What I find interesting about RahXephon is that having watched it and NGE several times and read staff interviews for both etc is that in almost every respect, RX is clearly better thought out and more competently executed*, and yet, it’s NGE which ultimately somehow turns out to be greater than the sum of its parts of RX and a part of anime history, while RX is ‘merely’ one of the best mechas around, especially from that era.
* with the exception of the music—RX’s is quite good but Sagisu’s NGE work is still considered one of the best, up there with Kanno’s Cowboy Bebop.
I agree, there is some magic to NGE that RahXephon doesn’t have—but I’m not sure how much of that is caused by the fact that I saw NGE first and it was the first Anime I ever watched. I love Neuromancer, but much of my love for it comes from the fact that it was the first science fiction novel I ever read. I had no antibodies. If I had read Vinge first, it’s likely I wouldn’t have been too impressed with Neuromancer, which has as many flaws as NGE.
I can’t justify giving NGE a higher score for the reasons you described, but I do slightly prefer it—though less so after re-watching RahXephon.
What I find interesting about RahXephon is that having watched it and NGE several times and read staff interviews for both etc is that in almost every respect, RX is clearly better thought out and more competently executed*, and yet, it’s NGE which ultimately somehow turns out to be greater than the sum of its parts of RX and a part of anime history, while RX is ‘merely’ one of the best mechas around, especially from that era.
* with the exception of the music—RX’s is quite good but Sagisu’s NGE work is still considered one of the best, up there with Kanno’s Cowboy Bebop.
I agree, there is some magic to NGE that RahXephon doesn’t have—but I’m not sure how much of that is caused by the fact that I saw NGE first and it was the first Anime I ever watched. I love Neuromancer, but much of my love for it comes from the fact that it was the first science fiction novel I ever read. I had no antibodies. If I had read Vinge first, it’s likely I wouldn’t have been too impressed with Neuromancer, which has as many flaws as NGE.
I can’t justify giving NGE a higher score for the reasons you described, but I do slightly prefer it—though less so after re-watching RahXephon.