RahXephon piqued my interest as a mecha anime not just because of the psychological, folkloric, and mythological elements, but also because of its musical shtick. While it doesn't commit as much as I wish it had to that particular element, I wound up being particularly satisfied with it. That being said, it did make me fight for it.

(No spoilers, though I get into some detail. If you want to watch it as blindly as possible then just know it gets a hearty recommendation from this stranger on the internet.)

For starters the main character, Kamina Ayato, is a massive prat. He's definitely not the worst MC I've had to sit through (quite a few UC Gundam ones are much worse) but there were multiple times where I was rolling my eyes rather vigorously at a few instances.

For example, early on there's a scene where he's discovering a lot of things that he does not want to listen to and instead doodles for a bit. While this sort of behavior is believable, he has the gall (many episodes later) to whine about people not telling him the truth. Kid, you had a literal debrief sitting in front of you that you ignored. You have no right to get pissy at people for not telling you something important about yourself.

Another element that made RahXephon unnecessarily challenging to watch was how oblique and purposefully confusing the show gets at times. While I do enjoy falling for red (or blue) herrings it got silly at times. Sure, the show smashes you over the head with clues and references that people will get, even if only subconsciously, if they're paying attention. All of that pays off but I wish the writing was more straightforward at times. I respect and enjoyed my intelligence not being insulted and being allowed to figure things out by myself, but I needed a little more help with certain lore points.

This is made worse as the show has a surprisingly and awkwardly big cast; juggling all the playful obscurity AND the cast was a bit too much sometimes. I needed to refer to a list of the characters on my phone as the characters constantly change how they refer to other characters (switching back and forth between last and first name), and then they also start being quirky and start calling characters by other characters' names. It makes sense if you pay attention, but it was a bit overload.

I also never understood how the humans were able to fight against the antagonists before the MC and his mech were added to the party. There are revelations that are brought up later, and eventually the humans catch up to the enemies, but that doesn't explain how the entire planet wasn't glassed before the MC arrived on the scene.

Let me summarise some of the other things I didn't like so I can get to what I loved.

There were two episodes that were duds; the art style is decent but not as good as they key art (look up Yamada Akihiro's art, it's absolutely gorgeous); characters set off obvious "death flags"; the fight scenes are disposable; the writing can be inconsistent; and it could have done with a little more telling so I could more clearly understand some of the more complicated and labyrinthine elements of the story and plot.

All that being said, I loved RahXephon.

The creator, Izubuchi (which I now just realized the latter part of his name is a reference to a character in the show and I'm kicking myself for not getting it earlier) clearly set out to create something with a point.

RahXephon focuses on the character dynamics and the psychology of its cast. All the Sci-fi, mythological, folkloric, musical elements, and anime nonsense is there for a reason, sure, and it even connects nicely at times, but ultimately it's a story about becoming an adult; except that in this case, for particular characters, this means going through some very anime hijinks. All that said, it's explored poignantly.

The musical motif, while not as fleshed out as I wished it was, gave the composers a huge responsibility and they delivered. The music is ethereal, weird, bizarre, catchy, scary, familiar, alien, haunting. It, somehow, didn't often go for the typical musical phrases used in religious music, which I give it credit for. When it did dip into gospel music it felt earned and original, instead of ripping off one of Bach's many choral hymns.

Also be sure not to skip the ED after the first episode, there are variations to them.

While Kamina Ayato is one of the weaker characters, mostly everyone else is interesting. Some of the characters/tropes are played straight but solidly well, while others are used to catch the viewer off balance.
The voice acting is solid and follows suit. Towards the end a particular character that I wrote off very early on steals the scene, and made me reconsider them entirely. Definitely someone I'll keep a closer eye (and ear) on in a future rewatch.

There is an engaging, though slightly too complicated, relationship 'venn's diagram' going on with the show's characters. It can be hard to keep it in order, but is otherwise understandable. By the last episode I was able able to comprehend where each character was coming from and why, even the more unstable ones.

Speaking of unstable, there are a handful of walking time bombs in the show. These tend to be the type of characters that exist as plot devices to get the story from point A to point B, but RahXephon nails them. There's one in particular that has a specific visual reference whenever they want to snap but they don't (swish swish), and I found it amusing at first and then they deliver on that particular visual language. These could have been absolute train crashes but they weren't.

There are some absolutely well earned emotional moments buried in the past of some characters, and these emotional/historical backgrounds feed into how the characters behave without resorting to silly clichés. Everyone made sense, even the most unhinged. There were even antagonists that I felt bad for.

In addition, RahXephon goes into Kamina Ayato's mindset/psychology without batting an eye. While he isn't very interesting when it comes to the story and plot, the exploration of his psyche was intriguing. The show does not mince words and it spends enough time on fleshing out his mindscape. Maybe a spoiler so I'll hide it, but I give them top marks for going into his

While I didn't care for the mecha fights (lots of plot armor and random OP abilities out of nowhere), the settings of those fight were for the most part engaging. Colors, shot selection, geography, background story elements, musical timing, and more made these more gripping than they should have been.

Not to mention that I was impressed at how RahXephon deals with the concept of "the other" or "the enemy". The antagonists are treated as villains, but that eventually becomes more complicated and messy as it goes along (a theme of the show). Where you live, what you are born as, what you look like, and so on aren't make all, end all. The characters struggle with understanding themselves and each other as the powers that be put them at odds. It's not the deepest rendition of this particular theme, but the fact that it's executed decently well was a nice surprise.

At the end, RahXephon was a mixed but highly absorbing experience. It's a show with a heart and purpose. It builds itself up, like a painter's brushstrokes adding details, until the entire picture is completed and the results speak for themselves.