So Deconstructing from what I can tell tends to be what artsy-fartsy writers try to accomplish. Alan Moore with Watchmen, Hideo Kojima with MGS2 and so-on.

One particular example that I was discussing elsewhere was Neon Genesis Evangelion. I was ranting about how Xenogears is often (negatively) compared to EVA and how the two aren't actually all that similar. A reply said that Xenogears, like Eva, was a deconstruction, and I don't see it.

If you haven't seen NGE, it's a huge middlefinger to typical mecha anime tropes. Xenogears though, while a very ambitious and "artsy-fartsy" project in its own right, seemed to be telling a very straightforward story. By "straightforward" I just mean that Takahashi did not appear to me to be setting out to take a concept and pull it apart to make a bold statement. He was just telling a very detailed, very well-thought out story.

Fei is not a deconstruction of a protagonist like Shinji was, at least to my mind. Moreover, while Eva is saying SMURF YOU to other mecha, Xenogears is in many ways a love letter to mecha. Takahashi and Saga love them some robots and there are so, so many references to Voltron and Macross and The Guyver and other obscure mecha anime I don't even know about.

So...what do you all think? Was Xenogears trying to "Deconstruct" something or was it just telling a really big, really layered story?