review provided by TJ
Aquarion EVOL Part 1 (anime review)
Director:Mamoru Hatakeyama
Author: Mitsuru Hattori
U.S. Distributor: Funimation
Release Date: Dec 3, 2013
Format and Length: DVD/Blu-ray; 13 ep
Genre: action, sci-fi, romance
Industry Age Rating: 14+
Overall Personal Rating: A+
Similar Series: Aquarion; Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann
Synopsis:
Amata Sora is a boy who has always been fascinated by a movie called “Skies of Aquaria.” So much so that he landed himself with a job at the last theater that will still show the film. It is after a showing of the film while he is cleaning up the theater that he meets Mikono Suzushiro, a girl also intrigued by the movie. While they are chatting about the movie, giant inter-dimensional mechs that have been dubbed “Abductors” attack the city. The only weapon mankind has developed that is capable of stopping the Abductors is a mech called the “Aquaria.” Completely against his will, Amata ends up accidentally hijacking one of the Aquaria.
The Aquaria have an interesting ability to merge to become more powerful and it has been a longstanding rule and tradition that male Aquaria pilots and female Aquaria pilots shall not merge their mechs. However, as soon as Amata enters the cockpit, he feels as though he knows exactly what to do. Turning years of tradition on its head, he initiates a merge between his mech, another male pilot’s mech, and a female pilots mech and shouts out the name “Aquarion,” the name of an extremely powerful deity and a name which had not been spoken aloud in quite a long time. The speaking of the name apparently unlocked the hidden power of the Aquarion and turned it into “Aquarion EVOL.”
Now Amata must take on his new position as an Aquarion pilot and, by unlocking new and more powerful abilities of Aquarion, defend mankind from the Abductors and stop whoever is commanding them.
Commentary:
It’s almost cliché to say and sounds like something that came straight out of an anime, but the first two lines of the opening song and I knew this would be a good series. I still cannot get over just how good the opening song is. I found myself singing along to those first two lines when each episode started. But even so, the opening song did not prepare me for just how good this series would be. The action scenes were intense and always fun to watch. Each fight was different and each conflict brought new and interesting ways to use each character, not just the main protagonist. At the beginning of each fight was something that I was not sure how I felt about at first but grew to really enjoy watching: the merge sequence the mechs went through was essentially a magical girl’s transformation sequence.
The characters were all likeable and all for their own separate reasons and each character developed in a meaningful way throughout the series, even characters that were only around for two or three episodes. Sure, the main focus was on the relationship between Amata and Mikono, but there was quite a bit of time given to the development of the other characters and the relationships between them as well.
There is one more thing that must be commented on, it is neither good nor bad, merely an observation. Aquarion EVOL has many similarities to Gurren Lagann. In both, the operations of the mechs are influenced by the emotional state of the pilot. The mechs can all merge and they can do things that should not be physically possible given the space on the mech, although Aquarion does a better job of hiding that than Gurren Lagann does. And both series have horribly obvious sexual undertones. Again, these similarities are neither good nor bad, merely something worth mentioning.
Overall Grade: A+
It is not very often that a series comes along that I enjoy this much. I cannot find anything that I did not like about Aquarion EVOL
“In the Radius:”
Other titles similar to Aquarion EVOL might be Aquarion, or Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann.
