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alt title(s): Sousei No Aquarion
Nenshin!
Gattai!
GO! Aquarion!
Teenagers with Psychic Powers piloting an orgasm-powered Super Robot fight evil Shadow Angels from Atlandia who feed on human lifeforce.
...What? You did ask me to Describe Genesis Of Aquarion here. Ok, let's try again.
Twelve thousand years ago there was a great war between humans and Shadow Angels; the humans won, in no small part thanks to Apollonius, an Angel who turned against his own people out of love for Celiane, a human woman, and the Angels became dormant under the South Pole.
Flash forward to Twenty Minutes Into The Future. Eleven years after a catastrophe known as the Great Incident ravaged Earth and gifted a few young people with Psychic Powers, the Shadow Angels awaken, and start harvesting humans all around the world. Ordinary militaries are unable to stop them, and it's up to the aforementioned young people (referred to as "Element Users") to stop the Angels, using an ancient Atlandian weapon: the Aquarion, a Super Robot which is the combination of three different flying machines called Vectors (causing the three pilots to join their souls and spiritual bodies into one, If You Know What I Mean).
As soon as the Aquarion pilots first engage the Shadow Angels, however, they promptly get their asses handed to them, and crash-land near the place where two Element Users were investigating rumors of a possible reincarnation of Apollonius. The supposed reincarnation, Apollo, climbs into the robot and pilots it to a first victory against the Shadow Angels, losing his Nakama to them in the process. He then joins Daeva, the organization which handles the Aquarion and Element Users, in the hopes of finding his friends and bringing them back.
The two-part OVA (entitled Wings of Betrayal and Wings of Glory, respectively), takes place in an alternate timeline, where the full team (except for Apollo) had already been assembled, Glen didn't fall into a coma, Sirius died in battle against the Shadow Angels, and a new player in the Apollonius/Celiane backstory, a human named Scorpius, is introduced.
This show provides examples of:
- All Of The Other Reindeer: Tsugumi was constantly shunned by friends and family because of her powers before coming to Daeva.
- Aloof Big Brother: Sirius.
- An Aesop: Every single one of Fudou's lessons. They're all on crack as well.
- Anime Anatomy: Most notably in the Gattai sequences and when an incapacitated Element User is teleported out.
- Anime Theme Song: Some of Yoko Kanno's finest work.
- BFG: PSG Cannon.
- Bifurcated Weapon: Moroha's mech. Literally. As in, his mech literally splits into two (not evenly down the center but close).
- Big Bad: Touma.
- Big Brother Complex: Sirius and Silvia. While the most basic case of the trope is evident and perfectly justifiable (given that their parents are dead), there is also strong subtext of the more sexual interpretation, mostly from Silvia's end. Silvia seems to justify her feelings by insisting that Sirius is the reincarnation of Apollonius, but in fact it is revealed that they are in fact split halves of the reincarnated soul of Celiane, and thus long to be reunited on a fundamental level.
- Blessed With Suck: Tsugumi can create explosions when her pulse reaches its peak, and has probably the strongest raw power of all the Element Users; unfortunately, she's really bad at controlling her emotions, so whenever she gets excited or anxious things around her tend to go KABOOM. It's heavily implied that because of this she was shunned by her family and friends.
- Bishonen: Touma, Apollonius and Sirius.
- Kind of-sort of "justified" in Sirius' case, what with being one half of a two-person reincarnation of a woman.
- Brown Note: The Monster Of The Week for episode 7 is so beautiful it causes the Aquarion pilots to experience supreme jealousy and start fighting amongst themselves.
- It is also a case of Alien Geometries, because it appears as an "impossible" polyhedron.
- Calling Your Attacks: "MUGEN PAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANCH!" (and this is one of the less silly attacks).
- Capulet Counterpart: Apollonius.
- Catch Phrase: Sirius' "How disgraceful..." Gen's "Special training!" and Reika's "How unfortunate...".
- Really good Character Development.
- Color Coded For Your Convenience: Not only do the Element Users each have uniquely-colored pilot suits, but when a teleport change is done the replacement Element actually leaves their clothing behind and materializes in the empty suit of the last pilot, said suit then magically changing color to match the new wearer.
- Yes, this does mean that the pilot being replaced comes out at mission control completely naked. Invariably results in Anime Anatomy.
- Combining Mecha.
- Cosmic Plaything: Reika, who is really, really unlucky, and tends to avoid human contact whenever possible to prevent her bad luck from "rubbing off" on those close to her.
- Crowning Moment Of Awesome: The revealing of the Mugen Punch, which literally punches a mech to the moon.
- A second (Pierre's) can be summarized as: dribble dribble dribble dribble dribble dribble!!!
- Silvia gets one in the penultimate episode, when she kills The Dragon with a single blow.
- Crowning Music Of Awesome: Yoko Kanno worked on the soundtrack. Enough said.
- Cute Bruiser: Silvia.
- Doesnt Like Guns: Sirius, as evidenced by this quote from episode 23:
"I'm disappointed in you Glenn...attacking with such a crude gun."
- Does This Remind You Of Anything: In the first half of episode 8, many characters discuss with each other what it's like to unite with one's partners.
- Freud Was Right: One episode has Pierre show "addiction" to combining (yes, really). To cope, he takes a cup and a cup holder and repeatedly inserts the cup into the cup holder. He is also seen in that episode doing similar motions with a pen and its cap.
- And to add to the double entendre, he spends his entire class staring at his female classmates (never the males). Granted, he is the Handsome Lech, but it is strongly suggested that this extreme is due to the addiction.
- The Dragon: Otoha.
- Drill Sergeant Nasty: Gen Fudou on occasions during his "Special Training!"
- Elegant Gothic Lolita: Rena, who always wear such an outfit, and who is also a vampire.
- Everythings Better With Princesses: Silvia
- The Evil Army: Aww, poor Futaba. Oh, and Glen, too.
- Face Heel Turn: Sirius near the end of the anime.
- Fan Service: Plenty of shower scenes, Shirtless Scenes, Gainaxing, and Male Gaze. Pretty much every major Element User plays Fan Servicer at some point in the series.
- Fridge Logic: How come that Sirius and Silvia's wings represent Celiane's soul when she wasn't even an Angel? Also, how is everything Celiane's fault? It's not like she forced Apollonius to turn against his people...
- It was mentioned that they are descendants of Apollonius and Celiane. Which brings another Fridge Logic moment: if the humans and Shadow Angels were so engrossed in the war, how did Celiane manage to give birth to children? She was on the front lines.
- She could easily have been in just the early stages of pregnancy when the war ended.
- How is it that Silvia keeps her clothes when she teleport swaps with the automated control unit of the Assault Type Vector in episode 23 despite every other teleport change resulting in the replacement losing their clothes and materializing in the vacated suit of the old pilot?
- Half Human Hybrids: Sirius and Silvia.
- Half Identical Twins: Kurt and Chloe.
- Handsome Lech: Pierre, though one could argue he's really more of a Chivalrous Pervert.
- Heel Face Turn: Again, Sirius.
- Heterosexual Life Partners: Apollo and Baron in the Back Story.
- Humongous Mecha
- Its All My Fault: Reika blames herself for Glenn falling into a coma.
- Not to mention when anything bad happens when she's around.
- Limited Wardrobe
- Monster Of The Week
- Moral Event Horizon: Touma killing Baron in episode 13 and the army scientists killing Futaba then using his feathers to create superhuman killing machines.
- Multinational Team: The Element Users.
- Nakama: The Element Users, and especially important for Apollo, who puts friendship before everything else. Rena is a Really Seven Hundred Years Old vampire? Who cares, she's my friend. Sirius and Silvia are part-Shadow Angel? Who cares, they're my friends. And so on and so forth.
- This is also important to Fudou, who gets mightily pissed when Apollo destroys the shield protecting Daeva from the Datenshi in an effort to save Baron. He gets pissed at everyone criticizing Apollo for doing this, going so far as to say anyone who abandons his/her friends has no place in Daeva.
- Old Master: Gen Fudou, if only on a technicality.
- Ominous Latin Chanting: A staple of the soundtrack, especially in scenes focusing on the Shadow Angels in their headquarters.
- Our Angels Are Different: Sort've. If you get technical, the datenshi are only angels in that they apply a pun. Their kanji doesn't actually use "angel."
- Parental Abandonment: We don't get to see the parents of any of the Element Users, and it's implied that they all either died in the Great Incident or were harvested by the Shadow Angels.
- Psychic Powers
- Raised By Wolves: Apollo
- Really Seven Hundred Years Old: Gen Fudou and Rena; all Shadow Angels, being technically ageless, also qualify.
- Red Oni Blue Oni: Apollo and Sirius
- Red Shirt: Glen, whose entire purpose in the series boils down to 1. piloting Vector Sol to the battlefield so Apollo can fall into its cockpit and 2. getting put in a coma so Reika can have someone to angst over.
- Well, that and being the first successful guinea pig for the military's super-soldier program...
- Red Shirt Army: The United Nations army, who last all of five seconds against the Shadow Angels.
- Reincarnation: An important theme of the Anime. At first it seems that Silvia is the reincarnation of Celiane and Apollo is Apollonius', but the reality is much, much more complicated and a spoiler of gigantic proportions.
- Reincarnation Romance
- Roboteching: Aquarion Sol's Mugen Punch.
- Rocket Punch: Again, the Mugen Punch.
- Schoolgirl Lesbian: Tsugumi has a clear-as-day (if unreciprocated) crush on Reika.
- Spider Tank: In the second to last episode of Genesis Of Aquarion we find out that the Assault Type Aquarion can assume an "Armageddon Formation" where all three vectors combine into a six-legged mech with the PSG cannon mounted on the top.
- Star Crossed Lovers: Apollonius and Celiane.
- Super Robot
- Super Robot Wars: Currently only appear in Super Robot Wars Z
- Surprisingly Good English: The Gospel version of the main theme played in the last episode. In fact, it's so good and there's so much English in it that it's more like Gratuitous Japanese.
- Tear Jerker: You will cry at least once during the final episode. Oh yes. You will.
- Teleporters And Transporters: The Teleport Change, which can exchange the pilots of the Vectors with someone who's back at the base.
- Theme Music Power Up: Whenever AKINO starts singing, you can be sure the next couple of minutes are going to be awesome.
- The Nose Knows: Apollo has an inhumanly keen sense of smell, capable of detecting...well, pretty much anything the plot calls for, really. Implicitly Handwaved as being the result of his harsh upbringing, but the scope of his ability is so truly ludicrous that it might be more plausible to attribute it to his Element Powers.
- The Power Of Friendship: Usually how the protagonists win their battles, until later in the series it's superseded by...
- The Power Of Love, though they have also won battles with the power of jealousy, the power of bad luck and the power of hunger.
- This And That: In episode 8 Tsugumi and Jun ask Reika and Pierre respectively for advice on their first union, and the other two naturally assume they're asking for advice on This And That (although, seeing how the "union" works, they might as well have...).
- Twin Telepathy: Kurt and Chloe.
- Warrior Poet: Sirius, whenever he's not in battle or training, spends his time picking roses in his garden and spouting poetry.
- Wax On Wax Off: Every single training regimen Gen Fudou puts the Element Users through.
- Weapon Of Choice: Sirius wields a rapier, adding to his composed and foppish air, while Apollo (on the few occasions he is seen with a sword) uses a broad-bladed scimitar more appropriate to his wild, feral personality.
- What Do You Mean It Wasnt Made On Drugs: The entire show, especially the finale.
- White Haired Prettyboy: Touma.
- Woman Scorned: Touma, despite being male, is precisely this after being dumped by Apollonius in favour of Celiane.
- Yaoi Guys: Touma and Apollonius in the Back Story.
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