Category: Aquarion Evol

Wtf, Aquarion. Just… wtf.

I feel a bit silly for complaining about the fanservice in Rinne no Lagrange, although my point still stands there: the fanservice there was blatant, overdone and cheap. Here however…. it was used to push the sexual content of this show to the absurd. When I first started to blog this, the males versus females themes were the parts that caught my interest. I didn’t expect Shoji Kawamori and Mari Okada to carry it this far, though.

“Your senses grow sharper as you grow more naked”? Who the hell came up with that? Still, I loved how much tension there was between the sexes in this episode. It’s not just one-sided female fanservice, the males also got pushed into the defensive here; I especially loved it when Amano started stripping for once.

The thing is that usually, I’m really not a fan of series with so much romantic context. I remember immediately dropping Infinite Stratos when it aired a year ago (which by the way also was an 8-Bit series), but that’s because most of them are just so dull and lifeless, with so little ambition. This time though, the plot has just gotten crazy. The combination of Mari Okada and Shoji Kawamori dug up a whole new area of campness in both of them.

But what the hell are they doing next season with that AKB0048 show?
Rating: ** (Excellent)

Okay, with Shoji Kawamori it was inevitable, especially in a serise with so much sexual subtext, but it’s still annoying to see “the pointless love triangle”, as I’d like to call it. This is where there’s an overly obvious main couple, and yet the creators still try to bring in a love rival for the male lead for some artificial tensions. That guy with Mikono is excused because he’s important to the plot. But Zessica… just give her her own love interest. There’s no reason for her to be just part of Amato’s harem.

More criticism arise when you start to compare this series to series as Rinne no Lagrange. I’m especially pointing to how this show uses its setting: in rinne no lagrange, everyone is fully aware of where they’re fighting, and Madoka tries to keep the damages to her surroundings as small as possible for that. In this show, the characters just randomly destroy buildings and roads, which completely disappear again afterwards. Really, who found it a good idea to have these robots duke out in the middle of a city? I mean, I can understand it if the city was the target of these robots (why, though?)
, but with all the fancy technology, they didn’t even have a proper radar to intercept these giant robots or something, allowing them to fight in a place that isn’t as costly to rebuild?

Criticism 3: why the sexual context also involving the little girl?
Rating: (Enjoyable)

This episode returned to the action.And well… it was just over the top, like everything else in this series. In particular the focus on Shrade was just meant to kick ass and be as grand as possible. Now, I know Shoji Kawamori, so I’m not going to be trolled by one of those twists again, but his entire performance in this episode was just wonderful. The soundtrack in this series is great, but it’s at its best when he is involved.

In comparison, that dog bad guy still needs a bit of work. He has potential as Mikono’s future groom, but right now his characters still isn’t interesting enough, not to mention that he pulled a very cliched retreat at the end of this episode. Again though: this episode promised some interesting connections; now live up to those!

Going back to that soundtrack… how big is it anyway? I mean, there are series that have two or three good tracks and keep repeating them, but this episode came yet again with more tracks I hadn’t heard before, and they just all kick ass. 2012 is definitely going to be an interesting year, with two Yoko Kanno series. Although I did hear that a lot of this soundtrack was composed for the first season already. My guess is (considering Yoko Kanno’s inactivity for the past years) that the rest of the soundtrack was composed by the composer of Zegapain’s soundtrack. Seriously. She should do more.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

wtf… just wtf.

I have to give it to this series: it’s creative. This episode once again was completely weird, but on a completely different level than the previous episode. Instead this turned into this bizarre romantic comedy. It’s like the previous episode promised, but I did not expect electric bracelets that would go off whenever the wearer had an impure thought. It’s even more surreal that all of this was monitored by the people in charge of the academy.

Because of that, this episode was hilarious. And this comes from a guy who normally finds romantic comedies to be really boring. There was a lot of good chemistry between the characters, but I also really liked how well the serious parts were directed. That robot guy’s past, and the climax of this: that really was some well delivered stuff here. On top of that, the art department of Satelight really got to flex their muscles again in this episode, with some really gorgeous pictures as a result. These guys really know like no other how to draw huge and grand landscapes with a ton of detail in them.

Seriously, comparing this to the first five episodes of Macross Frontier, and Macross Frontier pretty much loses out on every area aside from the animation. The romance in this series feels whimsical and fun, rather than forced and contrived as it did there. The overall storyline is much more interesting and has much more potential (for me, “guy dates two idols while bug aliens attack” is much less interesting than what this show is currently doing, exploring the tensions between males and females while actually sentient aliens are attacking).
strong>Rating: ** (Excellent)

What the hell did I just watch?

In any case, in terms of soundtracks, there are quite a few good ones this season. There is of course the usual Natsume dreamy soundtrack. Rinne no Lagrange is also quite intense and well timed. By far the best though, is Aquarion Evol. This is pretty much the best thing that Yoko Kanno has done in a really long while. I really realized that once that piano guy started playing: that is some really complex music. And on top of that, the soundtrack is just huge.There were so many different epic tracks in just this episode, and it doesn’t look like the creators are running out anytime soon. A lot of effort really has gone into this thing.

Now, going back to the infinity punch: wut?

I must say, I did not expect things like that from this series. I thought it was just a regular mecha series that would show a bunch of normal battles between a bunch of giant robots. The battle in this episode however, really was something else. I mean, a show like Star Driver used the concept of using one’s libito to power a mecha before, but this really took the cake with that punch that circled the earth several times, only to break down the Berlin Wall. that separates the males from the females. Um, symbolism anyone?

I also love that at the end, that infinity punch didn’t disappear or something. So right now the entire world is now polluted by this gigantic arm that is wrapped around it twice. That must be one bitch to clean up in the end. Speaking of the end of the episode, it promised total chaos next week. Knowing the creators, I have no idea what to expect. It’s especially unlike Shoji Kawamori to pull twists like this this early in the game already?

Also, what was up with that flamboyant headmaster? On hindsight it just seems so surreal what he had been doing. He knew about Mikono, so he dressed up like this drifter, and got into the boat she was supposed to take away from the island, only to drive her back again. Again, this feels like some weird satire on Star Driver of all things.
Rating: ** (Excellent)

I have not watched the first Aquarion, but I want to test whether it’s possible to watch this series without having watched the prequel. The reason for that is that this season of Aquarion has a very different staff from the first. And really: there are a lot of great people working on this thing.

I have my issues with Shoji Kawamori, but I consider him to be a very good director. He’s at his best though, when working together with other talent. I got really annoyed with Macross Frontier, but in the end the writers for that show, along with the other director, weren’t really that impressive(as a frame of reference, the writer of Macross Frontier is currently writing Guilty Crown…). This series though? The director under him is the guy who directed NHK ni Youkoso and B Gata H Kei. The series composition? None other than Mari Okada. And amongst the other scriptwriters for the episodes are the guy who wrote Senkou no Night Raid and adapted The Third and the guy who wrote Argento Soma, Betterman and Yukikaze. There really is a lot of talent involved in this series, not to mention Yoko Kanno behind the music.

In any case, this is by far the best looking series of the season. In particular the architecture is impressive here, with the kind of grandeur that’s very typical for Satelight (for example Macross Frontier, Guin Saga and Basquash). This definitely aims to be the epic of the season. And heck, I have no idea why Satelight picked the winter season of all things to go all out, but heck, it’s definitely an interesting twist.

As for the plot in this episode… it was weird. We have a main character who starts to fly whenever he’s turned on, and we’ve got a lead female who is turned on by failure. I like the themes of males versus females, although there are still a few things I’m a bit iffy about, like the forced fanservice of tihs show. I don’t mean those transformation scenes; I’m more referring to that one scene where the male lead and his companion were trying to tunnel under this show’s version of the Berlin Wall and picked the exact spot to surface that allowed them to look up the lead female’s panties. That’s just bad; but ah well, at the very least I hope that we won’t get an episode like in Macross Frontier, which was entirely dedicated to getting Sheryl’s panties back…

In any case though, this was solid build-up, meant to get to know the characters. We got a good feel for them here, and this includes the side-characters. And at the very least, the creators realize that the two leads are useless idiots. This allows the rest of the cast to stand out, compared to Guilty Crown, where the entire universe revolves around that darned male lead…

Obviously the show isn’t there yet, but I see potential for growth here. Comparing this to the other of the big three sci-fi action shows (Mouretsu Pirates and Rinne no Lagrange), it only stands out with its better graphics, but with the right script it can get quite interesting.
Rating: * (Good)