Sousei no Aquarion (anime)
Shouji Kawamori/ Various Asian People

In a nutshell: Getter Robo meets Escaflowne. With faked orgasms.

Friends make good guinea pigs.  Between overly flowery, gaudy character designs and overwrought symbolic gestures (wings, feathers, enemies called ‘Shadow Angels’ that ship out killer robots called Cherubim), I normally wouldn’t have given something that seemed to be screaming “THE NEXT EVANGELION! REALLY, GUYS!” a chance, but since a friend of mine with equally (if perhaps worse) taste in entertainment was hooked on it, I splurged and got the Complete Collection, which was actually only half of the whole series.

Seriously, people. Stop putting “THE COMPLETE COLLECTION” directly next to “VOLUME ONE” on DVD sets.

Shouji Kawamori is a mecha designer who I’d give his own appreciation month to if I wasn’t already considering this one to be a horrible mistake. The Valkyries of Macross were his handiwork, not only were they impressive-looking in all their forms, the transformation scheme was actually very simple, making for some impressively accurate merchandise even outside of the Ridiculous Collector price brackets. His later work got more and more elaborate but typically stays ‘workable,’ even if the animation tends to ‘fudge’ proportions from mode to mode.

As this is Mecha Month, I have to geek out about what makes the Aquarion itself so interesting as a design. Essentially, it’s a lot like Getter Robo, in that it consists of three jets (dubbed Vectors) that can combine together in three different forms depending on which pilot is in the lead. (Yeah, technically there should be nine forms if all three can assume head, center, and leg positions, but for some reason they tend to stay static with the secondary parts.) The main difference is where Getter was super cartoony and strayed away from mechanically possible transformations, Aquarion is CG-modeled to be as er, realistic as possible. If I get into any more of these tangents, just assume by ‘realistic’ I mean parts don’t just appear or disappear into thin air a la Optimus Prime’s Amazing Vanishing Trailer act.

The three forms have their uses, but it’s mainly the pilots that make the difference- their own special powers or personalities manifesting in a wide array of special weapons and attacks through the machine, often combining the pilots’ individual skills into one for the big finish. Some of the pilots’ ‘powers’ include a sword-wielding prettyboy who blows wind kisses of death (argh), a Brazilian soccer player who can launch flaming soccer balls from his legs, and a cripplingly shy nerd girl who can apparently have heart attacks on demand. I didn’t say they were all exactly good powers.

Of course, this isn’t scratching the probably more popular ‘gimmick’ of the show. When Aquarion combines, y’see, the pilots are all in synch. And it feels… good to them. Real good. Fansubbers translate lines to “I’m coming!” good. According to the DVD extras it’s due to a symbiotic slime that coats them in the cockpits. Does that make it more or less weird? Whatever, it’s good for a cheap laugh in the midst of all the drama. Especially the all-male combinations.

Anyway. The plot. There is one, in the same way most anime do, that is to say it involves amnesiacs, socially inept teenagers, and a bratty girl who really, really wants to sleep with her older brother, who has long blonde hair, totes a sword everywhere and generally looks like he wandered stoned from the set of Utena. The hero is one Apollo, a street punk who’s the reincarnation of a red haired Shadow Angel who betrayed the Big Bad, a white haired Shadow Angel who has San Franciscan intentions for his French Quarter, if you catch my drift. This may be why he wears a dreamcatcher around his neck, but more likely it’s just because it’s anime. He roams the post-apocalyptic city streets with his best friend/caretaker Baron and some kids, scrounging for food. He soon proves to be freakishly strong and somewhat feral as he barehandedly beats the shit out of police robots and bites people on the ankle if he doesn’t like them. Soon enough, he gets stuck in the crossfire between Shadow Angels (who are assimilating his friends) and Aquarion (who he ends up as an impromptu head pilot for when one of them blacks out.)

There are some interesting people on display, seriously. The commander, as is typical for giant robot shows, is over-the-top boisterous and macho, occasionally making passes at his blonde female adjutant and generally ignoring his pessimistic deputy commander’s protests. Reika is one of the secondary pilots, who in spite of her skill, has an odd ability to bring terrible luck to those around her. There’s a prince and princess pair, Sirius and Sylvia, who have one of those too-close relationships and seem to be from Atlantis, or angels themselves or something like that. Sylvia is actually the reincarnation of Apollo’s old self’s lover, which isn’t a spoiler because it’s revealed maybe three episodes in and hammered on repeatedly afterward. They’re all agents of DEAVA, one of the many underground organizations that seems to lurk in every back alley of Japan, waiting for the day when their eternal alien foe will surface.

My barbs aside, Aquarion does get pretty good as it goes on, in a surprisingly ‘old school’ vibe than the ‘new school’ thing it gives off at first (the aforementioned I WANNA BE EVA!) aura so many mech shows gave off at the time. If the art style was changed to something sharper and grittier, it wouldn’t be totally out of place as a 70’s or early 90’s super robot show. Aquarion’s characters ooze Escaflowne-esque fantasy, and the lovingly splashed feathers ALL OVER the place do help the air of mysticism they’re going for. Though the plot is pretty much monster-of-the-week within these first 13 episodes, the almost hilariously random ‘training scenarios’ the commander throws at his charges give the principal and side characters chances to shine, and unlike many of the genre, not just shine for one episode and vanish to the sideline to let the ‘real heroes’ do the heavy lifting. The near-constantly rotating pilot roster adds some freshness to the usual formula.

So, basically what I’m saying is, once you get past the initial surface layer,  “IT FEELS SO GOOD~!”