Foreword
Hey there, Wolvenciel here with the continuation of the Aquarion series review. I was supposed to post this earlier but I miscalculated my traveling distance. So there's that. Oh and my regular posting day would be Wednesday. Again. Sorry for being a bit late. On with the review
Concrete Plot
First of all let me say that Aquarion Evol is 12000 times better than Genesis of Aquarion (pun intended) in terms of everything especially the plot. It slowly tells you on how things happen and shows you interactions between the characters in the anime and how it improves over time. Its not like its predecessor where all they did was show the pilots' daily lives and the interaction between the characters seems forced all the way from the start to the end of the anime.
The anime also tells you at least SOMETHING about the characters. Their pasts, how they came to be there and little stuff like that. At least it gives you that small bit of explanation as to why the characters behave that way and not just expect you to magically know why they're like that and how they came to be at the academy.
Colorful Characters
The characters in Evol are also WAAAAAYYYY better than in Genesis. In Evol, each and every one of the pilots (except a select few) play at least some role in moving the story itself. There are some pilots who exist solely for comedy but hey at least you get a few laughs out of them, am I right? Plus, this time around all of the characters have their own weird personalities that are actually pretty explainable and realistic that you can relate to them to a certain extent.
Sure, Amata Sora (the main character) is a pretty generic beta male but his dumb and sincere nature just makes you want to give him a pat on the head and tell him to try harder. That being said, he's not really my favorite character. Mine would be Andy W. Hol. Even his name has some friggin pun to it. This idiot will keep you entertained throughout the whole anime with his weird antics and his wish of combining ( Gattai or joining together to form Aquarion) with a girl as he had never done that in his life. He always stick to Amata so you'll always see the dumb duo if you watch the anime.
P/S: I guess there's also a little hint of shounen ai in the anime (by hint I mean its plain bromance but hey people can fantasize ya know) so just don't get weirded out by this. There's even a fujoshi in the anime.
Hissatsus, Unions and Lazy Names
This is just like a special mention of sorts. I didn't mention this earlier but aside from having all those weird punny hissatsus, Aquarion Evol also have these awkward shouting when they combine. The interesting part is that each of the combine shouts is different for each Gattai (I don't know why I'm writing that in italics don't ask me).
There's also this weird lazy naming sense that kept me bothered throughout the anime. Sure the hissatsu songs had a pretty nice variation to them and they followed the mood of the story at the moment (a very good improvement compared to Genesis) but hey that doesn't mean you can get lazy in naming your mechs. I mean there's Aquarion Gepard and Aquarion Sparda. They combine and form Aquarion Geparda. I'm... *sigh*
Here are some of those weird shouts and hissatsus by the way:
Enter Fudo Zen Mk. II
Aaaaand as expected Fudo Zen comes again in this installment as yet another walking philosophical dictionary. He's also much more handsome now and spouts weirder shit than he did in Genesis. There's also this bat-shit insane and totally illogical plot twist regarding him later in the anime (you will not say that the plot twist is illogical if you didn't watch Genesis. I did. F**k me, huh)
Good Job Shoji Kawamori
All in all, I give the old man a thumbs up for this very huge leap that he made in Aquarion Evol. It has a decent plot, comedy, love stories(notice I said stories), tearjerking moments and most importantly awkwardly funny speeches that you just can't take seriously no matter how life-threatening the situation is. The songs are also great and it got stuck at the back of my head especially the first opening song (goddamnit its so damn catchy). I wouldn't say its a must watch but hey, its not so bad either.
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