Sousei no Aquarion is not your typical mecha mashup of everything a mecha anime is supposed to be. What happened was Shoji Kawamori trying to find everything that a mecha anime represented (guns, robots, a tsundere with bro-con, the ass, wimp, etc) and threw it into the blender; much like your typical Scary Movie (I-IV), Date Movie parody flick.
What starts out as an awesome Voltron/TTGL combo of robots coming together as a greater whole becomes a mess of one liners and sexual references everywhere.
Story: 3/10
Besides the overall theme of saving the world with and while you search for your lover of past reincarnate, there is really not much to the story. Episodic in nature, most of the episodes are stand alones except for the last few where they try to finish the main plot of saving the world.
There were also minor plot holes which are filled on the go (like the Pierre fight with the Eva-like doppelganger bad guy) and how some scenes show blind Rena seeing the action even though she is blind.
Art: 7/10
Best way to put it: If you want to appreciate the art, watch it in Japanese without subs, that way the terrible dialogue will not get to you as you watch epic scenes unfold with the 1st Op.
Sound: 8/10
Yoko Kanno leads the whole series with her music, which comes full swing halfway through the series. While her talents are not questioned, it is wasted on such a poorly plotted show.
Character: 4/10
Character development? What development? Sylvia is a bro-con the whole way through until the last 2 episodes, Tsugumi is still the yuri she is from the beginning, Reika is the Shinji (with her whole mantra about her misfortune), and the list can go on. The only real development is Pierre who starts as a flirtatious skirt chaser into a chivalrous skirt chaser with a more limited choice of skirt.
Enjoyment 5/10
The only joy that one could get is the Gattai sequences with the crew. (Most) males will power up, and the rest of the girls go through an orgasmic phase (which gets really boring after the first hour or so due to the overuse of the Gattai element in every episode).
Also, the episode when Pierre gets Gattai Addiction and everything he does has an innuendo to it.
In fact, any episode where Pierre gets the majority of screen time is a cause for celebration as comedy will be the main dish of the episode.
Overall, a decent anime that could have hit the ceiling if only it was put in better hands. The only thing that kept me watching was the terrible plot (which in turn helped it become an almost bearable show due to its randomness) and the fight scenes where you knew it was going to be at least EPIC when they queued the OP song.
Final Thoughts:
Instead of a strong plot and evolving characters one would expect in a typical robot/post apocalyptic anime, what you get is a puree of episodic plots where your suspension of disbelief is so high that you are either laughing at the sheer stupidity of the actions the characters go through or cringing due to overused scenes that were cool at first but becomes mediocre as it drags on (Gattai! Ad nauseam anyone?).
Recommend this to anyone who has a lot of time to watch a train wreck or someone who appreciates mechas (even in its weakest form)
