Every episode they would focus on love and romance, heck even the mecha's powers are triggered by love. Faith and destiny are also things that are consistently mentioned in this series. Characters are overly melodramatic, they always shout and their emotions are always exaggerated. The plot is about a young male named Sora Amata. Sora Amata is a fanatic of a movie called "Skies of Aquaria" and always spends time alone in an old theater watching it. (There is a reason behind this fanaticism which i won't spoil).One day, after finishing the movie again and was about to clean the theater, he was taken by surprise when he saw that he wasn't alone. There he met a girl named Mikono Suzuhiro and it was Love at first sight!! Now Sora Amata has the special power to "fly" or levitate. Funny thing is he levitates whenever he gets excited or scared. To cut the story short, Abductors came and tried to abduct Mikono. The earth defenders who flying ships called "vectors" came and tried to defeat the Abductors but failed. Somehow, Sora with his levitation power, accidentally boarded an aquarion (with Mikono). Sora's vector, by pure chance, combined with two other vectors piloted by Zessica Wong and Cayenne Suzuhiro which then formed Aquarion Evol, which then proceeded to beat the abductors. The two joined NEO-DEAVA an academy for teenagers with Elemental Powers (Sora's Levitation is an Elemental Power). NEO-DEAVA's purpose is to defend the world from the abductors. Students of the academy are also the ones who pilots the vectors. Now the story revolves around love and the battle between the academy and the abductors.
There are a ton of characters here, and i'm happy to say that most of them aren't flat or one dimensional, a bunch of eccentric ones. Each student has their own weird and unique elemental power, from Sora's Levitation, Cayenne's Prophecy to Andy Hole's dig or hole creating power. The good stuff about aquarion is that nobody is left out, each had their own time to shine, each have their own romance problem, whether it was a love triangle ,unrequited love, forbidden love, love between abductor and earthling, and even destined love reborn through reincarnation. This makes the series entertaining to watch, watching the interaction between each characters.
The Art is definitely good, the animation of the characters is consistently good and I love the colorful style. The 3D for the mecha is quite awesome too, it's colorful and vivid, and the way they presented those over-the-top fighting scenes and special moves are a thing of beauty, really an eye candy. The special attacks of the aquarion (born from the different trio combinations of element users) are fun to watch.
Now the plot is thick, not complex but a lot of things are going on, from the characters (tons of them) and even the enemies. The enemies aren't your one dimensional bad guys, there's a reason they're doing the abductions, and the show really did a good of job of showing the viewers the "other" side or the issues of the Alteans/Abuctors. (Abductors are some form of aliens from a planet called Altea "Altair" who comes to earth and abducts females). Now the acting may be cheesy and exaggerated but it never became annoying, it was quite entertaining to watch, it's like your typical heroes in RPG games who would be over melodramatic. The soundtrack is amazing too! just like the over dramatic lines the soundtracks are over the top and are one of the best that i have ever heard in an anime. Good vocals and a lot of beautiful instruments, not your typical anime pop or rock song. The sound effects works quite well with the grand visuals too. You can tell that Aquarion Evol isn't trying to be some serious mecha, but stands firmly with it's unique style, which was effective and was genuinely really entertaining. I seriously recommend this to anyone, except those not interested in love stories It has a lot of quality mecha battles to offer too and you'll never get bored with this one.
My Personal Rating: 9/10
