AKB0048 this week was all about challenging the suspense of disbelief. I mean, the show makes no sense, but that is no reason why it doesn’t have to worry about it. The thing with this episode wasn’t its realism, but rather how ridiculously incompetent it made the people from Des look, which is a pretty major issue for this series. They just barge in with tanks and fail to hit anything, they get outsmarted by a bunch of kids like it’s nothing. The kids who spoke two languages were a nice touch by the way.
Also, the difference between this series and Eureka Seven is HUGE. This stands out, because the two series do sortof touch upon the same themes. However, where Eureka Seven is all about protecting children while using them as a necessary evil, AKB0048 is completely reckless. They send out out girls who are barely able to stand and the competitive atmosphere is so bad that this seems to be the norm, because nobody finds this strange or peculiar.
Rating: * (Good)
So Mari Okada has been known for her completely screwed up endings and dark themes; just look at Lupin and AKB this season. Shoji Kawamori meanwhile loves trolling romance endings. But yeah, Aquarion Evol just had to end with a happy ending. This series is all about letting love sparkle. Any other type of ending would have made no sense. And indeed we here have an action-packed final episode that resolves the main romance, introduces a new one (Kagura and Zessica), resolves an eon-old romance. Oh, and Mix got her boobs back… why?
The two planets moving together was definitely reminiscent of Basquash and its huge moon. Beyond that this ending was fairly standard: definitely fun from start to finish, but the only special part was the music. That godly music definitely didn’t disappoint here. I do want to yell at Mikono, though. In the end, she really was a typical Kawamori female lead: never really doing anything and only being important by being the male lead’s crush and having mystical powers that happen to be central to the plot. This episode sealed the deal: she finally tried to actually use her powers (like what she should have done ages ago), and here Amata comes and ruins everything by going “you can’t change him by yourself! Let me help and protect you!”
Rating: *+ (Great)
How did Mix get her boobs back?
Do you really expect a rational explanation to how the girl that was magically transformed into a boy was magically transformed back into a girl?
I’d say… magic…
I’m starting to wonder how they want to end AKB0048 in 3 episodes.
From our 4 main heroines only Orine (hater) and Chieri (father) got slight character development, Nagisa and Yuuka almost nothing. And same goes for the rest of understudies, only Kanata got real (back)story :-S.
I believe Vega became balanced which changed her back. Unlike Altair which could not support Females.
Think Mix could get it back from Kaguras Power. (Had also think earlier that this might possible with this…)
Sadly that the most endings are to rush; would be nice to see this u. other more…(not only little pictures with music)
Kaguras Character change was also strange and to rush…some other things also…
It looked like Mix was undergoing hormone treatment or something, because she had boobs but they weren’t as big as before.
I noticed that too. At first I thought that there was a time-skip and she got surgery, but the more obvious explanation I guess is that her boobs are growing back gradually rather than popping out suddenly.
While watching the final episode of Aquarion Evol, I felt so embarrassed at myself watching all the cheesiness. What have I been watching for the past few months?! Anyways, I do love the songs. So the cheesiness is totally worth it. Hats off to Yoko Kanno, her songs are the strength of this show.
You have to admire the work Okada did on AKB though. The premise was doomed from the start. She probably got told to write an anime about the latest shallow idol sensation, and somehow integrate that with Music Saving the World in Battle (either Kawamori’s idea, or they contracted Kawamori precisely because of the way he handled idols in Macross F – and how he boosted May’n’s fame with it, nevermind how he pretty much single-handedly launched Megumi Nakajima), and lo and behold she somehow managed to beat that premise into a decent and even good anime. Her characters are always so genuine and pleasant to watch.
No amount of words can describe how I felt about the finale. I want my time watching the series back.