So, as always, Aquarion as a franchise is a mixed bag. The original series received quite a bit of criticism for both its throwbacks to older style "Super Robot" anime, as well as for an at-times silly set of subplots surrounding its characters. The original conceits of the series were often cringe-inducing as well: the action of the series focuses aroudn Aquarion, which is a giant robot formed of 3 "vectors" which combined into a giant robot, accompanied by the pilots undergoing a "gattai" (union) which results in them, well, orgasming.
Aquarion Evol is not going to do much for people who disliked the original series, and in fact may not be a great show for people who loved it, either. I do think that there's a lot to enjoy here, particularly if you are a fan of romance + giant robots or the original series itself. Just don't expect too much.
SOUND: The Soundtrack is by the always wonderful Yoko Kanno, with frequent vocals by AKINO. If you're a little older-school anime fan like me, you might find yourself wishing that Yoko Kanno had collaborated with Maaya Sakamoto instead, but AKINO has plenty to offer here, and once again displays some quite good English skills (which makes sense, since the singer and her siblings all hail from Utah by way of Mesa, Arizona) alongside a strong voice seemingly made for belting out Yoko Kanno classics.
There isn't a lot of new music on display however, other than the OP/ED themes and a few insert songs. Most of the music is recycled from the first series, but rather than seeming lazy or cheap on the part of the producers, I think that the music does a great job of tying together the two series, which is doubly important since there are only a few characters in common, the character designs are a little different, and Aquarion and Aquarion EVOL are also separated by a 12,000 year gap.
There's not much to say about the rest of the sound, which is to say it's inoffensive. Aside from several of the female characters having your usual squeaky childlike voices and one character (Schrade) sounding like he had a cold the entire time, the cast does a decent job with their characters. The sound effects and environmental sound are good, and fit well with the fight scenes and quiet scenes alike.
ART & ANIMATION: The character designs and actual animation are great in this show, presumably because SATELIGHT used all their money on the digipaint scenes after saving a boatload by reusing assets from the first series. The character designs, provided by Chinatsu Kurahana, Kana Ishida, & Hirotaka Marufuji are vibrant, unique, and make it visually easy to distinguish between characters. There are a few weird choices here (like the prudish Mix wearing a dress that lifts and flaunts her breasts to an absurd degree) but all of it seems fitting with the tone of the series as a whole.
As with the original series, the 3dcg itself is not great, but then, it never is in anime. Animations can be jerky, as if there aren't enough 'tween frames, and the mecha often have very stilted and awkward movements. They do their best to work around these limitations, and since I didn't turn the series off in disgust I guess that they succeeded.
STORY & CHARACTER: This is where the good turns a little towards bad. Way too much time is spent on side characters (particularly the duo of happy, perverted ANDY W HOLE and prudish, frosty MIX) and the main romance never gets much development. Worse, the main character is written (on purpose) to be indecisive and passive, which really saps the enjoyment from watching him. There's a lot to be praised here for the way that main characters confront their feelings for each other head-on, and the willingness to develop some of the relationships in the series far beyond the usual "confession in the last 30s of the series" bullshit, but the truth of the matter is that head writer Mari Okada didn't seem to find much interesting in the relationship between Amata and Mikono, and it shows. As I said before, we spend a lot of time with the characters Jin and Yunoha, and MIX and Andy, and while both of their arcs have relatively satisfying conclusions, Amata and Mikono seem to come together in the end (after 26 episodes of Mikono waffling about Amata and his evil twin Kagura) more because they should for plot reasons than because they seemed a good fit together.
Additionally, we spend a lot of time doing silly "anime trope"-ish episodes: a school festival, a beach episode, etc etc etc. While none of them are BAD per se, they are also not particularly good either. The little bit of character growth we get during them is usually ignored completely next episode.
That being said, whereas the theme of the original Aquarion may have been "love as destiny" this series clearly embraces the idea of "love in spite of it". Kagura claims to have been born to love Mikono who is a reincarnation of Aquarion's Silvia, but Amata (her eventual choice) loves her for herself, not because of some 12,000 year long arc towards a destined ending. Likewise, most of the other characters in the show do not seem interested in finding out about their previous lives the way Apollo, Silvia, &c in the first season were. Instead they are all focused on their love and relationships in the here and now, and to hell with what your past lives wanted.
I will say, one thing this show does fantastically is present homosexual love and homosocial relationships in a positive, engaging manner. Schrade and Cayenne are clearly deeply in love, but their relationship is hardly even commented on by the other characters except to present sympathy when the inevitable occurs. Meanwhile, while Toma & Mikage may technically be non-gendered or genderqueer, they both present as masculine, as do the objects of their love, Apollon. This is not presented a prurient, or weird, or even worthy of mention: they simply love each other in a way that shows gender has no meaning in love. Much later in the series as well, MIX is transformed into a man but Andy doesn't even blink: it doesn't matter to him. he loves Mix the person, not Mix the walking pair of breasts with some glasses perched on top. And while this may seem a little too "perfect", it also shows excellent growth in the character from his roots at the beginning of the show where he was desperate to sneak into the girls' side of the dormitory to get himself a peek at some "big bangs."
Other than the diffuse focus on the cast and the at-time silly one-off episodes however,the biggest thing that bothered me is retconning. The identity of Apollo is retconned during Aquarion EVOL, and while Shoji Kawamori insists this was always part of the plan, There certainly was no evidence in the original Genesis of Aquarion series (there may have been in the OVA released later, but I have not seen that). This changes the nature of the ending of the original series, and changes Toma's character (and his reincarnation in Mikage) substantially, seemingly only because this was the need of having an angel as a villain to manipulate everyone else.
Anyways, it's about time for me to wrap this one up, and I will say that despite my complaints, I enjoyed my time with Aquarion EVOL and would recommend it to anyone who is willing to take as a given the silly trappings of the Aquarion universe (gattai as sex, bad cgi robots, totally ignoring forced gattais as metaphors for rape, etc) and enjoy a series that tries its hardest to fit in some shallow meditations on the nature of love and the connections between humans in between the giant robot fights and eye candy. Just don't expect too much depth here, and prepare for a lot of silliness.
