STORY: Aquarion’s story is overwrought with unnecessary narrative structure. Old shows that followed a similar formula (Mazinger, GoGaiGar, Gundam) simply opened a world to their audiences which the combat is justified and there’s an overarching goal to the conflict. In Aquarion, things like exposition are simply not included for the sake of more episodic shenanigans. The first episode establishes group called Shadow Angels harvesting humans for some nefarious reason, but it’s okay because there’s one oversized mech called Aquarion that was used 12,000 years ago to battle the Shadow Angels and now people that have supernatural powers can get into the various ships that fuse into the Aquarion and Apollo is one of the people who, despite being a savage, of course, is destined to pilot this ship because he’s (maybe) the reincarnation of a Shadow Angel named Apollonius who rebelled 12,000 years ago due to loving a human, who is reincarnated as a tsundere with a brother complex. If this doesn’t seem like an absolutely hamfisted and convoluted plot to introduce the show with, don’t worry. They don’t ever explain why. For most of the series, the audience is disregarded as the writers perform a rhetorical masturbation, only compounding the already absurd and senseless narrative with every character having an unrequited love for another character, a powerful wizard who’s only purpose is to deliver laughably cliché motivational lines, and other equally non-sequitur plot lines. This is a show that will introduce a 12,000 year old villain, establish that, despite his age, he’s still a kid, have him do nothing but murder and toy with humanity for his own amusement, kill him off 3 episodes later, and have everyone sulk about how significant his death is. The show is a culmination of nuanced single-episode arcs that introduce a conflict and have it resolved at the end of the episode so that the character who was experiencing said crisis can pilot the multi-colored super-mech and destroy the monster of the week. There’s never a sense of urgency, as Aquarion pretty much always beats up the bad guys and the bad guys always have more humans to harvest. Logic seems to be lost on this show, and rather than being an absolute embrace of the inane in order to make it into a narrative a la Gainax, Aquarion stagnates and never delivers. Sure, it’s cool when the Aquarion does the infinite punch. Then it does it every other episode, until it becomes just another boring move. That’s right, Aquarion is a show in which a giant mech infinitely expanding his fist to punch an enemy off the planet becomes boring.
ART: The animation quality here is laughably bad for a series animated in 2005. Characters just float around the scene, lips flapping. Story is told to you via men floating around upside down rather than shown visually, and it only ever comes off as pretentious. Where the series really becomes terrible, however, is the 3-D mecha. The majority of the enemy designs are so reused that you hardly ever even care about who they are fighting. Every attack seems to be ‘shoot energy at Aquarion’. Aquarion itself is a particularly laughable robot as well, as its mismatched color scheme is reminiscent of a Power Rangers fusion. The ‘unique’ fusions of the Aquarion boil down to palette-swaps and a different head, and, of course, a different weapon. However, this usually just comes down to if Aquarion’s going to shoot an arrow or if it’ll punch a guy, or maybe have a sword. The different forms really don’t evoke that much of a difference in the mech. Perhaps you could say that I’m expecting too much and that this is a mecha anime. Certainly, it is, and the story only exists to facilitate endless mecha fights. However, these fights are often in the same boring terrain and usually boil down to disgustingly rendered 3-D mechs flailing around until the intro theme plays and they shoot their ultimate attack at the enemy. The show isn’t afraid to re-use frame and it often does, although the animators can’t seem to agree on how some characters faces should even look most of the time. There’s one episode that toys with the notion of the animation in an interesting way, so you’ve got to give Aquarion that, at the very least.
SOUND: Where all else fails, Aquarion does manage to have an enjoyable soundtrack. Loud overtures will ring out in mecha fights and it’s pretty enjoyable to, at the least, listen to. The usual music that plays during social scenes isn’t that noteworthy or scene-setting, and, often, there is no track to accompany the dialogue. The series has an incredibly ill-placed ending theme considering the content of the series, but the introduction is just about as much of an ear-worm as you can find anywhere else. However, it seems like Aquarion is aware of this, and, of course, plays the intro theme every time the main characters are about to win a fight. The voice acting is done well enough, and, so, overall, the sound is solid, with a few memorable tracks.
CHARACTER: If you didn’t catch this from my diatribe on the narrative of the show, then I should say it now. All of the characters are terribly written. This isn’t to say they aren’t enjoyable. While every single character seems to only have one level of depth to them (Sirius is obsessed with being elegant, Pierre plays soccer and like women, Silvia has a brother complex, Apollo is a savage who has to fight the Shadow Angels because BARON, Rena is blind and just says cryptic lines, Reika is misfortunate) and a love interest that will go nowhere (trust me, this is worse than mainstay shonen), they can be fun and enjoyable from time to time. Sure, it’s poorly written, and don’t you expect any character development whatsoever, but you’ve got to enjoy Pierre fantasizing about women and kicking soccer balls or Commander Fudou shaking his fist and saying something about how the main characters have to be like three separate unbreakable arrows in order to defeat all foes. The show understands how inane the cast is, and there is even an episode where the character types are called into question and made fun of. If anything, Aquarion is aware of how one-dimensional of a cast it has, but it just doesn’t care. It’s literally that kid who fails every test he takes and laughs about the consequences, saying it doesn’t matter to him. Ultimately, the characters and their conflicts are laughable, and even Aquarion knows it.
ENJOYMENT: Despite the narrative pitfalls of Aquarion and its poorly choreographed battles, there is a charm to how pathetic and absurd it is. While you’ve got to wonder why the Shadow Angels even want to prolong their 12,000 years of sitting around in nebulous space, or how they didn’t just kill all the humans with their endless, unbeatable army of mecha and microscopic food-eating demons, these questions usually take a back seat when you come to understand that Aquarion just doesn’t care. The show constantly comes up with new gimmicks for the titular mech to perform, or more absurd episodic plot lines that are dropped and forgotten just as quickly as they become relevant. If you can’t enjoy characters performing a giant-mecha flaming soccer kick, or obviously pretentious characters spouting nonsensical rhetoric, then you just won’t enjoy the show. However, there’s fun to be found in the madness, even if there isn’t any significance to it all.
OVERALL: Aquarion is terrible. It knows it is terrible. It has in-show commentary on how terrible it is. As a Mecha, it falls flat on its face due to too many similar, boring fights. As a story, it bumbles along with an episodic pace, poorly written characters, and an absurd premise that doesn’t care to explain itself to the audience. As an anime, it brings nothing new to the medium. It is like a steamy fart—absolutely disgusting—but, perhaps, there’s something immature within you that’ll have you giggling at the act. It can be enjoyed, but you shouldn’t forget how much of it is absolute filth.
