking up. However, Ayato is gone, and not-Misato panics. He left a note stating "Please don't look for me." Next, we see Ayato himself looking around the areas which have been abandoned since the Tokyo Jupiter was erected. We see a nice montage of Scenery Gorn, which is one thing that I am quite fond of in this show. As Ayato is walking, he suddenly hears a phone ringing. Apparently there's a box which is actually connected! Ayato picks up the phone, and the voice we hear is, surprisingly, his mother's voice. Somehow, I have the feeling that she is going to say something that doesn't actually tell us anything. She talks about how the ones who wrecked her city are going to try to make him forget her and hate her and whatever. She completely ignores the question about her blood, as part of the Greater RahXephon Don't Tell Ayato About Anything Act of 2015 2027. Also, she didn't sound very healthy. A short(like, one-second) shot of Maya with the wound shows, and then Ayato panics and starts running.
He crosses a barbed-wire fence, then comes up to a cliff. On the other side of the cliff is Tokyo Jupiter. Actually, looking at it again, it isn't a cliff but a place where the world was just cut, including a road. Then, shortly after, not-Misato pops in and starts actually *gasp* explaining things, specifically that the only way to get through the barrier involves a huge amount of energy. Eventually, Ayato gets onto the bike not-Misato used and asks her to get on. They ride back to the site where the boat and RahXephon are. But as they're about to get onto the boat, not-Misato hears something, and runs off to investigate. However, instead of being something threatening like not-Misato thought it was, it turns out to actually be a cute kitty. Not-Misato, like me, is stricken with Cuteness Proximity, and asks Ayato if she can take the kitty with them. Ayato says that it isn't his decision, and as they argue, the kitty starts running off, and not-Misato runs after it. Ayato comes out to the outside of the boat, and sees not-Misato carrying the kitty. She informs him to get off the boat, and he does. Why, you might ask?
Because there's a plane running by, and not-Misato has to set the boat on fire. The boat makes a nice light in the darkness.
In the next scene, it's daytime, and not-Misato comments on how it took a long time for Lilia Litvyak to get here. Apparently, Lilia Litvyak is a special duty aircraft carrier for TERRA, which is Earth's anti-Mu military force, and not-Misato's employer. Also, she finally fucking reveals her name so that I can call her by such. It's Shitow Haruka *. And the episode ends on a shot of the Lilia Litvyak behind the RahXephon.
Hmm. That was a short bit of episode. I think I might liveblog another episode segment tonight. So this is what I think I know now: The Mu(who have blue blood?) erected Tokyo Jupiter around Tokyo at some point. They have control of the government and such of Tokyo, and has convinced Tokyo that the rest of the world has been destroyed. The rest of the world, including Haruka, is trying to mount an attack against the Mu.
Also: kitty!
the future we had hoped for
You know, I completely missed the thing about Maya having to keep her blood hidden from Ayato...
You can't even write racist abuse in excrement on somebody's car without the politically correct brigade jumping down your throat!
Alright, so this is the second episode I'm livebloggening tonight(for odd values of tonight, since I finished this at 4:25 am). Also, when I showed this on #yackfest Wicked said something like "dense liveblog is dense". I'm not sure if that's a compliment or an insult.
Episode 4, part 1
Hmm, so we have a voiceover beginning the episode now instead of the OP. The only thing I learned from it was that the Mu hail from an alternate dimension. Personally, I preferred "Hemisphere". We start out with a shot of a small crescent-shaped island. We get some chat between some guys on another boat about the Lilia Litvyak, followed by a look at it from a telescope. We then see that the Lilia Litvyak is carrying the RahXephon, and that the red-haired girl from the very first scene is examining it. The red-haired girl sees the kitty and smiles. Then we see Ayato complaining that he has to have a check-up, but the kitty doesn't. As the doctor draws blood from Ayato(which is, notably, red and not blue), a commander comes in and asks Haruka about the cat. He also makes a comment to Ayato about resetting his watch to the correct time.
"Fourth Movement: His Own Watch / Watch the year hand"
The Lilia Litvyak is sailing into a building of some kind. Ayato is visibly impressed by the scale of everything. We then cut to a conversation on the command center of the ship about having the RahXephon(oddly referred to as a doll) brought into a labratory, despite others wishing to make use of its military capabilities. However, the people having the "doll" don't care for Ayato. If I know my mecha anime right, though, only Ayato will be even vaguely capable of piloting the RahXephon. We cut back to Ayato and Haruka, with Haruka looking around for the kitty. As someone who lived in a house with multiple cats for years, I can sympathize with having to track them down. Meanwhile, Ayato asks about the timezone thing. Haruka explains it by showing a nice clock that shows both external and Tokyo Jupiter time. The time outside Tokyo moves much faster(more than twice as fast, I think) than the Tokyo Jupiter time. So I was right about time dilation. And then we get someone with binoculars looking at them, and a target pointing out Haruka. Haruka quickly shoos away Ayato and walks over to the binocular-holder.
A dark-haired woman makes some odd comment about absinthe. Apparently she's referring to the attack on Tokyo that led to all this, and Elvy Hadhiyat was the only survivor. That seems like a bit of an odd name—Hadyihat sounds vaguely Arabic, which would make sense given her skin color, but Elvy doesn't quite sound Arabic. Oh well, this is anime, I shouldn't expect deft use of foreign languages. Hadyihat then asks a question about whether the point of Operation Overlord was just to retrieve Ayato. Haruka refuses to answer, thus proving that ambiguous responses are in fact not limited to conversations with Ayato. This just gets Hadyihat madder. Next, we see Ayato looking at his watch, and then a barber pole. The red-haired girl comes out of a door on the right side of the barber pole, carrying something. Ayato makes a comment about the barber pole, which gets red-haired girl talking about how it was originally for field hospitals, and the colors refer to blood. The pole is red and blue, which confuses her because she doesn't realize that unoxygenated blood is blue. She then asks him to help her put on some sort of outfit, and talks about how she takes it off when she gets a haircut, but she'd rather go completely naked if it weren't distracting, and some stuff that's designed to pretty blatantly show that she has the hots for Ayato. "Let's go, Ollin." So I'm thinking that she's of Mulian descent. Of course, Ayato doesn't know what Ollin means, and red-haired girl also has Inability To Give a Straight Answer Syndrome.
They go out to another part of the base, and we get to see some Scenery Porn/Technology Porn that isn't Scenery Gorn, which seems to be a rarity for this series. Then, red-haired girl starts walking onto the supports. Ayato begins to follow her, but makes the mistake of looking down, causing him to get a bit nervous. "Ra-ra? Are they taking it away?" And then we see the reason she took him here in the first place—the RahXephon is, in fact, being taken away. However, while they're up there, some white-haired guy that already rubs me the wrong way comes up and asks what he's doing up there. When he responds, white-haired guy makes a comment about how he can do what he wants with the spoils of war. Immediate cut to the command center, where white-haired guy identifies himself as Isshiki Makoto, who works for TERRA. There's some discussion about how the "doll" will be taken over to a Federation research facility, and Ayato gets defensive over it. Haruka stops him from going after the commander(whose voice is very deep) and says that she should have explained everything to him beforehand. Yeah, you and everyone else, Haruka. After a bit more conversation, ending with the commander asking Haruka to fill Ayato in, we cut to red-haired girl, saying some incomprehensible stuff. The word "timbre" was mentioned though. Video time: 9 minutes 49 seconds
Next, we see a submarine or something, and the eyecatch.
The members of TERRA seem to be something of jerks. I'm not sure who I should be rooting for between them and the Mulians. I suspect that Ayato too will be conflicted. Either way, next time, part 2.
edited 23rd Jul '10 2:08:51 AM by Ponicalica
the future we had hoped for
Was?
Actually Elvy is Indonesian... it feels good to be able to discuss something that isn't a spoiler.
Also just curious are you watching the dub or the sub?
null
My personal theory is that the Mu phase does something to the blood so it doesn't turn red when it oxygenates. You'd expect a Mulian to look a lot different if they have blue blood, though.
Side note: Blue blood is also important in La Blue Girl.
@Alkthash: He's watching the sub.
edited 23rd Jul '10 1:44:12 AM by JBridge
There's no space in the name.
I'm watching the sub. I don't much like watching dubs in general, furthermore, a dub would be significantly more annoying for liveblogging because when I'm not sure about a line, I can track back a bit and pause and have the line on the screen instead of having to track back multiple times to make sure I heard the line right.
the future we had hoped for
Taller than Zim
Don't EVER expect a straight answer from Quon. She and Reika NEVER says ANYTHING straight out. (When those two are in the same scene it's prett much Cryptic Overload)
"No, the Singularity will not happen. Computation is hard." -Happy Ent
Quon being red-haired girl?
the future we had hoped for
Taller than Zim
Yep. Resident Rei-Expy.
EDIT: I'm also somewhat amused by your interpretations of the character-relationships... But you'll find out more about that latrr :p
edited 23rd Jul '10 2:12:44 AM by Arilou
"No, the Singularity will not happen. Computation is hard." -Happy Ent
Quon is in fact a must better fit for the whole Mysterious Waif role than Mishima Reika. I find her somewhat iritating at times, but she plays a needed role in the plot.
Nitpicking aside (feel free to skip this next bit): Unoxygenated blood is not in fact blue - it's a dark purple. (Veins just look blue through pale skin because of the way the skin absorbs colours.) But given the blue blood of the Mulians, Quon may in fact be trying to hint to Ayato that she knows something without giving anything away. (Also, the traditional barber-surgeon's pole is meant to represent bloody bandages from a brass pot, and has no blue.)
The white-haired jerk is quite unpleasant isn't he? Most of the characters seem to disike him as well.
(Edit: Replaced inaccurate comment.)
edited 23rd Jul '10 9:52:14 AM by hollow49
Apologies: I'll be at the beach for a week, so I won't be able to update the liveblog. When I get back, I'll update, though.
the future we had hoped for
ALMSIVI
I wouldn't really say that Quon has red hair. More like lavendar. So, that kinda confused me.
This liveblog is making me want to rewatch the show, which I probably will do. I tried watching the movie earlier, got about half way through before giving up. It just isn't as good.
"I can't imagine what Hell will have in store, but I know when I'm there, I won't wander anymore."
There's probably a RahXephon thread in Manga & Anime.
the future we had hoped for