The tragic plot of "Rahxephon: Multiple Variations," where two grammars, silent and talkie, intersect.

This month, September 16, 2017, the theatrical anime "Psalms of Planets Eureka seveN High Evolution" will be released. The style of the film, which is not a compilation following a chronological sequence but a mixture of TV images with a unique sense of style, is probably unique to director Tomoki Kyoda.
The director's debut work is "Rahxephon: Multiple Variations" (2003). The film is a 120-minute animated feature film based on 26 "Rahxephon" animated television series, but the setting is complex and the development is difficult to understand. It is difficult to explain the story in a few words. However, the fact that it cannot be explained in a few words is not a drawback.
This is because the purpose of watching a visual work is not "to understand the world view or the story.

The dialogue that cannot be heard by ear is grasped by the written word.

The "Rahxephon: Polytropic Variations" opens with a catastrophe in which the Tokyo metropolitan area is isolated by the spherical space "TOKYO JUPITER". Inside TOKYO JUPITER, people continue to live peacefully in a time different from that of the outside world.
In the outside world, however, a battle continues between humans and a blue-blooded race from another dimension called the "Moorians". The main character, Ayato Kamina, rides a giant robot "Rahxephon" to fight off the Moorian robots.
Through a ruse by the Moorians, Kamina is pulled back into the inside of TOKYO JUPITER, from which he had once escaped. In that world, Hiroko Asahina, who has feelings for Kamina, lives as a normal high school student.
However, Asahina is actually a Moorian, and she is unable to tell Kamina that she has blue blood. Kamina boards Rahxephon and defeats the Moorian robot to protect Asahina, but the enemy robot is actually a kind of alter ego of Asahina, and Kamina indirectly kills Asahina.

This tragic sequence begins with an evening scene in which Kamina and Asahina go out to dinner together, before the battle has even occurred.
The walls are painted with flags of different countries, and the sidewalks are filled with "Please help me," "I am in trouble," "Good morning," "Good bye," "How are you?" Good evening," etc., are inscribed on the sidewalks, along with the language of communication and its translation into each country's language. The place has a festive yet lonely mood, reminiscent of the site of the World Expo and the Olympics.
As Hina walks ahead of him, Asahina stammers, "Hina-kun, um, I have something I want you to hear," "I'm .......
At that moment, a truck passes by on the roadway, drowning out Asahina's line. Instead, the inserts are "How are you?" and "I'm in trouble," "Please help me! I'm in trouble," "Please help me! on the sidewalk. And then there is Asahina's sad expression (her hair is fluttering violently as a truck passes right next to her). We, the audience, cannot hear Asahina's lines. Likewise, we cannot hear the god's name. However, the words "I am in trouble" and "Please help me! and Asahina's expression are shown in cutback (alternately), and we understand what she wanted to say. The audience alone understands Asahina's position in hiding her Moorian identity and her request for help from Kamina through the text. The privilege granted only to the audience draws us at once into the world of "Rahxephon: Plural Variations.

The effect of the sudden inclusion of the rules of silent cinema

Then, a doll-shaped Moorian robot called "Dorem" appears in the city. Asahina does not know what a Dholem is. But Kamina says, "I will protect you. I want to protect you." He is convinced that he can protect Asahina by defeating Dolem.
Kamina gets into Rahxephon and fights Dolem, but the damage is too severe for Asahina, who is left in the room.
In the midst of the battle, words such as "Konnichiwa," "Genki," "Komatteimasu," and "Tasuke ttekudasai" appear in the windows of buildings and on electronic billboards at train stations. People do not pay attention to these words. They do not even notice the names of the deities. However, we have already seen these characters in the scene where Kamina and Asahina go out for dinner. In other words, we have learned that "Komatteimasu" and "Tasuke ttekudasai" are Asahina's mental voices.
When Dorem is hurt by Rahxephon, the light letters "Itai" spread over the blacked-out city. The station displays the message "Honno koto gai itai". When the word "Ayatokun" appears on the wall of a building, Kamina finally gets a hunch. As the dorem explodes, the city lights form the word "sayonara" and the letters disappear one by one.

Did Asahina have a special ability to make buildings and billboards display her feelings?　If so, was it because she was a Moorian?　Is it really necessary to understand such a setting that can only be understood within the world of the story in order to appreciate the work?
The voice of the heart of the girl who cannot express her feelings to the person she has feelings for is projected first as letters carved on the sidewalk and then on the wall of a building. ...... This absurd and beautiful direction is reminiscent of subtitles in silent films.
Subtitles inserted in silent films are perceived as lines spoken by the characters. On the other hand, in a talkie (vocal film) play, the characters do not recognize lines that are not audible. In other words, in the scene where Asahina struggles to express her feelings to Kamina, two expressions with different promises, silent and talkie, are mixed: Asahina lives inside TOKYO JUPITER, while Kamina continues to fight outside TOKYO JUPITER, living in two different worlds. By having Asahina's cries of the heart appear on the screen in the form of text (a silent film-like effect is inserted), we may feel the unrelenting disconnection between her and Kamina more directly.

In other words, what we need to know when we watch a visual work is not the rules within the story world, but the rules of direction and expression. Even if we do not understand the high-context science fiction setting, we can fully read the relationships and emotions of the characters by using the universal visual direction as a clue.


(Text by Keisuke Hirota)
(C) 2003 BONES, Yutaka Izubuchi/Rahxephon movie project