Aquarion

Ikioi Nov 28, 2010

6.5

I have got to be honest in saying, I found this anime way more humorous then serious, in the effect that I actually felt like the merging of the robots was almost a sexual inuendo. It actually made the entire series hillarious and I can't help but laugh thinking back on it. The story was awekwardly weaved and at times you would feel yourself going "What?" and a little lost with what is happening until later in the series. The animation is smooth and overall has a pretty good look to it. The sounds are great as they fight and merge the robots. I think the sound is really what makes the show so humorous to me. If you're not interested you should at the very least watch the first episode so you can see them merge the robots. It is pretty funny. The characters are amusing everybody seems to have a past life experience controlling what they do though... whole let destiny take the wheel thing. They are interesting though if you're into a man who acts like a talk awekwardly falling in love with a girl.. (Inuyasha anyone? Uhm...) Well yeah... I think overall I will have to give this one a 6.5 Giant Robots, Merging Inuendo's, and about average quality. It isn't a bad watch if you're bored.

RazzleBerry Aug 30, 2011

8

 Characters The characters in my opinion are the most essential part of an anime, even an anime with a weak plot can be a success if the characters are very interesting and likable. The characters in Aqurion are some of the best and well fleshed out characters in a long time. The individual backgrounds are incredibly engrossing I often found myself hoping for another flash back into the past of most of the characters. There are however a few characters that weren't all that bad but seemed for the most part useless though in my opinion every anime needs a few comic relief characters these few or to be exact 2 characters were given so much attention that when the end of the series came and nothing involving them had actually occurred it was kind of a disappointment. Plot The plot of this anime is where it truly shines it is essentially a Romance/Mecha anime but even though that is what it is at its core Shoji Kawamori did an excellent job of layering many other sub genres onto it and creating a truly enjoyable watching experience I can almost guarantee that all your emotions will be fully engaged in this series. There are scenes that will make you feel 2 completely different things at the same time in such harmony. The action scenes which there are plenty of throughout the entire series are all incredible the attacks are stunning to watch and the transformation sequences are awesome to say the least. There is also this mythological element that blankets all the yummy sci-fi goodness however it can be overpowering at times and that will put some people off if you aren’t into that kind of thing. The main antagonists in the series are very enigmatic like they are evil in that they want to destroy humanity but you will often question if it is wrong for them to do so they ae not easy to hate in fact I sometimes found myself rooting for them by accident especially when their true intentions are revealed. Animation I will admit the animation outside the battles is nothing special in that it is very clean and detailed to look at but if you are not new to sci-fi anime you have probably seen its kind before. The battles were the best part of the animation from the transforming to the actual fighting everything was beautifully done the attacks were spectacular however most of the attacks are repeated throughout the first half of the series so just sit through that for the really awesome attacks it is well worth it. Sound To be honest nothing really noticeable in this category it was within expectation but did not exceed it the voice acting was very good but considering I did not watch it dubbed I can say nothing for the English version but I will say when it comes to sound I am hard to please so you will probably find it better. Overall Definitely worth watching anyone could enjoy this cause it has many aspects to enjoy and if you are willing to overlook a few flaws you will not regret watching this anime I have and will continue to recommend this anime to any and all willing to give it a chance.

tollie01 Oct 15, 2016

4

Right, it's confession time for me. If you have been reading my reviews than you may have noticed that I tend to rip the anime a new one. There is a reason for this though and it has to do with the fact that I can't turn my brain off when watching anime. I can't ignore the stupid shown in the anime and this is a problem as most anime are very stupid indeed. In this case I'm not talking about a 90 pound girl catching a multi-ton cruise missile and throwing it back. Yes, it is stupid but it is a stupid that I'll allow. It's anime. Things like this are normal here and I'm pretty much fine with it. It annoys me to be sure but I will not rant about it. So, having explained this lets rip into this anime shall we? Just a heads up: There will most probably be spoilers. The more I hate an anime the more spoilers there will be. ART: Kind of confusing. With this I don't mean that the art is weird or something like that. If I'm honest I'll have to admit that it is above average but I just didn't care for it. The confusing part is that I can't put my finger on why. As mentioned, if I'm honest, it is good enough and above average and you'll never be confused about what is going on or who is who. SOUND: ..... I got nothing. As I've said many times before this is not a bad thing. Not for me. It means that the music was at least not bad our oustandingly great. CHARACTERS: Main character is Apollo. He's essentially homeless and after an attack by Angels he is also cityless. It is discoverd that he can pilot Aquarion and he gets roped into joining DEAVA. He is very animalistic in his behavior which often has him butting heads with the other members Silvia and Sirius are siblings and of noble descent. Sirius immediately hates Apollo as they are complete polar opposites. His sister Sylvia joins him in the hatred but is also intrigued by Apollo as she is strangely drawn to him. Toma is a powerful Angel and he dedicates his live to the destruction of DEAVA. He sees in Apollo the main advisary that he must destroy. STORY: 12.000 years after the end of the human-Angel war it becomes clear that the Angels are once again back to destroy all of humanity. The only one able to stop the Angels is the organisation DEAVA. Collecting special humans from all over the world who can channel elemental power they train them to pilot the Vectors. These 3 craft are ancient aircraft that are powered by their pilots. Not only are they very powerful they can combine into a huge mecha called Aquarion. In the last war it was Aquarion that turned the tide and defeated the Angels. Because of this they are the number 1 target of the Angels. RANT: I really liked the concept of the anime but I hated the way the anime turned out. There is very strong hinting about reincarnations and you quickly know who the main characters are. Wich makes waiting for the characters catch up to where the viewer is very tedious and annoying. The episodes themselves are just as tedious en formulaic. Every episode begins with the DEAVA people getting issued a problem that they need to solve by their CO. They fail and right then they get the call that there is an Angel attack. They head out and quickly realize that in order to beat the Angel they need to solve the problem that they were given at the beginning of the episode. This is almost every episode and gets tired very quickly. Most of the series is structured like this and with a few exceptions most arcs are episodic. In the background there is overall arc that works towards the final Angel fight but slogging through the show getting there is a chore. It also takes out all of the suspense out of the series as you can see pretty much everything coming. You already know what the solution to every fight is going to be before the fight begins. One of the positive things is the character interaction. The characters are actually pretty well worked out and you can see why some characters are butting heads as much as they do. Downside is that some characters can be very two dimensional and don't really change as the series goes on. Then there also the weird stuff that goes on. This brings me to the one thing that truly pissed me off. It is eventually revealed that there is a child Angel. The last Angel to be born who is a mere 12.000 years old. Despite his age he looks and acts like a teenager. Upon hearing about Aquarion he decides to have some fun with him and heads down to Earth and fuck around with them. By fun I of coarse mean wiping a few cities off the map and killing pretty much everyone there. That is tens of thousands of people per city and he destroys a number of cities. Men, women and children I might add and all the while little Futaba is laughing and having a grand old time. Meanwhile the older Angels look on shaking their heads muttering something about 'that darn kid' and stuff. None of them lift a finger to stop him at any time. So he gets caught and Aquarion hands him over to the UN like organisation that leads the war. They are understandably a wee bit pissed off by the thousands of dead and since this is the first Angel ever caught they go docter Mengele on his ass. This greatly disturbes both the Angels and the members of DEAVA because one simply does not do this shit to chldren. Even enemy ones. Meanwhile I'm looking on wondering why DEAVA is so hung up on what they do to Futaba at the research station. It is made very clear that this must not be done to children so as viewer you should be shocked by this brutal torture. While I sort of agree that it is wrong I can't help thinking about the THOUSANDS OF DEAD HUMANS THAT USED TO LIVE IN THE NOW DESTROYED CITIES! Seriously the deathtoll is staggering and we are supposed to feel sorry for the little shit? I would personally blown his fucking head off if I had caught him and let them experiment on his corpse.