#chiaki’s one of those characters who at first glance LOOKS like they should fall under “legally cannot say fuck”

[whatsaudreythinkingabout]

chiaki forgets to charge her switch lite & it dies on her in the middle of a game so she lets out a very soft “ah fuck” and everyone’s head snaps in her direction

[oumakokichi]

Hey!! I was wondering if you could talk a little about the similarities between Ouma and Chiaki? Thank you for your hard work!

Now there’s a fun question! I’ve talked pretty at lengthabout Ouma’s similarities (and his differences) to a number of characters, butnow that I think about it, I’m not sure I’ve ever really gone super in-depthwith comparing him to Nanami before.

Even now, many people are still inclined to think that Oumais meant to parallel Komaeda or Junko due to his surface-level similarities withthem. But I’m still firmly of the opinion that those similarities are there todraw a more striking contrast with them further down the road, and thatanalyzing his character in more depth reveals a lot more deliberate parallelswith characters like Nanami instead, as surprising as that might sound.

I think it’s necessary to write a post comparing the two ofthem, considering the fact that those parallels are so intentional. It’s nocoincidence that they share a number of sprite similarities, or that theirphysical appearance overall is so similar. While Ouma is the most strongly paralleledwith Kirigiri in terms of trying to actively stop the killing game byundermining the mastermind from behind the scenes, I would say he’s even morestrongly paralleled with Nanami in terms of their roles within the groups oftheir respective games.

The easiest place to start is by expanding on those physicalsimilarities I mentioned earlier. Not only are their heights and hairstylesextremely similar to one another (far more similar than Ouma’s physicalresemblance to any other DR character), but there’s also the fact that some oftheir sprites are nearly identical. The excited sprite, as well as the onewhere he falls asleep in the middle of conversations, are pretty obviousthrowbacks.

I don’t think there’s anyone who could deny that thosesprites were clearly meant to be reminiscent of Nanami—moreso considering howmuch emphasis is put on Ouma’s “childish quality that makes him hard to hate,”in spite of how annoying he can be. Even some of their voiced lines in-gamebear striking resemblances to one another; they share quite a few of the samechildish “What a bummer… (がっかり)” and “Huh? (あれれ？) “lines for their sprite changes. Again, I feel the similarities are 100%deliberate there.

Another thing I think is particularly striking about the twoof them is their interest in games. Nanami, of course, is the SHSL Gamer, butwe also know that Ouma is someone who treats anything and everything around himas a game. Kodaka himself admitted that Ouma is the first character in theseries who treats the trials themselves like a game, and it’s hard not to lookat Ouma’s long-winded speech about “playing in hard mode” and “never using the ‘runaway’ option in an RPG” without remembering all of Nanami’s video game talk.

Games provide so many different opportunities for fun andentertainment. Considering how childish and immature Ouma is, it’s obvious thathe uses games as a distraction from the boredom that he feels. It’s not aboutwinning—it’s about achieving an unexpected or interesting outcome. Almost allof his FTEs with Saihara are about playing games together, including many ofwhich he either ties or loses on purpose simply to see what Saihara will donext. This culminates in his final FTE, where he basically all but flat-outtells Saihara word-for-word that he was losing on purpose, and advises him thatthere are “games that can be won without playing.”

If we take into account all of the chess imagery associatedwith Ouma, both in the kanji for his last name, his checkered scarf pattern,and the fact that he quite literally strategizes and calculates like a masterchess player throughout the game, then it would be extremely interesting if hisactual SHSL talent was something along the lines of “SHSL Chessmaster,” or even“SHSL Gamer” in a different sense. This would, of course, help to perfectlyexplain why he views things in termsof games, and would mesh with his claim in Chapter 5 that he had to view the killinggame through these terms or else he wouldn’t have been able to push himself tomove forward.

The similarities don’t stop there, however. While Ouma andNanami are already considerably similar in terms of how they look and theirchildish association with gaming, there are a lot more parallels between thetwo of them than I think most people would consider at a first glance. Dr3 didsuch a huge disservice to Nanami’s character that it’s hard sometimes toremember what she was like back in sdr2, but she was considerably cheekier andmore of a brat than she gets credit for. In fact, whenever Ouma isn’t doing hisvillain routine, a lot of their lines read quite similarly.

I’ve actually been doing an sdr2 reread recently, now that I’vefinished my dr1 reread, and I was highly amused to notice the other day that Nanamiherself often pulls pranks or lies in order to relieve the tension, much likeOuma. In Chapter 2, when both she and Hinata visit Mahiru’s cottage to searchfor clues during the investigation, there’s a point in which she flat-out jokesabout looking for a porn stash, which startles Hinata for a few seconds beforehe realizes she did it to alleviate the tension in the room.

In Chapter 3, she also gets so fed up with Hinata and theothers doubting her ability to investigate that she goes off to the conferenceroom in the hospital by herself. When Hinata follows, all the lights are offand the blackout curtain is pulled over the window, and she ominously tells himthat she’s “fully exposed,” and says for him to “poke out his eyes” if he wantsher to turn the lights back on.

Hinata, of course, freaks out and says he won’t do it, andshe responds with another “…Aww, bummer.” When Hinata asks her afterwards whyshe did that in the first place, she cheerfully explained that it “just seemedfun.” It was so incredibly similar to Ouma that you could’ve swapped Hinata andNanami’s names with Ouma’s and Saihara’s and it would’ve read pretty much thesame.

My point is that while Ouma is undeniably the brattier andmore ominous-seeming one of the two of them, Nanami is still quite sly when she wants to be, and doesenjoy her share of childish pranks and tricks.  I think part of her AI programming in sdr2 inparticular means that she enjoys trying to do things on her own and playingfun, harmless pranks for the fun of it, just to see what’ll happen. She andOuma both are people who quite like teasing others, as long as no one’sactually getting hurt out of it.

The most important parallel between the two of them though,in my opinion, is the fact that they are perhaps two of the characters who are the most morally against murder in theentire Danganronpa franchise. While both of them are perfectly capable ofunderstanding why people are driven to commit murder, and while they certainlydon’t hate murderers necessarily, both Ouma and Nanami emphasize again andagain that murder is something which should never be forgiven or brushed underthe rug.

Both of them strive to stop the killing game in theirrespective games because of their moral aversion to murder and death. This iswhat sets Ouma apart from Kirigiri on some level. Kirigiri does try to end thekilling game in dr1, but mostly because it’s her role as a detective to solveany mystery thrust at her, and this is something she follows rigorously evenwhen she doesn’t actually remember that she’s a detective. Ouma and Nanami,meanwhile, are much more empathetic. Overall, it’s their distaste for humansuffering and death that drives them to end the killing game.

Nanami has an entire speech in Chapter 2 of sdr2 about how “murderis something that should never, ever be forgiven.” She says it’s important thatthey keep all of their deceased classmates in their heart, but also that it’sequally important to not forgive murder or say that it’s excusable. Each time anew murder occurs, she often becomes quiet and withdrawn, and even wondersaloud in Chapter 4 if it’s “something she can’t stop, no matter how hard shetries.”

While one could argue that she only wants to stop thekilling because it’s “part of her programming,” I think it’s much more likelythat her empathy is genuine. As an AI who has never actually had an opportunityto connect with her classmates or had friends before, and who is decidedly differentfrom her real-life counterpart of dr3 Nanami, her desire to stop the killinggame reads as an AI taking it upon herself and into her own hands to try andstop a horrible situation that keeps escalating out of control.

Ouma’s distaste for murder isn’t outright confirmed until latein Chapter 5 and Chapter 6, but is still hinted at throughout the gamenonetheless. In Chapter 1, he’s one of the only characters to still openlyclaim that Kaede was wrong for attempting to take someone’s life, and heoutright calls himself a pacifist who “keeps the peace from the shadows” in hisFTEs with Saihara. All of these things, and particularly his motive video withDICE in Chapter 6 which confirms that their motto was “we don’t kill people,” confirmthat he was absolutely telling the truth in Chapter 5 when he said he hated thekilling game and resented the ringleader and audience alike for putting themthrough it.

It’s quite striking to me how similar the two of them are,even though they seem so drastically different at a first glance. Both of themessentially play the same role within the group, but go about their goals throughcompletely different methods. Both want to stop the killing game, both want tokeep the group from completely falling apart and, if possible, stop any moredeaths from happening.

But while Nanami plays the role of a reassuring, soothing presence,Ouma intentionally builds himself up to look bigger and badder than he actuallyis. Nanami embraces her classmates with warmth and reassurance, and often takesthe lead in investigations and other crises in order to give them a leg tostand on. Ouma, meanwhile, tries to intimidate his classmates out of theircomplacency, challenging them to think critically about the situation that they’reall in and to stop putting blind trust in one another when it’s so clearlydangerous. He gives them an easy target to hate, by setting himself up to bethe ringleader, and tries to push and prod them into stopping the murders fromthe shadows.

Basically, Nanami’s role is one of an outsider trying toplay an inclusive role in a group that she can’t quite actually be a part of.Even though she’s an AI, and more specifically, the “traitor,” she still placesherself within the group to be a leader and a protective figure for the rest ofthem. Ouma, on the other hand, is someone who could’ve been a part of the groupfrom the start but who intentionally made himself into an outcast in order totry and “draw the old maid,” so to speak. By othering himself from the group,he tried to teach the rest of them to doubt and suspect one another again andagain, while also attempting to steal control of the killing game away from thereal ringleader.

Interestingly enough, Nanami herself is far more inagreement with Ouma’s opinion than with the rest of the ndrv3 characters’though, when it comes to “truth,” “lies,” and “belief.” Again on my sdr2 reread,I was somewhat blown away during the Chapter 3 trial, when Mikan was attemptingto manipulate the group into stopping their accusations by crying and insistingthat there was no way someone as “weak” or “stupid” as her could’ve pulled offsuch horrible murders. While everyone else became clearly uncomfortable withaccusing a seemingly timid, meek girl who they thought of as their friend,Nanami was the first character to speak up about the need for doubt andsuspicion.

She chimes in assertively, stating that “belief” and “doubt”aren’t necessarily opposites of one another. Like Ouma and Kirigiri both, sheclaims that in order to actually, fully trust someone, you have to doubt andsuspect them first. Without having doubted them and gotten to know them, thenthere’s no real reason to trust or believe them. And, word for word, she saysthat “Belief without doubt is simply a lie.”

Given ndrv3’s themes of “truth vs. lies,” and its attemptsto subvert expectations from the previous two games, I wouldn’t be surprised atall if Nanami and Ouma seemed so different on the surface in order to maketheir underlying parallels all the more striking. At a first glance, he seemsto have much more in common with characters like Komaeda or Junko—and he oftenencourages both the other characters and the player themselves to think of himas an openly antagonistic figure. But upon examining his actual mindset andmotivations, it’s quite clear that he and Nanami actually have far more incommon with one another, which isn’t something I think anyone expected prior tothe game’s release.

To put it more simply: both Ouma and Nanami wanted to endtheir respective killing games, both of them are liars of a sort, and both ofthem are extremely childish but empathetic people who can’t forgive or condonemurder. While both of them certainly exhibit understanding for and evensympathy towards the killers in their groups, they also always strive to makesure that the act of killing itself isn’t brushed under the rug or thought ofas something excusable or without consequences.

I hope this answered your question, anon! Thank you so muchfor giving me the chance to talk about them both in more detail, it was a lotof fun! I can’t believe I waited this long to do a comparison like this,actually.

[hawk-in-a-jazzy-hat]

Anime Review: Rahxephon

Ayato Kamina is a normal teenage boy living a normal life in the city of Tokyo. He lives with his oddly distant mother, has good friends, and one day comes across a mysterious girl called Reika Mishima. That same day, Tokyo is attacked by a horrific being of stone and sound known as a Dolem, and Ayato finds himself wrapped up in a conspiracy that sees him whisked away to a world away from his own, through the help of a newly-awakened golem called the Rahxephon.

Pretty soon Ayato is fighting for his own life and for the continued existence of the human race, as more and more Dolems controlled by the alien Mu threaten to take over humanity once and for all. Only a small resistance of fighters, including the dedicated Haruka Shitow, slimy Makoto Isshiki and the very odd Quon, have a chance against the invaders. And pretty soon, Ayato begins to find out more and more about his own past, the pasts of the people around him, and the true power and purpose of the Mu...

So let’s see; we have a stroppy teenage boy who drives around in a big bio-robot thing, being looked after by a middle-aged woman with serious issues, working with two teenage girls one of whom is outgoing and aggressive and the other of whom is quiet and mysterious, all the while working for a secret organisation against an inhuman enemy who attack using creepy, eldritch horrors, and...there’s a reporter who butts his nose in at everything...and a harsh stern leader...and morally bankrupt people behind the leader with their own agendas and...everything seems to lead back to Ayato’s...mother...

Yeah, okay, this is Evangelion, this is Evangelion, this BLOODY SHOW tricked me into watching BLOODY EVANGELION AGAIN SON OF a-

‘slams door’

...

‘quietly opens door, sits down and continues with the review’

So yeah, uh, Rahxephon is ridiculously similar to a little show which you might not have heard of, and one which I am really not a fan of.

Does this show do Evangelion any better than Evangelion does Evangelion?

Eh...kinda. Sorta. Maybe.

Let’s start with the very best thing about this show; the visuals. Rahxephon is an early original work from Studio Bones, and like so much of their work it looks gorgeous. The animation itself is phenomenal for the early 2000s, and there is so much wonderful direction and artistry on display, in particular with the designs and animation on the Dolems themselves, which are both hauntingly beautiful and distinctly unsettling, deeply human and yet clearly artificial and earthen. Then there’s the Rahxephon itself, and as giant robots go, I think I love its design more than any other I’ve seen; it’s fluid and graceful, with a wonderful angelic motif throughout its design. If I was to pilot a giant robot, I’d want it to look like this. I also have to praise Bones for their work on the characters themselves, although I think a lot of that is down to the general style of the time, which I really like. Strong, expressive characters, all of whom look different and none of whom default to the generixpressions which you see all over the place.

The music is also rather beautiful, with an opening theme song by Yoko Kanno which does exactly what you’d expect. It makes sense for the music to be good, given the show’s overall theme of sound and the voice, and there are a lot of nice little touches and good sound design here and there, particularly with the Dolems which actually exhibit their power through voice. The one particular thing does bug me is, again, the sad comparison I have to make with Evangelion. See, there’s a particular piece in Evangelion called Decisive Battle, which is an aggressive driving timpani and brass piece playing during scenes of particular tension. Okay, so listen to that, and then listen to the piece in the Rahxephon OST called “The Chariot.”

Eerily similar, aren’t they?

I need to address the elephant in the room here; yes, while Rahxephon is trying very hard to be its own beast, it is very clearly inspired by Evangelion, in a time when there were a fair few shows trying very hard to ride on Eva’s success. There are distinct scenes and character dynamics taken straight from the former series, the story goes in much the same direction (right down to the ending  where a lot over very bad things happen to our favourite characters) and a lot of the writers and staff members were even working on the former show. It’s very hard to watch Rahxephon and say that it wasn’t in some way inspired by Evangelion’s success.

That being said, Rahxephon takes the bare-bones concept of Eva and turns the story into something all its own. The characters may be similar, but their stories and interactions are very different. The show’s concept is similar, but its aesthetic and viewpoint is something all its own.

And in some ways it’s nice to see a different take on the same story. Whereas Eva is very much Hideaki Anno’s project, and all the ups and downs that came with it, Rahxephon is a collection of people coming together each to put their own spin on the same idea. Rahxephon is no on person’s baby; Ichiro Okouchi, Chiaki Konaka, Youji Enokido and other big-name writers and directors all had a go at certain episodes, very much making this a team effort. It’s something you don’t see that often nowadays, with people genuinely flocking to ‘the director’ or ‘the creator’ of a certain work. Collabs are cool is all I’m saying.

These new ideas and takes on Eva’s concepts continue to the characters, which in many ways are the complete opposites of Anno’s characters. Ayato is a great lead; very clearly a stroppy teenager (with the added bonus of being a tortured artist) but he is immensely relatable and often rather likeable. The show drip-feeds information about him, his past, and the past of those around him, and there is no recurring character who I could outright call unrelatable. Sure, some of them are a bit undeveloped, but it’s a large cast, and when even your slimy villains have a lot of depth to them, it’s testament to the effort going in.

I will take a brief side-note here to talk about the dub, which I ended up watching pretty much because I had the DVD and though ‘why not?’. For an older dub, it’s not half-bad; it has the ‘overly-cinematic’ feel that comes with a lot of these shows, but it’s helped by a lot of genuinely good actors. Monica Rial is good as Haruka, Hilary Haag is great as Megu, and Chris Patton steals every scene he’s in as Ayato, nailing the character to a tee. The only major player who feels a little bit off is Illich Guardiola as Isshiki; he’s not ‘bad’, per se, but his performance never feels particularly natural. I’m going to blame misdirection more than anything else because more than anything he just sounds like he’s say ing eve r ee thing com pleet lee pho ne ti ca lee. But hey, it’s listenable, and by the end of the series he’s gotten the hang of the character.

That’s the other thing with the show; for as much as it improves on the likeablility of Eva’s cast, when it comes to the story issues it suffers from a lot of the same problems. In fact the two are largely the same in a lot of areas; starting solidly, introducing the stakes, have some deeply meaningful character-driven battles and scenes, then slowly but surely pulling apart the logic and explanation until the ending happens and you’re just left there wondering what the heck you just witnessed.

It’s because of this that I can’t really call Rahxephon a ‘better’ show than Evangelion. It certainly had a lot of effort going in to make it ‘as good’, and it has a style and beauty all its own. But the characters and story do kind of follow the same formulas, and fall into the same pitfalls along the way, except that when Evangelion did it, the pitfalls matched up with the human nature of the cast. It’s hard not to watch Rahxephon and feel a little bit of artificiality; after all, we’ve seen this story before.

But at the same time, the end result is something completely different. Rahxephon’s story is, ultimately, an optimistic one; a coming-of-age tale and a fairy tale and a hopeful glance to the future. And it’s because of this that I love it far, far more than I could ever love Evangelion. Eva’s story is deeply resonant and a harsh look into the human psyche and the depths of depression, and is based off a worldview so departed from my own that I can’t help but reject the show entirely. Some people can watch Eva and find beauty and meaning. I am not one of those people. Sorry.

So it’s in that regard that I love the fact that Rahxephon exists, and, shallow as it may seem, that somebody created a show under the same idea that follows my own worldview. Rahxephon is a beautiful and well-executed show, and a solid recommendation to anyone. I can’t call it ‘great’ same as I can’t call Evangelion ‘great’; both of them have very similar flaws in story and their overall endings. However it is still well-worth a watch, with the slight caveat that you really do need to watch Evangelion first; love it or hate it, it is an experience that will stay with you and one of the most iconic shows you will ever see.

In summary: Is Rahxephon better than Evangelion? No. Did I enjoy it more? Oh yes. Which should you watch? Evangelion for the experience, then Rahxephon for a new and different take on it. Between the two, you should find something you enjoy.

(And then you should watch Bokurano because it surpasses them both)

My score: 7/10