Aquarion: Volume 2 (Review)
Saturday, 28th November 2009, 18:59

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Introduction
Last month, the unexpected happened. I liked a mecha show. It’s a genre I can hardly bear; whiny teens piloting giant robots into battle (without once referring to an instruction manual), battling alien menaces, and winning the day through superior willpower. It gets even worse when they go all power rangers, and have to combine their vehicles to make the ultimate robot. There’s always a sword involved, and a trite exclamation to go with each transformation. Don’t get me started on the need to yell out the name of every fighting move before it is executed. Aquarion has all of this, and it has it in abundance. Yet for some reason, volume 1 endeared itself to me. It was the sheer energy of the piece, or maybe the unquenchable thirst to have as much fun with the premise as possible. It’s hardly been a month, and already volume 2 has arrived. Let’s find out if my reactions were genuine, or if I had been unsuspectingly suffering from a concussion that week.

In Holy Genesis Year 0011, after 12000 years of slumber the Shadow Angels of Atlandia attack an Earth already weakened in the Great Catastrophe. They seek the prana energy that every human possesses, and the weakened inhabitants of the world have no defence. No defence, except the Mechanical Angel Aquarion, which was rediscovered by Fudo Gen, and has been put to use in defending against increasingly devastating attacks. The Aquarion is a giant robot, comprised of three vehicles or vectors. Each vector has to be piloted by a unique individual with a multi-dimensional aura, an Element User, and these Element Users are in short supply. When they merge their souls in perfect harmony, they can combine the elements of Aquarion to create an unstoppable fighting machine. Some elements are more harmonious than others, and a feral child named Apollo was plucked off the streets as he had the right multi-dimensional aura. More than that, prophecies state that he is the reincarnation of Apollonius, the greatest warrior of them all. Fellow pilot Silvia is apparently the reincarnation of Apollonius’ love Celiane, but she’s none too impressed by the foul-smelling, animalistic youth that they find, believing instead that her brother Sirius is the true heir to Apollonius’ soul. But they will have to work together to save the world.

The next 7 episodes of Aquarion are presented on this disc by MVM.

7. Knight of the Crimson Rose
Sirius is an odd fellow, a throwback to a more civilised age, quoting poetry and looking for beauty in the midst of battle and devastation. Naturally such a philosophy is at odds with Apollo’s outlook, as is Sirius’ disdain for the prophecy, when Silvia believes so strongly that Sirius is Apollonius incarnate. This three-way friction causes problems, more than they are expecting, as Toma has noted Sirius’ appreciation for the finer things, and has devised a suitable test for Aquarion. A beautiful light appears in Memphis, and soon the pilots of Aquarion are enraptured, and then turned against each other.

8. The First Merge
Everyone is talking about merging, the moment when the three vectors come together to form Aquarion; it’s a spiritual, sensual experience that is causing a whole lot of gossip in the girls’ locker room. It also causes a little consternation for Tsugumi Rosenmeier, who has yet to pilot Aquarion into battle. Jun also is untested as an Aquarion pilot, and both of them look up to their seniors for advice and experience when it comes to merging. The problem is that like all the Vector pilots, Tsugumi and Jun have abilities beyond the human. Tsugumi’s ability is that when she gets excited, and her heart flutters, things around her explode uncontrollably. It’s why she’s both looking forward to, and dreading her first Aquarion mission. And when that mission does arrive and she’s called to report, she’s nowhere to be found.

9. The Path to Dreams
There is a new Mythic Beast attacking, only this one attacks in dreams. The world over, children are falling asleep and failing to wake up. Fudo Gen realises that the path to dreams has been opened, and issues new orders to begin sleep training. The sleep training turns into a full-blown mission, when all but five of the Aquarion pilots are trapped in their slumber. Now Apollo has to lead Pierre and Chloe in battle, but it’s a battle that has to be fought in a nightmare.

10. Stars In The Sky, Flowers On The Ground
There’s a new Shadow Angel looking to pick a fight. Moroha believes that Toma alone shouldn’t challenge Solar Wing, so he commissions a new Cherubim soldier, and comes to Earth to wreak havoc on Aquarion. He needn’t have bothered. Apollo and Sirius are at each other’s throats more than ever and unable to harmonise while flying Aquarion. It winds up with Silvia severely injured at the hands of Moroha.

11. Happiness At The Bottom Of The Lake
A mythic beast in a lake attacks a school bus full of children. Meanwhile Reika is still worried about Glen, who has remained in intensive care since they first encountered Apollo. She’s blaming herself more and more for his condition, and lamenting her bad luck. It all comes to a head when she sees ghostly children reaching out for her from a damaged computer monitor. It’s too much and she decides to leave Deava and the Aquarion program.

12. The Time Of Amber
An artefact has been recovered from South American ruins, a feather, perfectly frozen in amber. Testing back at base reveals the impossible. Rather than a fossil, millions of years old, it’s actually only 12000 years old, and dates back to the last war against the Shadow Angels. It’s immediately placed out of bound from the pilots, and immediately Apollo and Silvia start looking for a way to get closer to it. Meanwhile in the Upper World, the Shadow Angels grow concerned that the wingless ones will defile one of their sacred artefacts.

13. A 12000 Year Old Love Letter
Toma attacks, determined to recover the feather, and this time he’s brought a secret weapon to put Aquarion off guard, Apollo’s friend Baron. But there’s more than just a feather at stake in this battle, the fate of two worlds rests on the outcome, as well as the truth behind Apollonius’ betrayal of the Shadow Angels 12000 years previously.

Picture
Aquarion gets a 1.78:1 anamorphic transfer, as befits a modern anime. As you would expect, it is an NTSC-PAL standards conversion, although there isn’t a major prevalence of softness of ghosting in the image. What you probably will spot is the judder in the pans and scrolls. Aquarion is a Satelight production, the same people who made Noein and Heat Guy J, so there is a comfortable familiarity in the character design style. However, for a comparatively recent anime, it does seem dated in the way that it blends, or rather fails to blend CG animation and traditional 2D stuff. The kick ass mecha and villainous Cherubim are depicted in bright, shiny, geometrically exact CGI, while the character designs are plainly 2D, and they don’t go together all that well. On a rare occasion, one of the characters would sprout polygons, and become CG him or herself, to better fit in a 3D background, a little like Vexille or Appleseed, and I’d be left scratching my head, wondering what had just happened. All that said, if you can put Aquarion’s visual oddities aside, you’ll also find that it’s a vibrant, and fluidly animated show, lacking in those static moments that I usually associate with anime, and instead showing the results of a higher budget and a greater number of man hours spent at the computers.

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