Anime: Sousei no Aquarion

Aquarion has some of the best opening in my personal opinion and some fairly good music. But that's all you'll find in it. The series lack in many departments and during some moments it becomes so bland that it borders the extreme. Those who like mecha anime will probably find it flashy and childish, while those hoping for some simple action-scenes will be dispointed with the huge amount of filler episodes and a few episodes that are simply bad.

Art & Animation
This is the forte of the series in its begining. Besides some nice opening animation, the 3D elements are very well made and its animation is fast and exciting. The non-3D part of the series has its glory as well, with very well draw characters despite lacking in animation sequences with them. Everything should be fine here, but it all comes down as you watch the series. Quality starts to decline drasticaly after a few episodes and a single episode at the later part of the series is simply bizarre. The last 8 episodes or so have a really bad quality, making it almost unwatchable at some moments.

Sound
The first opening is awesome, it has enough power to make you watch the episode and get into the mood of the show, but everything else is not that good. Some nice background music and a good OST makes it above the average anime, but is still short of compensating for its other poor elements. Voice-acting is nice and never an issue.

Story
The plot is fairly standard but has a good originality. It's a mixture of a post-apocalyptic world threatened by divine beings and where hope lies in a group of heroes with mechas. It's basically an attempt to use the Evangelion's set base and make something softer and with more fanservice. This is clearly noticeable when you see in place a very bizarre mecha-merging with sexual references. Anyway, it's a fun take at first, especially with the action-packed animation.

1. Past and Present... or just past? Or nothing at all?
   However, you'll notice the setting is never truly developed. The show focus a lot on the past events that put the show in the current state, and with each new enemy a glimpse of the past lives of the protagonists will detail what happened there. It's a interesting narrative element that is nicely used in lots of films and north american series, but in here it falls short because it completely ignores he present. After a dozen episodes you'll still be watching a random monster attacking, the guys getting on their mechas e merging to fight it, althought the past scenes have progresses quite a deal to explain you these "past" lives.
   
   Lots of useless scenes
   Not progressing throught the present plot wouldn't be a problem if it had little screentime. Aquarion, however, has nearly all of its episodes dedicated to these present events. The past scenes, althought progressing, are only short memories in each episode, a few seconds or minutes longs at most. What happens then? Fillers! Aquarion is full of it. Nearly all episodes will start with some stupid excuse so the pilots may immediately used what they learned in order to fight the monstes. And no, don't expect them to remember these lessons after an episode or two, they just use their filler excuse for one episode and then they move on to another filler part, another excuse, another random monster, etc. Events of major importance are absurdly scarce and may put you away from the show if you are a bit strict or in a slightly bad mood.
   

Character
Here's a good point of the series. The characters are fun and change within the show, the excuses used in each episode to generate filler elements at least work in favor of giving these characters a shounen-way of sympathy. Sadly, as in shounens out there, this change is only good for a few minutes and in the next episode they act as if someone reseted their memories so they're back to stage zero of development. There's even an episode later in the show that makes fun of its own character personalities and there you'll see that they evolved nearly nothing. The last episodes bring some bigger changes that could impact on their personalities, but not enough to make up for the rest of the series.

Value
Quality is inconstant and the plot is vague and slow paced. Worst of all, it has a lot of fillers. With all this is hard to find some value in the show even if the characters are nice and the 3D animations are gorgeous. Watching it is boring at times and there are some filler episodes that scream "I am a filler!", mostly puting some random events that suprisingly become the way to defeat the monster that appeared in that exact moment. So much for coincidence.

Enjoyment
The opening and fighting sequences are fun to watch. Some comedy throw in the anime is worthwhile, but in general the anime is boring and not so pleasing. The huge amount of fillers make it hard to appreciate it and watch in sequence, but can serve if you just watch it a single episode per day or week.

Comments
Sousei no Aquarion falls short on many aspects. It's still watchable for those who like some action anime with bits of comedy, but it's very hard for those who seek a more well paced plot and despise fillers. I watched the series because of its awesome opening theme and it kept me watching even after I became bored. The rest of the anime, especially the very final episodes, did not make up for the huge amount of filler content, even within the final sequence of events.

fdt's review is a pretty accurate description of this series, but I feel that there is some contrast that needs to be given to it.

Animation & Sound
Pretty much high-quality. 3D that doesn't make you cringe, and an active and at times surprising soundtrack. Some themes do get reused quite a lot, but I liked them so it wasn't a problem for me. There's little more to say on those, neither are the best I've ever seen but it's still an aspect of Aquarion that I find difficult to fault.

Story
This is one point of contrast I feel I need to give. Aquarions story is very much there, and the best way I can describe it is that your mileage is going to vary with it. The show has one, perhaps overwhelming hindrance to the story that is told - The filler. And there's a further problem here - Because the writing is all over the place every episode, and the plot doesn't explain itself much at all till the final stretch of the show, it's difficult to distinguish the filler episodes from the ones with actual story significance.

The story itself is an interesting if somewhat overused tale - If you've seen a lot of anime, you'll feel like you've seen a lot of it before - But at the same time provides its own, if a little inelegant twist on just how coherently its told. Therefore, the story gets a straight 5 - It has the undertones of something that could have been good that you may be able to appreciate if you look past the silliness of it all, but it definitely won't satisfy everyone.

In essence, I was on the fence when it came to what to think of the plot, until the final episode. Some bits came together and the plot kind of clicked for me, and it felt like a lot of the previous episodes did indeed gain some relevance.

Character Development
Yes, the characters are so stereotypically stereotypical that it's impossible to argue otherwise. This is, however, definitely on purpose. I believe the blunt honesty with just how stereotypical the characters are in all their actions is actually somewhat of a saving grace that keeps them from being completely terrible, you get what you see and they don't really try to cloak that badly like a lot of things do.

Here's the catch - It feels like the show is trying to constantly develop the characters, in fact most battles are about the characters coming to some sort of realisation. But in actuality the individual characters don't really develop much at all. I think this can be explained like this - what is developed isn't the characters themselves, but rather the characters as a collective. An interesting idea at least but it doesn't really make the characters themselves any better.

Value
Oh boy did this almost outstay its welcome at times - as I said earlier, there is filler. And it's difficult to distinguish what is and isn't filler. Honestly, what you can get out of watching this, while not entirely unpleasant, is done more coherently elsewhere. Watch this if you want to watch this, if this specifically interests you, but don't watch it just because you need something to watch. There's a lot of other things that you'll get a lot more out of.

Enjoyment
That said, it's actually an enjoyable enough show if you don't go in with false expectations. Think the worst, and it'll probably surprise you when you actually do watch it - A lot is said about how silly it can be, but what makes this silliness actually entertaining is just how serious the attempt to execute it all is. For what it's worth, I enjoyed my viewing of Aquarion, and I think my low expectations kind of helped that happen.

Conclusion
I may seem to contradict myself with the value vs enjoyment here, but that's pretty much the best way to describe Aquarion. You're not going to get a lot out of it for the time you spend watching it, but at least it's possible to enjoy it. The clean visuals and well above average soundtrack help a lot there.

In general I am going to point out that I gave a middle rating to most part because everything had a good potential, it just came out short.[br]The animation is good. I would have given it a 8 or 9, but the "Union" are so repeated that it gets boring. In general however it is one of the best elements.[br]The sound is good, voice actors are good for the role and the music is catchy.[br]The story was my biggest disappointment. Even though it is based in a lot of already used points it looked like it was going to be interesting, however, I had no idea what was happening and I felt like I was watching a sequel instead, the middle story is almost non existent and the end is just disappointing. I had to do a little research in Wikipedia later to get a better grasp.[br]The character development is as inconsistent as the story. I still have no clue about the role of some important characters, and they were semi main characters as well. For example, they make a big emphasys about the past life of the characters, but for 4 characters are only explained, so that should say it is not important.[br]Because of the contradictions it is hard to say the anime has value. I will remember this anime as an example of don't in anime, but no more than that. I had a hard time finishing watching it, so I will never want to even think about it again (I wasted time on it in other words)[br]My review might be hard, but that is because the anime started with high hopes, so it ended up letting me down. If you don't look for special anime you might have better luck with this one.[br]All in all the enjoyment for the whole anime was below 4 for me, but some episodes were interesting and the begginning is good.[br]

<<PLEASE RATE THIS REVIEW>>

For those looking for for the simple, easy way around reading the entire review without reading it, here you go: Aquarion is pretty much a post-apocalytic mecha/angel series; average in its development; average in its conclusion. That about sums it up. Now, on to the real review.

Animation:
Top notch. Very crisp a delightful to see characters that were well defined, had shadows across their faces, and even had their facial features detailed when they were undergoing major changes. (No spoilers here) Mech and fight scenes seemed well put-together and enemies seemed to have their own essense to them.
EXCEPTION: I must say that there was one exception that I found particularily dreadful, was episode 19. Episode 18 was hilarious and I laughed so much even though I was in a sour mood before watching it. 19 disgusted me. Not only was it confusing, I thought it was borderline insulting. Why, you ask? It almost appeared as if they ran out of money or sent their normal animators on holiday for a week and brought in a amateur sketch-pad artists. It wouldn't have been so bad if the beginning part of the episode was done normal and the "alternative reality" was done that was, but they let the animators do the entire episode so that even when they were in "normal reality" it was blocky. It was dreadful. Anyways, aside from that hiccup that animation rocked.

Sound:
Disappointing. The first opening theme didn't seem to fit too well initially until it got into the meat of the song and then it still felt off. The second opening just was plain annoying. The lack of addition score to accompany various parts of the show seemed a bit out of place, what with their great animation. But during the climax of a battle you'd hear the opening theme playing in the background. Which, again, wasn't bad till the second opening came around in which case it didn't fit at all. Aside from that there weren't many notable pieces of ear candy (ie. environmental sounds, etc). The voice actors were dead-on for their characters though, kudos there.

Story:
Story... I do believe there was a story, although I can see how some people get lost during the fray of it all. The series starts out like a number of others and just jumps right in and throws a zillion things and termonology at you before you even get to the end of the first episode. Many questions are answered throughout the course of the show but many more questions are asked. I believe that to truly understand Aquarion you have to read between the lines in some places. A few things aren't spelled out for you along the way and a few things aren't explained at all. Which, sometimes is a good thing and works for most movies, but leaves loose ends other times. Aquarion DOES however answer a few of these in a subtle way, but you have to pay attention to it or else you'll miss it entirely. Unfortunately the series' greatest downfall is its over-zealous ingenuity. Creativity is a good thing, but not when you re-design or re-invent something EVERY episode. Because just when you finish an ep and thing you know something new, it doesn't count or you have to wait for the series to give you another crazy explaination for how their next struggle will be solved. Etc. Etc. Etc. There's more to go into but that would involve a lot of spoilers so, no more about that.

Character:
This is where I was remarkably surprised for the most part. Each character has a bit of his/her own personality and stereotype surrounding them (which is almost expected nowadays in characters) but at episode 18 breaks the mold and totally changes before your very eyes. Not only do you get to see the characters realize their OWN stereotypes, but they're aware of each others as well and thus are able to consciously better themselves. I thought this touch was amazing due to the way that each person was allowed to evolve at their own pace. Couple that with not necessarily having a "star" character but the entire cast seems to star, giving everyone a chance for their time in the spotlight. Bad guys, though don't fit any of this formula. They're almost cookie-cutter right off the assembly line and hardly change at all. That and there's a few times where a decision is made but then their personality doesn't uphold with it during the following episodes.

Value:
I'm glad I have this anime in my collection, I'm glad I finally watched it. I think it has a little bit of replay value at a later time to try to match up the things you know towards the end with some of their establishing factors at the beginning.

Enjoyment:
I enjoyed watching this series and didn't really think of many negatives as I was watching it. In fact, I pretty much sat through the entire thing in one day, save for about the first six episodes. I just had to know what was going to happen next for some of those moments that weren't quite cliffhangers, but piqued my curiosity enough to keep going.

SUMMARY:
As said before, Aquarion is a mecha-style anime. Even so, lots of action revolves around the characters, not just the mecha. And the mecha itself is not so static that it stays the same monotonously evey episode. Something new is introduced quite often. Maybe too often. The bottom line is that if you like mecha, quality characters, and a decent plot then Sousei no Aquarion should be on your watch list.

Overall, I very much enjoyed this anime. For mecha romantics who enjoy anime like Full Metal Panic! and maybe Gunparade March (even though its storyline was even more lacking than this anime!), then this is certainly another anime to pick up and watch.

I think I watched this anime in March, and I find myself still listening to the awesome OSTs that this anime came out with. Granted, some of the songs are a bit odd with Youko Kanno pretending to be "Gabriela Robin," but the OST is pretty catchy and enjoyable to people who enjoy j-pop ish and other light, alternative anime music.

The characters are pretty common place, you have your villains that are trying to regain something they've lost, you've got an annoying female protagonist who's obsessed with her brother who isn't all that, you've got the main male protagonist who the administrators immediately take a liking to... and somehow this story revolves around an event that occurred 12000 years ago and everyone kinda remembers their weird past lives. But I guess one pro is that they included a Hispanic kinda dude (albeit obsessed with soccer like the rest of the world besides the United States is), which differs from most anime in that most anime feature mainly white-looking anime characters.

What I liked about the story is its yeah-it's-what-you-wanted-to-happen outcome. If you found yourself fantasizing about Silvia getting with Apollo like they were together in their past lives, you'd be happy in the end. I found it kinda strange that Toma was in love with Apollo... that seemed sorta homosexual, but not that that's an issue, it's just that the trio of the main dudes Apollo, Toma, and Sirius somehow returned the world to a state of equilibrium. The ending was definitely not well conceived.

The reason why I place enjoyment and value at 8 is that I think mecha romantics will nevertheless enjoy this anime. I kinda wish there were more anime such as that which fall into romance/mecha animes. But if you agree with my overall sentiment, I hope this first review of mine wasn't too bad, and hopefully it was helpful.

This looked good in the beginning, but it has developed in a bad direction.

Instead of cleaning up the story mess, Sosei no Aquarion has become entirely random. The characters developed to nowhere, they just showed increasing amounts of weird traits. Even though animation and sound are still top, I can't rate this good.


Animation is REALLY good. It only lacks the style Macross Zero or Gundam SEED Destiny has concerning 3D models // realistic acceleration and movement. That's the only flaw there is. ;) Most of the combat animation is obviousely computer graphics, but they managed to fit this well into the anime-image style. Thus, fluid animation with nice colors and lighting make Aquarion pleasent to look at.

Great opening/ending and bg music. I've listened to it quite often and still don't get bored ... good sound effects and decent voices.


STORY - or: What the heck?

From the beginning, the storyline is already built up in a way that will typically not become completely logic and "solved", as it is rather a mixture of other anime than a logical pattern.

As the show 'developed', my fears have not just proven right. I'd summarize the story in one word as bullshit.

There is no decent explanation for Aquarion, nor for some hyper fast running dude who seems to be perfect suited for everything but does almost nothing. Things are disappearing and appearing without any pattern, the enemies behave in no logical way, etc...

Still, the anime keeps inventing new random chaos all the time! People have to sleep to fight, a mecha (aka Aquarion) teleports into their minds (WHAT?!) and lots of funny abilities appear... like their mech suddenly growing giant arms (I'm talking about kilometres here) or some soul-jumping, psycho-powers and so on. There is absolutely NO WAY that all this can be connected in a logical way. It is obviousely just a bunch of different (incompatible) elements thrown together. The rest of the story - such as relationships - are too flat to save the series.


The characters are just cheap. They're so predictable, it becomes boring. They don't change much either... "Apollo" is named after the greek god of the sun and archery, but this reference was only used for Aquarions attacks - his actual character is rather the 'generic anime hero'. Having a childish outsider prodigy as the main character seems to be "in" ever since Naruto and Bleach were so successful, the you-are-stupid-but-after-a-while-i-will-fall-in-love-with-you-generic-hero-girlfriend is present too. Still, the characters aren't completely worthless: many different types of people are represented by (side) characters, and them confronting each other is sometimes quite entertaining.


Aquarion is too childish and not deep enough to improve a collection or things like that. This just doesn't really say much, it's 'easy' entertainment with a horrible storyline.

(Content taken from my former review on AnimeNfo)