Aquarion Evol

I now have a female crush on Zessikage. She/He can make some awesome troll faces. My favorite moment of the episode was be she/he slipped into Kagura's vector and killed two of her/his "nuisances" in a matter of seconds. It just reminded me of how much of an awesome villain she/he is. And then that troll face she/he made in the preview just tells me that next episode is gonna be a blast.

I didn't really feel all that bad for Alicia/Izumo. I mean, you could have at least told your son something, but instead you leave him butt hurt for years. You could have at least made sure he would be properly taken care of while you were gone, but instead he lived in the attic of a run down movie theater. As you've probably guessed, I was mostly feeling for Amata, he really needs a happy ending. :/.. Fight-o Amata, Fight-o.

edited 11th Jun '12 8:30:54 AM by Penna

Watching episode 23, still utterly retarded. Pollon gets more screen time in the first six minutes of Ep. 23 than he did in the entire previous series. Also reiterating my opinion that Mikono is a shitty reincarnation of Celiene and Silvia.

Episode 24:

Man, Geppard never gets a break. I think it's finally going to be truely useful for once, and it only serves to turn into one of the MP Aquarions from the first series.

It's going to be really fucking awful if Mykage/Touma is redeemed after all of this shit. Mikono is as useless as ever. And in one episode, we're introduced to a far superior couple than the now-fixed 'main pairing' of Mikono X Amata.

This series can no longer be good, but it can at least be a rather fascinating kind of bad.

Edit: After reading the rest of the thread, I'm going to go ahead and defend Izumo and Alicia. Granted that their choice was awful in hindsight, they made the best decision they could have with the horrible information they had at the time. What I won't defend is the little resolution Amata got: 'Sorry I wasn't good enough to follow you' is the kind of thing that's said between equals, not between a mother and child.

edited 11th Jun '12 9:00:46 PM by HighVelocityPointyThings

They didn't even make the best choices.

Izumo was perfectly fine with dooming Altair to be with his woman at one point he even says this. The problem is that Mykage found out and that forced them to make the choice.

Izumo proceeded to kidnap as many people as he could from Vega without a second thought which resulted in countless women dying in the process and the ones who turned into men become his loyal soldiers as well.

Alicia was blindly following love leaving her son without even leaving him to someone to take care of him which resulted in him being split by Mykage. Izumo himself never searched for his son until he realized that he must have been with Neo-Daeva which was years later.

Then he tells Neo-Daeva to give him Rare Iguras without telling them why. That's not a smart choice.

They made horrible awful and sortsighted choices and now Amata has to clean up their mess while they happily pass on.

Amata is so desperate for love that he'll accept his mothers pathetic excuse. Which really says just how miserable and sad he is.

edited 11th Jun '12 10:23:16 PM by OmegaRadiance

Izumo was perfectly fine with dooming Altair to be with his woman at one point he even says this.

At one point, yes. Given how many stupid decisions Amata's made when Mikono gets involved, I'm willing to give Izumo a pass.

Izumo proceeded to kidnap as many people as he could from Vega without a second thought which resulted in countless women dying in the process

Because he's got no other option. It's been discussed before; If you've got a choice between extinction and something morally unpleasant, it's pretty easy to bend your morals.

Alicia was blindly following love leaving her son without even leaving him to someone to take care of him

Because she thought the alternative, taking him to an alien world, could very easily be worse.

which resulted in him being split by Mykage.

Not something she could have in any way forseen.

Izumo himself never searched for his son until he realized that he must have been with Neo-Daeva which was years later.

Given that he lost the thing he was willing to betray Altair for the last time he tried to fulfill a personal quest, it's easy to see why he was less than eager to repeat the process.

Then he tells Neo-Daeva to give him Rare Iguras without telling them why.

Do you honestly think he could have expected them to believe him? I mean, seriously? Remember that he knows full well the kind of mess Kagura's been causing. At that point, he was suing for peace in the only way that he figured he could.

Amata is so desperate for love that he'll accept his mothers pathetic excuse.

Or the writing dropped the ball again. I'm not making any excuses for this part, other than that Amata's been getting an absolute shit sandwich force-fed to him for the past couple of episodes.◊

edited 11th Jun '12 11:25:47 PM by HighVelocityPointyThings

Willing to give Izumo a pass.

If it was that easy Kagura would get a pass for his actions because his motivations are the same as Izumos in the past. But he's done some bad crap too and he'll have to pay for it as well.

The smart thing for Izumo to do would have been to contact the people on Vega and have some of their men travel over to see what it's like and contact the people in charge on Vega. Then open portals and letting males travel over to see their world. Because kidnapping a bunch of people at random isn't exactly going to solve the problem. It wasn't a smart choice.

When he was over there he spent more time falling in love with a girl and not wanting to bring her over to Altair than attempting to contact higher ups and try to get communications going between their people in order to find a way to help them.

The fact that it's done out of survival is not an excuse for his behavior. The Shadow Angels kidnapped humans and used them to feed the Tree of Life for the sake of repopulating their race in the first series as well. They don't get a free pass for their actions and neither does Izumo.

Because she thought the alternative, taking him to an alien world, could very easily be worse.

Except you're missing the point. She should have left him with someone to take care of him while she was gone. She didn't and she flat out admits she abandoned him on Vega. The consequences of her actions caused Amata to be split. Regardless of whether or not she could have known of Mykages involving. If she had left him with someone while she was over at Altair Amata may have never been split in the first place.

Do you honestly think they'll believe

Honestly? Yes if he brought the right evidence and proof of his dying world to show them that their females were dying out and that's why they need Rare Iguras. Izumo doesn't even attempt to communicate with them until they were in a even more dire situation and Kagura had been messing things up on Vega/Earth.

What I will give Izumo is that he realized his actions could never be forgiven. Which makes him more of a decent human being than Alicia ever will be.

edited 12th Jun '12 12:06:25 AM by OmegaRadiance

If she had left him with someone while she was over at Altair Amata may have never been split in the first place.

Except where Amata was split almost as soon as she left so leaving him with a caretaker would not have done a damn thing to prevent that. Yeah he would have had someone to raise him but that is all. He still would have been split.

You see the problem is that he was in the very same graveyard that his mother was at and he was chasing after her. Then Mykage split him in half while he hesitated. It may never have happened if she had left him with someone to take care of him.

It's like with possessing Zessica. He needs them at their weakest so he can break them to get what he wants.

edited 12th Jun '12 10:11:20 AM by OmegaRadiance

Omega, You're assuming a degree of omniscience these characters simply don't have. Again, there's no way that Alicia could have known that leaving Amata behind would turn out worse than taking him with her probably would have. Likewise, there's no way Izumo could expect that Neo Deava would believe his explanation for the things the forces under his command did, especially given Kagura's recent actions. Furthermore, we were given all kinds of evidence to suggest that he was in a life-or-death situation. Even if he managed to negotiate some kind of peaceful exchange, Altiar doesn't have the time. Izumo explicitly states that the only reason he's going out personally is because they may not have another chance to sortie given the state of Altiar's systems. Negotiating terms doesn't do Altiar much good if the planet's dead before the treaty can be signed.

The thing is that people should be careful of their actions and make sure they understand the consequences pf them. Alicia choose to abandon a child in a graveyard when he's just six years old with no one to take care of him while she's gone. I don't know what could go wrong in such a scenario.

Izumo shouldn't have wasted all that time abducting people and attempt to communicate with them in the first place. Because of course they're going to be suspicious of you when the people of Altair have been nothing but hostile to them. Even Jin was a hostile enemy originally.

edited 12th Jun '12 8:21:17 PM by OmegaRadiance

For those who never visit Asuki, some translated portions from the interview Kawamori gave post episode-23, which from what I understand caused a massive uproar among Japanese watchers:

ミカゲも過去のある人物のとある転生者ですがアマタたちより早く転生して

しまった。その分いろんな準備はできてたんだけど肉体は死んで、それを 強引に保存してる感じ。特殊能力を発動するにはエネルギーがいるので、 しょっちゅう寝ていたわけですね。 今はその肉体に残留思念が残っていて体を動かしている状態です。 でも生身の人間に憑依しないとアクエリオンを操縦できない。そこで目をつ

けたのが自分の悲しみの心に似ているゼシカでした。

Mikage is also the reincarnation of somebody from before, but reincarnated before those like Amata. During that lead, he made several preparations, but his body died, and he's sort of artificially preserving it (?). It's as if he's always asleep because his abilities drain his energy.

Right now, he's keeping his body animated by its residual psychic energy. However, he needs to possess a real human body to pilot Aquarion. He chose Zessica for that because her heart full of pain resembled his own.

ミカゲの思いも本来はアマタやカグラ同様に純愛なんです。なのになぜか変

態に見えてしまう（笑） 最近敵が作りづらい。へんに物分りがよかったり、小物感が漂ってしまって

。ミカゲのモンスターぶりを発揮できて良かったと思うし、それに合わせ て最終回での扱いは当初の予定より少し変更しました。

ミコノがカグラを少し気にするだけで軽い女扱いされたりするけど(苦笑) 人間そんなに物事を白黒わけられないですよね。ギリシャ神話なんて親族同

士が恋愛で戦い合うエピソードだらけだけど、愛ってそんなもんじゃない かな。 今回普通の小さな恋愛をアクエリオンという巨大な感情増幅装置に乗せたら

、どんなバカ物語が描けるかチャレンジしてみたかった。

Mikage truly loves both Amata and Kagura equally. But for some reason he comes off as creepy (laughs). He's been getting harder to present as a villain. There are little feelings, like I oddly sympathize with him a bit (not sure what he means with this sentence). I'm glad Mikage came across as a monster, and the way we're doing him in the finale has changed a little to follow that.

Mikono showed a little worry for Kagura and now they're saying she's fickle (laughs bitterly). You can't make sweeping judgments on people so easily. In Greek mythology, there are a lot of stories about families fighting within themselves over romance, but I don't think that's quite how love works. For this one, I wanted to challenge myself to see how ridiculous a story I could build by putting a small everyday love onto the gigantic emotion amplifying machine called Aquarion.

23話で語られたアポロがポロンの生まれ変わりという衝撃の真実。前作で語

られなかったことですよね？(インタビュー) 創聖のアクエリオンを見返してもらうと、片鱗は垣間見られると思います。

創聖の時も、実は明かそうと思っていたんですが、アポロとシルヴィアの恋

が盛り上がってきたので描くタイミングを逃してしまった。それを岡田さ んに話したら「そんな面白い設定使わないともったいない」と。 みなさんに犬かよ！と思われてしまうのか、犬だったんだ！と思ってもらえ

るかは、我々も蓋をあけてみないとわかりません！どんな反響が返ってく るのか、正直 怖いところでもあります（笑）

INTERVIEWER: In episode 23, the shocking truth was revealed that Apollo is the reincarnation of Pollon. This wasn't mentioned in the previous series, was it?

If you watch Genesis of Aquarion again, you should be able to catch a glimpse of it. Honestly, I wanted to reveal it back in Genesis, but the romance between Apollo and Silvia took over and we lost the chance to show it. Okada said "You never used such an interesting plot point, what a waste!" To find out whether all the viewers would say "What? He was a dog?" or "Oh, he was the dog!" the only way for us was to lift the lid and see! To be frank, I was also a bit scared at what the reaction would be (laughs).

ミカゲが言った、いい器を見つけた→ミカゲの負の気持ちに共感できる要素

を持っていたから。彼女がミカゲを体から追い出すことができるかどうか が、重要なポイント

When Mikage says "You will make a good vessel" = she has parts of her that resonate with Mikage's negative emotions. It will be important whether or not she can expel Mikage from her body.

最後

ポロンの思いは相当に強いですね(インタビュー) 執着という意味ではミカゲと同じですよね。実はローマ神話に狼が建国の王

を育てたという話があるんです。 ほかにも、動物の中で人間がこれほど優位に立てたのは、狼から集団行動を

学び進化したからという、すごく燃える仮説があって、面白いのでそんな 動物も人間も近しい存在であるという気分を物語のベースに少し取り入れ てみました。 だれも気付いてくれないけど、ああ見えてポロンは天翅族の中でも上位クラ

スなんですよ。ただの犬じゃない、星獣天翅ですからね！（笑）

INTERVIEWER: Pollon's feelings were always very strong, weren't they?

In terms of "attachments," he is just like Mikage. Actually, in Roman mythology, the founding king was said to have been raised by wolves. There's a really cool theory that a man among wolves became so great because he learned cooperation from the wolves and was stronger for it. I took the idea that humans and animals are so close and used it as a base for my story.

Though no one noticed, Pollon was upper class even among the Angels. He wasn't just a dog, he was the Star Beast Angel! (laughs)

Some more funny things of note:

• The male viewing segment of the show dislike Mikono with the heat of a thousand suns, including Amata's voice actor. The female segment (what few there are) are okay with Mikono though, so long as she's paired with Kagura.
• Same viewers actually didn't pay mind to Amata (he was like there), but now they're hating on how lousy his parents were, and just feel that the guy's been shortchanged.
• The highest-rated episodes of the show are the ones featuring Yunoha and Jin. Yeah, the staff shot themselves in the foot killing off THAT pairing.

edited 12th Jun '12 10:00:59 PM by MyssaRei

,

The trouble I have with Kawamori's interviews right now is that he's honestly surprised by the reaction of fans to the story he's telling. He appears to be genuinely shocked that a majority of his audience hates Mikono, that they find the 'Pollon' revelation to be a stupid Retcon from nowhere, that he thought Mykage could actually be sympathetic, etc. It's hard for me to imagine a guy that can create seemingly endless success with the Macross franchise is unable to translate that from one Mecha universe to another.

It's really a shame, because the first half of EVOL is really rather good.

edited 12th Jun '12 10:39:22 PM by HighVelocityPointyThings

Yeah, seems to be a bit of creator dissonance going on in this series, on the writing (Okada)and directorial sides. Remember how surprised they were that Jin/Yunoha was so popular?

To be fair, I don't really 'Get' Jin/Yunoha. I think they're a rather bland and unremarkable Beta Couple that got more screentime in a short burst that they probably deserved. That said, I can see why they're popular, especially since they where the closest thing to a successful romance we've had for the majority of the series.

The rest, though... I mean, how?

One current bit of speculation is that there's some disagreement between Okada and Kawamori regarding how the series should play out, which is creating the conflict between how certain characters are written and how the show's trying to portray them.

Edit: The other theory is that AKB 0048 is distracting Kawamori and Okada. Coincides nicely with the general opinion that EVOL starts getting funky around Ep. 18.

edited 12th Jun '12 11:03:06 PM by HighVelocityPointyThings

Huh, Amata's life sucks.

I'm also glad to hear that no one likes Mikono. XD

Despite all the flaws this show has I still find myself watching it. At least it looks like we're gonna get an over-the-top fight next episode. Plus, Andy W. Hol!

edited 13th Jun '12 7:41:32 AM by fillerdude

Good to see my hatred of Mikono isnt just me.

On the topic of Mikono I personally like her.Sure she is not as good as Crea or Mix but I still like her. Moreso than Zessica but that is mostly because Zessica has been slowly getting worse and worse over the course of the show.

She's been getting worse and worse because she's basically been given zero fucking screentime the entire show since like episode 6.

Mikono's been getting worse because we get to spend every goddamn episode watching her waffle between Kagura and Amata.

edited 13th Jun '12 4:30:20 PM by Midgetsnowman

Honestly Zessica was my favorite female character in earlier episodes but ever since she started developing feelings for Amata it is likes she has become a completely different character. And while Mikono being indecisive is annoying I do not find it nearly as annoying as how Zessica has become over the course of the show.

If Amata had a devious bone in his body at this point he could probably point to Kagura and go, "See him? He's actually me too."

It wouldn't work but it'd be amusing as hell.

eh. I think for me its that I just hate people with Mikono's sort of personality. any hate I have for zessica is aimed at bad writing instead of her. But mikono just reminds me constantly of how much more awesome Silvia was.

Nonsense, Zessica has received no less screentime than important secondary characters like MIX.

Except she's supposed to be part of the "main trio" and her role for half the middle was "show up for 6 seconds. watch amata and mikono waffle. sigh and walk away."

What "main trio"? She has always been at most a secondary main character and the minor Out of Focus in the middle wasn't that bad. Unlike Kagura, she did not disappear for several episodes.

Thats not what any of the Openings to the show implied, is the thing. The 3 characters that got features in the original OP before the "group shots" reserved for more minor characters was Amata/Mikono/Zessica.

But meh. It doesnt probably help that I find Mikono and Amata the worst characters in the show.

edited 14th Jun '12 2:12:31 PM by Midgetsnowman