The Maitre d’s Christmas Anime Spectacular

RahXephon – Bitterly Cold Holy Night

OK, after rewatching this episode for this article, I remembered how freaking awesome RahXephon is. It’s got intrigue and conspiracy, mind-bending temporal anomalies, a cheesy romantic subplot, and giant robots. And if none of those things do it for you, then there’s a weird enigmatic girl who likes to lounge around in her underwear, too.

Anyway, this is yet another plot-heavy episode like Nadesico‘s Christmas episode, but it’s not quite so much of a data-dump, and it’s not as far into the storyline, either. (It’s episode 8, whereas Nadesico‘s is episode 13.) Needless to say there are a lot of very obvious plot points hinted at in this episode, and you should probably just ignore them. That, or watch episodes 1-7 to catch up.

So anyway, we start out with the shady reporter guy being shady, and the creepy scientist guy being creepy. You don’t need to know any more than that about them for this episode.

This beautiful necklace can be yours for just $19.95.
Operators are standing by now.

I used to know a guy who reminds me of Isshki.
He was also kinda creepy.

Why don’t women smile at me like that?

I want to emphasize (and to paraphrase The Chef): Itsuki Kisaragi, the creepy scientist guy, is really effing creepy. He’s got a piece of a downed enemy robot (ok, they’re not really robots, they’re more like statues that sing, but if you haven’t seen the show, then “robot” should suffice), and decides to pluck this magical ice crystal off of it. In a creepy way.

We later find out that Itsuki’s given this little crystal to his assistant as a pendant. Apparently, Sayoko Nanimori did not read the first page of this article, and so didn’t realize that if a really effing creepy guy gives you something, you do not take it. Even if you’re secretly in love with him.

Wait, scratch that. Why is she secretly in love with a really creepy guy? Oh yeah, it’s because she’s completely mentally unstable.

Anyway, thus begins our plot for the episode. How do you bring a white Christmas to a sunny tropical island like Nirai-Kanai? Why, you use evil alien superscience. (Although strangely, the fact that the Mu have some sort of weather-controlling technology built into this pendant is never mentioned again. Well, OK, that’s not strange… it’s a Christmas episode, and they need an excuse for snow.)

Now that we’ve established our plot for the episode, it’s on to character development! Another really effing creepy guy, who is also albino and silver-haired (which means evil if you’re not familiar with anime), muses about the religious meaning of the holiday, thus developing the fact that he’s very detached and also really effing creepy.

Then we skip to a scene between Haruka and Ayato. At this point, I feel compelled to mention that there should be a RahXephon drinking game, and it should have only two rules. Every time a character blushes, take a drink. If they do a full-on big-eyed red-cheeked blush like Haruka does in this scene, finish the bottle. You will be completely smashed within any two given episodes.

Haruka gives Ayato some gloves because he doesn’t have any winter clothes. I could be snarky here and point out that gloves are no replacement for a good set of winter clothes, but these are not just any gloves. These are gloves laden with FORESHADOWING and SIGNIFICANCE.

There’s some more character development that gets done in the next few scenes. I’m not going to go into it, mostly because you won’t care about it if you aren’t watching the series. It doesn’t matter to this episode anyway. Either forget about it or watch the series.

So anyway, Megumi wants to be like Haruka, blah blah blah. Now that we’re done with that scene, we get another chance to see Itsuki being really effing creepy. I mean, he even has the reflective glasses going at this point, and I think we all know what that means in anime.

We finally find out that this pendant that Itsuki gave Sayoko encases her in a giant ice robot thingy. Which means we’re done with all the boring character development, and now it’s time for technobabble and giant robots pounding on each other. (I can hear The Chef yelling “hell yeah!” as he reads this.)

“You’re as cold as ice…” Seriously, I want to see a
showdown between the evil alien superscience
pendant and the Foreigner belt.

Let me reiterate: Itsuki is really effing creepy.

I told you those gloves were SIGNIFICANT.

Itsuki seems a bit shocked at this, and even having watched the entire show I can’t figure out what his reasoning was here. He either gave the pendant to Sayoko as a real gift, in which case he’s a moron and this is the only case we find him returning her affection (at least that I can remember). Or, he’s got a pretty good idea of what will happen and is using her as a guinea pig, in which case he’s a complete bastard.

OK, he is a complete bastard, because he’s really effing creepy, but his reaction just doesn’t seem that cold and calculated in this case.

Ayato has to face down the giant ice robot thingy and defeat it without killing Sayoko. Which, spoiler of spoilers, he manages to do, with the help of Haruka’s incredibly significant gloves. It’s a freaking Christmas episode; what’re they going to do, kill off a secondary character for the hell of it?

So, anyway, the main plot for this episode gets wrapped up. We get a gratuitous scene of Quon standing out in the snow in her underwear babbling poetically about something or other. Then we cut to the Christmas party.

There’s some more very significant character interaction here. More about the gloves. Also, we see a bit of foreshadowing of how (SPOILER) Megumi is going to end up very disappointed by the end of the series. (No, boys and girls, Sakura was not the first pink-haired anime character to absolutely fail at life.)

There’s more I could mention about the party, but I’m not going to spoil what the rest of it means. Watch the frickin’ series yourself or just ignore this part.