Sousei no Aquarion

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This is my very first review so understand that it may not be as rational and objective as it presumptively should, but for me anime is a form of art, and art isn’t supposed to be rational. With this statement made, let the show begin.
First of all, Sousei no Aquarion was an anime that draw my attention from its presentation poster. I know it sounds stupid or a little ignorant from me judging a book for its cover, but I admit that most animes that I watch are normally chose ... that way, and I rarely go wrong with the choices I make within my own anime taste.
Aquarion wasn’t different. Despite of being a mecha, and I’m not quite fond of mecha animes, it managed to surprise me in a different yet good way. For fans of the genre, I truly recommend it, not only because you’ll like it, but because it’s an anime worth watching.

Story: 8
I found the plot, unlike other opinions I saw around here, good or I would dare and say that it was a very good one. It has a beautiful love story behind it, and it deserves some credit for being able to mix mecha with prophecies, reincarnations and angels – also known as Da Tenshi in Aquarion’s world – with some originality. The flaw is precisely in not being capable of taking that plot and doing a different well done thing out of it. There were so many aspects that could be well explored and they weren’t, aspects which I consider that were quite interesting and a pity that producers couldn’t know how to seize them.
Instead of seizing it, the potential of the anime, which was high, fell down for a more normal baseline. So, they decided to create those so famous main-stream episodes, pretending they were exploring the main characters with parallel stories that had a not-very-consistent script. These episodes run away from the original route of the story, sometimes not making sense at all.
Once again I repeat myself, it’s a shame that they couldn’t take the amazing plot and came out with something different and well done.

Art: 7
As regards to the art of Aquarion I found it, how to put it, approachable. There some animation parts that are very decent. The battles are well animated and the “vectors” are regularly well animated too. The general effects are as good too although there were some minimal flaws, nothing to much important. The characters are well draw, so the final balance is a good one concerning the art/style. And if we count with the art that appears in the ending, that was even better.
But then we have episode 19… which was a total disgrace. The episode begins, and we start to notice that something is different, like very different. The art changed radically and the animation is a disaster. The guys that run this business should be sleeping at the time when they finished this episode. I mean, it’s really, really terrible.
People look like they are inflatable dolls. It’s true that the episode plot itself it’s supposed to happen in a world where things get that semi-abstract form, but the scenes which weren’t supposed to happen in that world have the same art and measuring the two arts the original was way better. It’s not a consistent matter, and I think producers should have been more aware of this serious flaws that give away some of the beauty of the series.

Sound: 9
As they say, every dog has his day. The sound is the ‘ex libris’ of this anime, is as good as it gets. We have some beautiful music playing during some big moments. Each one of the two openings are very good, and for me, the ending is the highlight of this show. The music is ‘Omna Magni’ from Yui Makino, and it’s simply a piece of art. It reminds me of an ancient story, lost in the course of time, and all this together with the art presented, it’s phenomenal, no doubt about it.

Character: 5
While the sound is extraordinary, the characters leave much to be desired. The evolution of each character is poor in content. As they come to be presented to the viewer, we get the sensation that we already have seen them before, somewhere in other anime. They bring nothing new to us, they are the type of characters that we are used to, and it’s definitely a major flaw when they have nothing new to bring. To me, the big highlight was Toma, a Da Tenshi. I really loved the main antagonist of the story, in fact, I loved both Toma and Otoha, the main ‘antagonists’. They were a sort of a breath of fresh air in the whole story, because they were different from everyone else. They had purpose, they had personality, thing that didn’t happen with the others. They weren’t immediately recognizable characters, which was a very enjoyable thing to watch.
But don’t get me wrong, I didn’t dislike any of the characters. I cared about all of them, I laugh with some and I pitied others. I think that they should get each one of them with a real personality and not set a ‘chip’ with some of the most usual ‘codes’ in them. They should had evolve trough the series which didn’t happen too.

Enjoyment: 7
In accordance of entertainment, I was amused. There were some parts that disappointed me, but other that could conquer me by the positive side because it was a mecha anime with a real good and catchy plot.
Some parts were a disillusion, parts that were already mentioned, and some parallel stories seemed to me that they were there just to fill some space and make the anime have 26 episodes, instead of being in the few twenties.
However, it keep me stuck to the screen in some good episodes, which I wasn’t expecting at all. There were some amazing humor moments that made me laugh hard.

Overall: 7
In general, it was good. With some serious flaws, but with some important qualities that make up for the flaws.
Because in the end, what counts in anime is the capacity to entertain. The capacity to make us let our emotions flow, to have a catharsis. If I cared, if I laughed, and if I cried… mission accomplished and nothing else matters.

Sousei no Aquarion entertained… and for that the job is done.

Sousei no Aquarion is a mecha anime that is similar to Evagelion and RahXephon. Just another anime about humans fighting against a form of higher being, in this case, the Shadow Angels.

Story: The plot is pretty slow. It may seem the plot throws you right into action, which it does, but it does not move the plot much until the last few episodes. It follows a pretty generic line with very few twists here and there. The whole show seems pretty episodic save the finale.

Art: The art is unique in its own way. The characters have unique designs to them and the mecha are pretty ... unique as well. The backgrounds are nice but sometimes feel as if they were sloppily painted on. The character designs and mecha are pretty much the saving grace of the artwork.

Sound: The musical score is pretty much the highlight of the show. The music produced by Yoko Kanno, known for her works in Ghost in the Shell and Macross. The musical score makes good use of orchestrated works and the insert songs found throughout several episodes are good.

Characters: The characters have their own interesting personalities. You have Apollo, the homeless turned Daeva pilot who is short tempered to Silvia, who has a serious case of a brother complex. The characters have their own distinct way of doing things in the anime and it shows in their battles against the enemy.

Enjoyment/Overall: I was expecting more out of this anime but it reduces its plot to a drag. The battles are decent and the music is good. Other than though, it just seems like another Evagelion ripoff.

Story: 7/10
Ugh, your usual staple of post-apocalyptic kind of world setting + a handful of young (duh? does it have to be young?) ones who can ONLY save the planet + a gigantic ton of metal that the young ones can only pilot + a race of nearly alien (or not) beings that can destroy shi* everywhere in the world = Sousei no Aquarion. Sounds familiar right? We all have our share of EVA, Raxhephon, Zeorymer, TTGL, etc. experiences and yet they are still popular despite mecha fanatics' swooning over GARness and teamwork blah blah.

Art:8/10
Sunrise did a pretty good job in animating this with ... artistic European backdrops, beautiful setting sun effects and dazzling flashes of light on transformation scenes and others. Character art ain't too bad too but it did get a bit confusing (I think the graphic change was part of the story) on one episode with that of stick art doodles. :D

Sound:9/10
Beautiful orchestral score in their BGM throughout the series. OP themes are a bit catchy and the ED is hauntingly good to listen at.

Character:7/10
As most super and real robot series, characters must be unique in every way to distinguish their different traits. Aquarion has that but has some elements borrowed from other robot series. What kind of amuses me is Apollonius' character with that of a wild beast and Reika, with her negative and emo way of thinking. The siblings are also good in their character as well as the Shadow Angels especially Toma. ^_^

Enjoyment:8/10
Most mecha fans would come to conclusion that the series itself is just chunks or bits and pieces of other mecha series that are put together. I could agree more but Aquarion has some aspects that are exclusive by itself and is almost a bit above-average than your regular mech anime series. I enjoy the love-hate relationship of the main characters, the personalities of the other crews and even the good mecha artwork of the Aquarion.

Overall: 8/10
This is a good mecha series to start with if you are not much of a mecha fan. Hot-blooded finishing blow shout-outs and the out of this world kind of feeling when combining are some of the *ooohs-aaahs* I have felt after watching this.

Recommend? - To non-mecha fans...yes; probably not much to hardcore fanatics...

Replay Value (Once) - Yeah, just for the heck of the understanding the confusing storyline on their past lives...
(Twice) - Errrr...do replay it if you are bored or haven't watched it for a long time....
(Thrice) - WTF! Too much might get ya...GATTAI SYNDROME! (watch it to find out what it is) :P

Let me start by saying that I only watched this season because I was interested after getting caught up with EVOL (Aquarion season 2). I thoroughly enjoyed this season for the most part. The music was great, scenes were touching, the whole shabang. But like every show, it had it's cons.

In this case I couldn't stand the fact that it took 24 episodes for Apollo + Silvia to embrace each other and show any sort of outward feelings for each other. We are talking 7/8 of the series deep into the story and now they start saying how much the other means to them ... (and not even deep stuff either, this is like a 10 sec thing). The fact that they were forbidden lovers in the past and the fact that they both acknowledged the fact that they were lovers in their former lives AND they both have the memories of their former lives really irked me. They are destined to fall in love over and over again yet nothing of the sort actually transpired throughout the series.

Not only did the lack of "romance" when everything has been laid out on the table for them BUT this chick has the nerve to reject her brothers invite to join him in his quest for a better world saying how she wants to protect those dearest to her... don't get me wrong, I thought this moment was the moment when the panties were coming off and apollo + silvia were gonna get all lovey dovey... no... of course things dont work out that way for me... ever... literally 3 min later this chick is depressed in a corner smelling her brothers picture frame saying oniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiisamaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.... do you know how annoying that was? for 26 episodes 90% of what came out of her mouth was "onisamaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa" over and over... and over again...

oh well enough ranting.

Story: I felt like it was a great story. Forbidden lovers in the past reunited 12000 years later destined to love each other again. A gay dude that wants his gay partner back... mechas... good shit right? well no... please if you didnt read the rant above go read it. Pretty much sums up why story isn't a 10/10.

Art: This was like 2004-2005 when this show was out so it's not as good as EVOL (it's successor) but I still enjoyed the artwork. It was nice. Kinda reminded me of Macross Frontier. Also the episode where they get trapped in some fantasy world or whatever scared me shitless. Since that episode had a new OP I thought the artwork had changed and I was like "fuck this show... this artwork blows", but I was wrong thank goodness.

Sound: Pretty good.Dunno bout the OP ED but the melodies they play for the "important" important scenes were powerful. Really brought out the flavor of the moment.

Characters: I liked Apollo. He had a good personality. Strong Brave Doesn't give a fuck... etc etc. I couldn't stand Tsugumi (especially during her 20 min cry session... yes she literally spends 20 of the 23 min of the episode crying like a bitch when everyone is going to perish because she feels like a little bitch) and uhhh the brother. Clearly he is no Taiyou No Tsubasa, not even a hint of it but he has to be big shot sexy rich boy and pretend like hes hot shit.

Enjoyment: good show. I personally prefer the sequel since Zessica Wong is da shiet but they're bother strong pieces.

Hope you enjoyed my review. It's a bit late so my review is a little juvenile if you couldn't tell but it's all my personal beliefs. I just hope my colorful language doesn't offend any 10 year old readers who have journeyed onto MAL looking for hentai reviews.

:3 good day

Can something be better than the sum of its parts?

That’s the question that I had to ask myself as I finished watching Sousei no Aquarion, because at its core, this is a show that is fundamentally flawed in a number of areas, but at the same time, I found myself enjoying it throughout. Thus I have to wonder if it’s a good show, even if I don’t think the individual parts are good.

The story of Aquarion isn’t that much different from most of the other giant robot shows you may have seen over the years. Humans are being harvested by a race of ... beings called the Shadow Angels, and the only method they have to fight back are three ships called Vectors, which have to be piloted by Elementals, and can join together to create the giant robot Aquarion. The show doesn’t stray far from convention at this point, as it’s very similar to other shows like Voltron and the likes, where you have individual fighters who join to create one giant robot. Outside of the giant robot portion, you have the character interactions, which focus on the elementals and their personal baggage, as well as a 12,000 year old love story due to reincarnation. The story isn’t terrible, but it misses a few steps along the way. The reincarnation angle could have worked great, if more than 2 characters had memories from their past lives. But since only the 2 seem important, the rest of the characters simply make up side-story elements, and thus never have the weight behind them that the main characters do. Beyond that, the Shadow Angels, while interesting for villains, don’t really hit the cord to make you despise them, and thus the show lacks a lot of punch. In the end, the story is sound for creating a giant robot show, but it’s certainly not a selling point, and truly falls short of better shows in the genre such as RahXephon and NGE.

When it comes to the characters themselves in Aquarion, I find myself rather torn. One the one hand, the interaction between them is generally fun, and adds a lot to the show. The problem is that the characters themselves are often entirely unlikable. The main character, Apollo, is shown throughout the entire show being bestial and nasty, due to the fact that he had to live a hard life as a child. That’s all well and good, but you’d like the character to evolve beyond that at some point, and become better all around. You see hints that such evolution is happening, but then they throw that all away by having him pick his nose, or do something else childish and disgusting at every opportunity. Sadly, he’s still more likable than the female protagonist Silvia, who spends most of the show having to get past her brother issues and the fact that she’s a spoiled princess. Other side characters range from the strangely out of place soccer player (who still wears his uniform) to the rather cliché mopey, I have only bad luck but everyone loves me, to the I’m cute but helpless moe type character. Despite all the flaws of the characters, their interactions are still fun and enjoyable, and they do make the show better. I think despite their flaws, these are rather charming characters that I just couldn’t make myself dislike.

The animation of Aquarion is pretty much all over the place. Generally, the animation is pretty good, nothing spectacular, but it’s fairly sharp. There are a handful of episodes that just aren’t as good, but they normally don’t stray too far into the terrible territory, unless they do it on purpose. My problem is again with the implementation of the CG, such as the robots. I just never enjoyed the CG aspect, and I didn’t particularly care for the design of the Aquarion, which left all of the giant robot fight scenes particularly displeasing from an aesthetic reason. When it comes to the artistic design, I found the humans to be relatively bland. They look like any other gathering of humans that you’d find in any other giant robot show. Where the show ventures off and becomes creative is the Shadow Angels, and I found their artistic design to be quite enjoyable. The character Otoha, with wing like arms and multiple eyes was truly interesting from an artistic perspective. The end result is a mishmash of animation, that is sometimes striking and fascinating, other time conventional and fine, mixed with bad CG that drains away a lot of that credibility.

If there’s one area that Aquarion caught me completely by surprise, it’s the music of the show. This is a truly hidden little gem of a sound track, but in retrospect, that comes as no surprise. I didn’t know the composer when I was watching the show, but I found myself enjoying a lot of the rather catchy lyrical songs, as well as truly loving the classical pieces, particularly when the piano was used. It came as no surprise to me when I learned that this was another soundtrack composed by Yoko Kanno, so my natural love for the music made immediate sense. Truly, this is the high point of the show, and I always found that the use of music here made things have more emotional impact than they should have, but that’s a power that Ms. Kanno has always had.

Beyond all the parts of Aquarion, the show is quirky and that both works for it and detracts from it. I don’t understand the reasoning behind the women experiencing orgasmic feelings when they powered up the Aquarion. That always felt weird and out of place in this show. Also, this is a truly “Rinse and Repeat” show if I’ve ever seen one. About 80% of the episodes of this show can be broken down into the following steps:

1. The show starts with a little character interaction, usually setting up which character will have the breakthrough moment in the fight this episode.
2. The enemy will attack, and three elementals will be sent out to fight them.
3. The good guys will get overconfident and have to confront some new enemy attack that they don’t know how to beat; 1-2 of the elementals will likely get knocked out at this point.
4. The character from the earlier interaction will realize they have some special talent or insight into this particularly enemy.
5. Cue catchy Yoko Kanno victory music
6. The good guys beat said enemy
7. There might be a little post fight character interaction, and then the episode ends.

That’s pretty much the way almost every single episode goes, with the exception of the first and last couple of episodes where they move things along quicker for storyline purposes. Beyond that, some of the episodes are incredibly random for a giant robot type of show. There are episodes about dreams, vampires, dieting and awful animation (I swear they were on serious drugs for episode 17).

When you look at any particular area of Aquarion, with the exception of the music, each aspect of the show seems horribly flawed, and one would think it’s a terrible show. But somehow when you pull together all these flawed parts, this show has a great amount of charm and I couldn’t help myself, I found that I liked the show. It’s not great, and it doesn’t stand up against the better shows in the genre, but if you have the time and you can overlook those flaws, Aquarion might just be able to win you over with its charm as well.

I am going to try and sum this anime up in as few words as humanly possible, okay here goes: "Go! orgasm powered robot of DOOM!" There I did it, I could end this review right now and proudly say that I left nothing out but id rather keep going.

Story: This is about a bunch of teens/young adults piloting robots as they fight the shadow angels of atlantia. Heres the thing, the robots have to "merge" and at the end of the "merging" process the three (yeah it just became a 3-way) pilots all seem to end up having simoltanius orgasms. Just whatever happenned to ... waiting to merge until marriage!? Back to buisness and all jokes aside. They fight the shadow angels because the shadow angels are basically farming the humans to maintain their own lives, and humanity aint having it so how better to fight back then by building some robots and making a mecha series about your struggles.

To be completely honest, I was expecting nothing out of the mecha side of this show, which is to say that as a mecha series I wasnt expecting much out of the show period. I was surprised though, the story was pretty good and kept me interested all the way through. There was also a fun bit of comedy, granted the funniest bits to me were just what the characters said as they were, uh, well, merging...

Art: Holy crap, I was blown away by the art, the fight scenes were depicted soooo well. They were so cleanly done I was impressed.

Characters: This show has a character for everyone: the wild one, the snotty high-society duo, the geeky kids, sports jock, emo chick; it has it all!
As such, as is always the case with such a vast group of characters there are sometimes problems getting so we as viewers know their back grounds but I feel like they did a good job explaining them to us.

Enjoyment: Like I said, I didnt expect anything out of this show, but It frickin rocked. A few viewers might have been turned off by the sugistivness of the merges but its okay, just so long as you know whats coming (ha ha anybody catch that, thats punny) but yeah I liked it, and I hope that you will too.

Genesis Of Aquarion is the First Season of this series. Its about these powerful angels,humans and other sorts of people with special abilities that are able to use a big winged robot from 12,000 years called "Aquarion".It was sounds more like a robot dancing in the Air to the sound of the wind. The Aquarion has three special flight programs(Solar,Luna,and Mars) flies and Protect Humanity. Protects every human from Demons,beasts or any other bad creature that comes In contact with a human. Their able to go "Element School" which helps the students with their abilities has a Aquarion badge or if your able to pilot ... Aquarion. Some of which, you might even get a reincarnation somehow. You usually find your reincarnation more when your body is linked from your mind, heart,emotions,and everything else in the atmosphere itself. Also your taught how to use your emotions, you do express a lot to each other but also to your enemies as well. Each Episode shows a fight with a certain robot,creature or a particle bug that destroys anything. I recommend watching it, I know, Not many People are gonna watch a Mecha Anime Or Manga,I Would. It reminds me of Gundam, With the robots,romance and saving your friends lives.

Lastly Here are my scores, I chose a 9 for the Story, I always had a feeling that angels would want to take out humans(either in a show,Movie,whatever). Me and my brother saw the episodes already, there good. I chose a 10 for the Art, because It really mixed with the story and emotions that it had. I was really hoping Silvia would put her hair down Instead of the short curly hair that she normally has on. The sound is great to hear, Its everywhere you go when you watch the episodes, you'll either hear background themed music or a familiar melody. The characters are so cool when they argue, I laughed a couple times around when they argue. They have great background stories of how they came to DEAVA. The Enjoyment of watching the show is good so I rated a 9. Finally overall its a Great story with great expressions.

The science fiction series is an homage to the Super Robot shows of the 1970s and 1980s, executed with modern animation techniques and aesthetics.

Set in the future, a giant fighting machine called Aquarion is humanity's only weapon in the fight against the technologically advanced species called the Shadow Angels.
I watch mostly mecha anime and this is good but not top of the line. Graphics are good 2D+3D but the story is not one of best i have seen forom mecha. I recommend this if you run out of Macross Frontier,Gundam,Herioc Age and other top mecha series.

plot more detailed:
Eleven years before the start of ... the series, a disaster only referred to as the "Great Catastrophe" destroyed significant parts of the world and killed off many of its inhabitants. Along with the disaster came the appearance of the Shadow Angels, winged-beings who have been in slumber for twelve thousand years in their city of Atlandia. The Shadow Angels harvest humans on Earth, dubbed the "wingless ones", like cattle, extracting their prana (life force) from them, serving as energy and nutrition to the Shadow Angels, but also to feed the legendary Tree of Life. The Shadow Angels facilitate their harvesting via giant, floating harvesting machines guarded by giant golem-like creatures called Cherubim Soldiers. How these are normally piloted is unknown, yet there are times when they are piloted by Shadow Angels.

Ordinary weapons prove ineffective against the Cherubim, but a human expedition under the leadership of Gen Fudou eventually excavates three very technologically advanced fighter planes. Gen Fudou disappears, but an organization called Deava takes over the research of these machines, called Vectors, trying to find out how to use them. The three Vectors are the Vector Luna, the Vector Mars and the Vector Sol. Deava discovers only people who are Element users can control the Vectors and, ultimately, unite the three to form the giant fighting machine Aquarion.

During the first sortie to fight a Cherubim, Deava encounters 15 year-old Apollo, who seems to be the reincarnation of the hero Apollonius, also known as the "Solar Wing", who betrayed his Shadow Angel bretheren for his love of the human warrior Celiane.

Aquarion is about a group of younger warriors who fight in mechs against an alien race called Shadow Angels. Two of the warriors Silvia and Apollo were lovers two thousand years ago that are supposed to bring victory to their cause.

Story 7/10: It's decent. I like the fact that two characters (Apollo & Silvia) get a second chance to bring their love about and win against the winged race. There is a fair amount of plot development as well, which is nice. Basically the winged race (Shadow Angels) harvest human souls to give life to their tree so that they can rule once again. ... Apollo meeting Silvia (Apollonius and Siren in their past life) has a change of heart and leaves the winged one's race by ripping his wings off and joining in Siren's cause. As it turns out though, Silvia is a winged one as well.

Art 6/10: I would have given the artwork a better rating, but for some reason at times it was obvious they switched to a computer based animation (not just during the fight scenes but at times when I think it wasn't necessary) and every series that switches mid-way through, the difference is just too great.

Sound 9/10: The music was awesome! I really loved the ending music and when the Aquarion was forming.

Character 7/10: This series did a nice job of bringing to light the characters past and still developing them throughout the series. All the characters had strong wills that most of which were likable.

Enjoyment 7/10: It was a good, enjoyable series. Something to have a little laughter but not feel like its too heady or complex.

This mecha perspective, combined with elements similar to fantasy and with a strong romance component, will be found in a very particular mecha series, where the mecha in question is a deity in all senses, even being worshiped with all the trappings, and where love and hate will be the fundamental fulcrum that could put an end to conflicts. This is "Aquarion".
In an unspecified futuristic land, eleven years before there was a series of cataclysms known as the Great Catastrophe, which caused considerable damage to the Earth. But this was only the prelude to the catastrophe, since this disaster caused an even worse disaster: the ... awakening of the Angels of Darkness.
And precisely on the day when the Aquarion makes its first appearance against the attack of the Angels of Darkness, with results nothing short of disastrous for the surprise appearance of a "Legendary Beast", Apollo enters the scene, a boy from almost animal-like character due to its bizarre character, as well as having a very developed instinct of survival, but with a very strong heart and which is bound to ties with people; his friends were captured by the Angels of Darkness, but with an unexpected move he managed to get on board the Aquarion and allow the victory to the DEAVA, showing his incredible qualities of Element.
The series, in addition to narrating the struggle between the factions, analyzes one by one the characters of both ranks, while concentrating to a greater extent on the staff of the DEAVA, often with episodes dedicated to them, so as not to make them simple extras to make up , allowing a very elaborate characterization of them.
The series also focuses on the feeling of love, in the romantic sense, both normal, as in the case between Apollo and Silvia, both as a reincarnation of two lovers and unconventional, as in the case of Silvia's obsession with her brother Sirius, who it always nearly touches incest, both homosexual and masculine in the case of the silent love of Toma towards Apollonius, both female, because of Tsugumi that with time will come to fall in love with her senpai Reika. "Aquarion" is a particular series, a series that lets an air of legend breathe in its unfolding, as well as showing to the nth degree that love also drives the events and can lead to the end of a war, proving that is able to turn off any hatred. Regarding the more detailed plot and characters, some minor criticisms of a character occur, as the protagonists often appear to be quite stereotyped and in some cases are repeated too much.
It will not be a series for everyone, but one of the souls who really took me really deserve it

Okay this is my first review ever, so I'll try my best.

I loved the art. Nothing much to say about it, I just loved it.

About the sound I have to say that I disliked the Dubbed voices in the beginning. In the end I actually did like them. I only disliked Reika her voice pretty much.

I have to say that I really hated Sylvia in the beginning, but how more I watched, how more I liked her. I seriously loved what happend between her and Apollo through the series. Ofcourse there were a few characters that I disliked, like Reika, but I liked a ... lot of the characters in the end.

As for the story...it was perfect in my eyes. Everything what happend in the past with Appolonius and Celiane was beautiful and kind of sad at the same time. The cool thing about this anime was that there happend a few things that I didn't expect to happen at all. There were some cruel and sad things in it too. The anime made me laugh and happy, but sometimes it made me sad too. It even happend twice that I cried.

I absolutly loved this anime. Actualy... I dislike Sci-fi and Mecha animes, but I gave Aquarion Evol a try. After a few minutes a friend told me about the first season. I didn't know about it, but I really wanted to watch the first season too( and I'm glad I did). I searched everywhere, but it was hard to find. I usualy don't watch dubbed animes, but I had no other choice this time. I really didn't think that I would like this anime só much. I really recommend this anime to you. I really LOVED it.

I liked Aquarion pretty well. It's a Mecha show, so there will always be some serious suspension of disbelief, but they have some interesting ideas, even if some of them come across as a little... silly. The mecha in question, Aquarion itself, is three parts that can combine and recombine into different forms for more adaptability (don't let children watch them "merging" unless you want awkward questions about the faces they make), and the pilots usually have psychic-ish special powers that help them in various situations. All of this, and more, add up to situations where the pilots really have to not ... only work together, but trust and understand each other, which is a decent message, even if the anime tends to cop out on that idea later.

The biggest complaint I have is that it could have used more attention to detail. The story is good, but weak; the main characters get the standard amount of attention, meaning that they have a persona that may or may not be fleshed out by individual episodes about them. However, secondary characters, no matter how prominent, remain two-dimensional at best. (Jean-Jerome Jorge, I'm looking at you.) Some of the plot points seem tacked-on, such as the military-industrial-complex types that apparently were perfectly content to let children pilot giant mecha with a mysterious stranger commanding them, without actually bothering to have a bunch of military folks sitting there grousing, but they were still waiting patiently to do military-industrial-complex things as soon as it became convenient to the writer.

I don't have any comment on the art (it passes...?), and the dub was predictably awful, what with english voice actors never managing to make any of their lines sound like they were actually part of a conversation, much less the conversation in question. It would be hard to blame this on the anime itself, though.

In all, if like me you like to be given a glimpse of another, interesting world, then Aquarion is a world that you might find interesting. If you're looking for something more serious, or which really takes itself seriously, maybe not. Or you can just "read the footsteps" of this somewhat odd anime and decide for yourself.

As a casual fan of mecha series, I was looking forward to watching Sousei no Aquarion. While I found it enjoyable, at times, I couldn't help myself from being relatively bored throughout the series.

Story:
The story is laid out in the first few minutes of the series as the narrator describes the legendary war between the Shadow Angels and humans as well as the tragic love story between Apollonius and Seliane. 12,000 years later, history is about to repeat itself as the Shadow Angels have re-emerged and the humans at DEAVA must use the power of Aquarion, a three part mecha in three different forms, to ... repel their advances. The reincarnated souls of the heroes and villains from 12,000 years ago must first realize who they are, and what they must do to save the world from total destruction.

The story is very compelling and lays the groundwork for an exciting plot. However, that plot tends to show up and then casually leave without fully understanding what is really going on. Most episodes share very little in common with one another and revolve around some aspect of Gen Fudou's training and team building exercises. It seems as though there is a set formula where they receive some unconventional training, initially struggle with the concept, alarm sounds as a Cherubim soldier shows up, beats up Aquarion a tad, characters switch out, characters learn basis for training, beat Cheribim with a corny, aptly named attack, rejoice. It becomes quite trite and predictable, and its really not all that fun to watch. Within these episodes there tends to be character development: back-stories, tragic events, etc. That being said, where the plot does show up again, the show is at its best. As you advance, you gain a little more insight to the truth of the events from 12,000 years ago complete with quite a few juicy plot twists. The last 7 episodes are very, very plot -heavy and very, very good.

Art:
It's tough to rate this show's art in 2013 knowing what we have available now as compared to 2005 when this show aired. That being said, I wasn't a big fan of the animation in the show. The basic animation was sketchy and inconsistent. This led to a bunch of clipping issues and some very unintentionally interesting, and unflattering faces made by the characters. Character designs are very basic and nothing special. They aren't ugly by any measure, but no one is particularly beautiful either. The CGI during fight scenes and the merge sequences is very good and is probably the saving grace for this show's animation. Something changes in episode 19; however, where the animation is downright poor. I'm aware that the animation change is pivotal to the plot-line of the episode, but the areas of "normalcy" should not have changed. It almost seems like the illustrators said screw it, which is upsetting. Additionally, while the show uses a lot of sexual imagery, there is practically zero fan-service aside from silhouettes and goo-covered bodies. Take that for whatever it's worth. It is not necessary a dig at the show, but it is something I find inconsistent.

Sound:
The Openings, Endings, and OSTs in this anime are by my opinion the strongest facets of the show. When you have someone as well known as Yoko Kanno taking care of your music, it is normally a good sign. Most notably, the opening Sousei no Aquarion by Akino is a beautifully sung and arranged song. It's invigorating and gets you excited to watch. It's English counterpart, Genesis of Aquarion--an inset song introduced in the series--is an a capella arrangement in English, in which English speaking viewers can understand the powerful lyrics through a very soulful performance.* The voice acting is solid, but nothing spectacular. One facet of the voice acting that you'll either love or hate is the excessive sexual innuendo during the merge sequences. Each episode contains copious amounts of orgasmic moans and screams where you can draw the conclusion that merging=sex, which may or may not be the case. Supposedly the feeling of merging with someone is pure bliss equitable to sex. This is a bold approach that could alienate some viewers.

*I have an English version of Genesis of Aquarion on my iPod, but the actual track in the anime is in Japanese. My mistake.

Character:
One thing I always look for in any anime I watch is characters that I am drawn to, not necessarily attracted to, but a character who I can relate to or is very likable. I found no such character in Sousei no Aquarion. For the most part, I found most characters annoying aside from Gen Fudou and Toma. Whether it was Apollo's animalistic behavior, Silvia's brother complex, Sirius's arrogance, or Reika's constant negativity, the main characters just bugged me. There were some likable major/minor characters such as Rena and Sophia Belin, but their likability was overwhelmed by the major characters.

Despite its flaws, Sousei no Aquarion is an an enjoyable anime. I can honestly say that while I did not love it, I by no stretch hated it either. I admire Sousei no Aquarion for what it is, a solid mecha with an exceptional story and good action scenes. As a casual mecha fan, that is all I can ask for. I'm not entirely sure it needed it be 26 episodes as well. However, it is not easy to put aside its flaws. The characters and animation are bland and uninspiring. Sticking through the overly mundane middle episodes and reaching the final episodes is very rewarding, and well worth the wait. Also, if you plan on watching Aquarion Evol, I highly recommend watching this series to lay the foundation for what is to come.

Something to remember when Shoji Kawamori is involved: Plot is not his forte-- in fact I daresay it's his biggest weakness as a content creator-- and Aquarion is no exception to this rule. Whenever he didn't write the script or screenplay, like Macross Plus, that story was tight. Not so here. Like Escaflowne that preceded it and Basquash that followed it, the show tends to be episodic, with sort of a direction towards the end, but with very loose cohesion from subplot to subplot. As a result, characters that learn something new one episode are often reset to their "default" behaviors the next (especially Sirius)-- ... but they had some fun with that in the "cosplay" episode. Honestly, I'd much rather watch a music video with his mechanical designs and Yoko Kanno's music, but this is the next best thing.

The "reincarnation" subplot is one of the better things about this show. While I sometimes wished that we saw more of Apollonius and Celiane, this connection to Apollo and Silvia is a great driver of their relationship. The other characters, as I've mentioned, tend to be rather static until the major turning point at around episode 20.

The art and character design in the show are stunning. So much so, that when they decided to have some fun with other animators, it was jarring (and hilarious... though I didn't really see the point other than that line shouted at the end). I seem to remember a slight disconnect between the drawn animation and the CG-- the CG lines are very "clean" and smooth, whereas the drawn lines are less so, especially in close-ups. Usually I don't notice it unless I've paused the video and really pick the frame apart.

The soundtrack, well... Yoko Kanno. 'Nuff said? You may have previously heard her work in shows like Cowboy Bebop, Macross Plus, and Turn-A Gundam. Well, since this is a show about kids piloting the mechs rather than soldiers, in addition to the "trinity" motif of the mecha, there are a lot of "threes" in the battle themes rather than marches. One starts with a piano and violin riff descending into a wild waltz, another starts with the violins playing a repeating triplet-beat above a live choir. One of the best tracks is a long build-up with orchestra and choir to an epic piece that backdrops significant battle scenes, also in a meter of "threes".

Speaking of music, this show introduced me to one of my favorite bilingual singers, Akino from bless4. Now, her theme songs are probably a bit overused in the show, but that's okay by me because they are fantastic. The ending, Omna Magni, was... interesting. Initially I thought it was in an artificial language like Esperanto, but nope, this language was evidently original.

To wrap up, take one episode at a time, sit back and enjoy the soundtrack, the giant robots, and the big booms.

Overall I really really enjoyed it.
The story is centred on a very sweet 12,000 year love story
The animation is 👌
The first 2/3rds or so of the show is very episodic, but that allows for some really interesting and sometimes silly episodes
The finale is an absolute banger
A lot of episodes end with the most ridiculous deus ex machina possible, constantly one-upping the previous ones, but that’s sorta part of the fun? It feels like it’s doing it on purpose almost and it’s very entertaining. It gets to the point where some of the show is just utter nonsense, but I mean that in the best way ... possible.
The fan service feels kinda gratuitous (why do they almost orgasm whenever the mechs merge) but that’s just an anime thing I guess.
Overall I enjoyed it a lot.

Sousei no Aquarion is a very touching story that I thing can move even the most idiotic of people who don't believe in love anime. Apollo and Silvia are suppose to be long time lovers but hate the crap out of each other but you have to admit with all that fighting something is bound to happen between them soon!! This is Hikarucrush telling you that Sousei no Aquarion is an awesome show that combines action, comedy, and romance into one hell of a anime!!!!

Long ago there was a battle between angels and humans, which ultimately ended with the angels’ retreat. Now, after twelve thousand years, the angels have returned and have begun harvesting humans in order to drain their prana to feed the world tree. A group of gifted teens from around the world are called upon to train and pilot the vector machines known as Vector Luna, Vector Mars and Vector Sol. They must come together to form the ancient mecha known as Aquarion to battle the Shadow Angels.

My thoughts:
I enjoyed watching this anime. I found the story of reincarnation fascinating. Remembering a long ago past ... must seem strange, but the makers of Aquarion pulled it off. Each character has his or her own quirk, but I found Silvia’s brother complex a little too much, but then again I kinda understand it at the end when the Shadow Angel explained Celiane’s separation from herself. I do love the commander Gen Fudou and his strange metaphors that seem to have deep meaning and is always on par with the current situation. Aquarion is always action, there are no boring parts to it, it keeps moving forward and doesn’t stop until the end. The music was great and the animation is very well done. I definitely recommend Aquarion.

I should start this off by clearing up a few things. First, anything Shoji Kawamori, I take a look into. Second, anything with Yoko Kanno doing the soundtrack deserves to be atleast looked into, if not watched with the eyes closed. Third, with their powers combined, I got excited (Escaflowne for eff's sake).

So after mentioning the above, I had VERY high expectations for this show. Escaflowne still stands as one of my favorites, but we're not reviewing that. The premise of the show isn't anything all that original, with all of the Kawamori usuals, Mecha, Wings, Feathers, underlying romance, ... tortured souls, etc. The first episode showed promise of a fluid story line progression, cliff hangers, action, and suspense. Sadly, the suspense is only there as a tease, the fluid filler free progression was not there, and the cliff hangers were next to non existant. MOST of the "revelations" were predictable, but not all of them. Instead, you spend the next 20 episodes learning a "little bit" about everyone and their relationships with eachother, usually by the almost direct verbal guidance of the "Commander". You would think with the slow progression of the story that everything would have been explained, but it seems to save the day or end the episode things are discovered or revealed with no explanation or progression. They figure out how to defeat the enemy with the mutterance of the commander, repeating the words in their head, and then CLICK! it's all solved. Seconds, literally. It picks up again around the last 6 episodes or so with a very progressive pace, plenty of action and story, and a bit of a rushed romance developement that "changes the world" . The idea wasn't all the original, but enough differences and variants I think this could have been done way better. The animation is top notch for a TV series, the soundtrack is superb, and the comedy was just light enough I wasn't annoyed. ( I like comedy, but not in abundance with a serious plot.) I would say this would have probably been a better series had it been scaled down to 13 or 14 episodes, cut the filler, And left it open. Now if you're looking for a show that is mildly entertaining, and you can start and stop and pick up 2 weeks later, this isn't a bad casual watch. I've seen worse by all means. If I hadn't had all the episodes to watch together, I may not have finished it in nearly the same amount of time. I would reccomend Escaflowne as a better choice, but if you're determined to watch Aquarion, watch it first then pick up Escaflowne.

Story: The storyline has its flaws but still works. There is a focus on mythology and life lessons.

Art: One of the show's strong points, the mecha, characters and locations are well drawn.

Sound: This is the heart of the anime, the soundtrack is brilliant and is incorporated well into the scenes. The music has such emotion that this show would not be the same without it.

Character: There is a mixed range of characters with different qualities, I feel some characters are explored deeply while others neglected. Some characters you might find annoying ( Sirius and Tsugumi) but others you might sympathize ... with (Apollo and Pierre). Another problem is that Silvia clings to the brother Sirius a lot which at times go a bit OTT

Enjoyment: Episodes 1,10 and 25 have great examples of well-timed music and fight scenes which makes the anime good to watch

Overall: A good anime to watch especially if you like anime with Love,Comedy and Action themes, A brilliant Soundtrack and good artwork.

This will be my first time writing a full review while mentioning episodes. It might contain some minor spoilers about what is happening in the episode. If you don't care about what I feel and wanna avoid some spoilers(Honestly I don't think any of the spoilers I wrote can ruin the show) then skip to the very bottom where I give my Summary and reasons why you need to watch this anime.

First thing I have to say is that I already watched Aquarion Evol two times before I watched this.(First time I watched it was when I was a kid around 2012, I ... didn't know that time that it was actually a sequel since I watched it on air in tv) Second time I watched Aquarion Evol is exactly before I started watching this. Since I already watched Aquarion Evol, I already know the whole truth about Apollo, Sylvia, Sirius, Toma, and even high commander fudo. So that might have killed the first few episodes for me, but thats okay I'm aware that some episodes will be boring for me because they were explaining stuff that I already know so I still sticked to watching it. For the sake of the review I still watched all episodes and it doesn't feel right for me if I skipped some.

heads up! this might contain some spoilers!

Episode 1-9 like I said was mainly focused about the legend of Aquarion, Atlandia, Apollonius and Celiane. For the record, I still learned some new things even tho I watched Evol already(Since Aquarion evol is focused already about the reincarnations of Apollo and Sylvia/Sylvie, not about Apollonius and Celiane anymore). I can't say I enjoyed 1-9 but it was still interesting because (SPOILER) I always seem to forget the fact that Amata and Mikono and Evol itself is focused on the Reincarnated Love of Apollo and Sylvie, If you watched these already you will understand why I didn't say Apollonius and Celiane.

At Episode 10, it felt like the series is finally kicking up but when I got to episode 11 it returned to the bland episodes. At episode 12 Apollo and Sylvia finally got a bit of development. At Episode 13 it got interesting again and gave more development between Apollo and Sylvia it continued till episode 14. At episode 15 it felt like it was boring again not much to say. Now Episode 16 for me felt like a huge turning point for Apollo and Sylvia.

Episode 18, probably one of my favorite episodes, not because it have a huge relevance to Apollo and Sylvia but because it was funny. If you understand the characters and their personality this will give you a good laugh too. From there it continued to stay interesting since its already past the Introduction pace(Irrelevant to me because I watched Evol) . There was an episode around this part (I forgot what episode exactly) But it started with this shitty animation and I was really turned off at first. I thought the animator got sick or something or maybe someone else did it. But as the episode progressed it started to make sense. So if your watching/going to watch this keep in mind that the shitty animation is to give an effect of what they are experiencing.

Episode 23 Another huge turning point for Apollo and Sylvia and it remains that way further until the end. I have to say that it felt pretty rushed and the pace was really fast in this episode. Around this part of the story(SPOILER) Apollo and Sylvia shipping start to go well and Sylvia finally starts to look at Apollo differently(yes its this late in the series that she kinda admits to herself or atleast show it) Ok so it kinda showed that Sylvia can look at Apollo even if it means she have to defy her brother(Its huge considering she is a huge bro-con, ill get to that later) So it kinda showed the scene where Sirius the brother is inviting Sylvia to join him and his side and Sylvia being a huge bro-con starts to reach out for his hand. Then Apollo stops her by telling her some stuff about dreams and hands Lol. Ok so Sylvia kinda says some stuff that that hand without the feathers is used to hold the hand of someone she cherish(Something like that) then she kinda held hand with Apollo. At this point I was screaming as hell already(not the point).

The next remaining episodes the pace remained fast and it actually got faster. (I was legit shocked what happen to their vice commander guy. Ive always thought badly of him but when he said something about acting autonomously I was like woah he is cool at somepoint, then shit happens I was shocked and it felt kinda rushed)

If you already watched Aquarion Evol, the finally part of the story is probably too common for you now(Because that scene was shown multiple times in Evol) and thats how I feel. I still felt the series but its no surprise for me already. It still felt a bit rushed for me. But it didn't betray my expectations.

Some things I noticed and felt like I need to mention is that, the voices, design of the bodies didn't fit to the age of the characters. Apollo and Sylvia are 13 and 14 if I remember correctly, and Sirius is 16-17. I understand that this anime is pretty old and when it was made this was pretty common. One thing that annoys me is Sylvia being a bro-con. I understand why some characters develop those kinds of feelings(Sis/Bro-con) since I watch a lot of animes that have/or revolves around those, you can say its normal for me to see them. But my point about this is that its not necessary, and the fact that there was no background to that make it feel like its completely random. From what I understand there is no reason for her to be infatuated like that. In some anime there is always a back story about why someone develops an infatuation to their sibling, like for example they are not really related and they kinda got connected already before they even meet as siblings, or the one that develops a crush on their brother or sister is always protected by them because they are lacking something and is getting ignored by their parent. But this series didn't show any of that. From what I understand Sirius is the one that was being isolated or something by his father because he have no memory of being the solar wing that they believe him to be. And they actually compare him to sylvia who have some memories. So if you compare it to other Bro/Sis-con patterns it should be Sirius having infatuations towards sylvia(If she kinda show concern about it). It can be because they are the only ones in their family that is left alive and that could serve as a reason but in the flashbacks it was shown that sylvia is already shows infatuation even before that fire incident. I don't really wanna rant more about this but at this point Mikono(From Evol) actually have more reason than Sylvia to develop a bro-con to Cayenne(Mikono's brother) but she didn't so why does Sylvia have the Complex? still a mystery to me. Further in the series it starts getting faint as she grow closer to Apollo but even till the last episode she still shows signs of it.

Summary & Why you need to watch

First its not all about the mecha, its more about the legend of aquarion that will carry out to Aquarion Evol. Aquarion Evol is in top top top lists of my favorite animes. If you want to watch this anime you need to continue and also watch Aquarion Evol because this alone will look like shit and won't make sense. Its a package you have to watch them both. For me Genesis of Aquarion is just an introduction for the next series(Aquarion Evol). And thats the only reason you need to watch it, so you can watch Evol. Over all the anime is good. Its obviously old and have outdated features but if your looking for a mecha that is different from other common mechas like gundam and code geass then this show is for you, Why? because it have feelings! do gundams have feelings? Nope but an Aquarion does!

Edit: The ending is really Iconic for me, it still feels fast but as I said its just the beginning for Apollo and Sylvia love story, because Aquarion Evol covers that.

Either way if your going to watch these are the things you need to remember.

- Its not just a mecha, its an angel.
- the pilots(Elements) have powers so does the aquarion(mecha)
- its not about wars about robots, its about love and fighting for it
- its not Evangelion, if evangelion is for kids then Aquarion is for Teens
- Don't drop the series because its boring at the start. Episode 10, 13 and up is where the story flows differently and more interesting.
- Like I said its sorta just like a setup with its own story for Aquarion Evol(Story revolves around reincarnation of Apollo and Sylvia and how their love will continue after 12,000 years) Its the perfect set up so watch it! if you don't then watching this is pointless.

Over all this and Evol is really a Beautiful anime. You just need to understand the story and watch them all.