LightningCount wrote:Oh, I forgot to mention it earlier, but the ice-powered Festum was really cool. However, Fafner seemed to be taking a page from RahXephon's ice-powered Dolem (and Rebuild of EVA 2's ice-walking Angel). But that's fine, because it's interesting to see the Festum adapt, especially when they're made up of elements to begin with.
Jeeze, put that pun in spoiler tags!
Also, something I don't think I've ever seen mentioned is that the ice Festum's name is apparently Clowier, which as best as I can find, seems to loosely translate from French to "coat-rack." I guess that fits both its ability
and its appearance. I get that name from Ep. 21, 00:50. It seems Kurusu's home was named Floater. Also, holy cow are Earth's landmasses messed up. That's not just flooding, unless anyone thinks the Rocky Mountains would disappear beneath the ocean before New Orleans.
Funny you should mention both Eva and RahXephon. For a while now, I've thought there was a strong inspiration -> successor relationship chain that goes Eva -> RahXephon -> Fafner -> Bokurano -> Madoka Magica, often with overt references to the earlier works in the chain (such as the empty chairs that appear in Madoka's bedroom being a clear reference to Bokurano). And before anyone mentions that Madoka Magica isn't mecha, remember:
the magical girls have their souls converted to gems which they then use to reanimate, empower and control (pilot) their own corpses. All brought to you by advanced alien technology.
That's kind of like mecha, right? Or is that just me?
Anyway, the reason I bring this up is that I noticed an interesting correlation between the island pilots' new-found powers and the magical girls' abilities. To quote Exodus on the nature of their abilities, Seri regenerates, Rina exhibits massive energy surges, Mimika produces advanced energy barriers, L/Reo space-jumps by shifting the zero-dimension, and Sui summons distant objects to himself. Each of these roughly correspond to the magical girls' abilities:
Sayaka regenerates, Madoka's power effectively grows exponentially, Kyoko always creates barriers around the battlefield, Homura relocates herself by manipulating a non-spatial dimension, and Mami endlessly summons weapons in battle and quickly disposes of them.
I could be overthinking it, but I think it's a pretty strong resemblance for sheer coincidence. I find it interesting that with Exodus, my interpretation of inspiration/succession now loops back onto itself.