For the Evangelion-starved mind, this anime is perfect. Although it may seem as a cheap copy, it was, at least from what I've seen, the first of a kind.
And what's that kind? Well, let's face that there are plenty of anime that are highly inspired by NGE. Such as? Well...
- Darling in the Franxx
- Code Geass
- Gurren Lagann
Three is a crowd. But RahXephon was the first one that proved that, as long as it is good, you can get away with it no problem.
This just speaks about the excellency of Evangelion. Everyone loves a good story, if you take the general plot/premise and make whatever change you want, it'll still be a good anime.
But, of course, not every anime post 1995 has to be about kids going to war to fight celestial beings using gigantic robots while facing existential problems. Evangelion is so influential that it became a genre on itself (not to underestimate Gundam, but will get to that some other day). Even their characters became archetypes, how crazy is that? Even people that don't watch anime have heard about it, it appears on instagram memes for chrissake. The waifu war is still going on after all these decades (I am more of a sike! guy, tbqh).
Anyways, I think that RahXephon made enough changes so as to be a tasteful homage, if you will. It's been very good so far. It came 7 years after Evangelion, don't ignore that fact.
If you want a good anime that's actually like Evangelion, whatch this. I've seen people recommending Madoka Magica, Ergo Proxy and Cowboy Bebop instead. And yeah, of course I get it, these are 10/10 animes that treat existencial issues as well, and they came at around the same era, which helps with the aesthetics.
But lemme ask you... and the mechas?
Welp, just wanted to vent that out. This anime scratched a very weird itch I had. Gotta go now, see ya!