I watched some of the original Aquarion series back when it first aired before streaming services were a thing, and if you were watching anime as it came out you were watching it fan-subbed. It was semi-infamous among fandom circles as the show where the pilots’ orgasm when the mechs combine. Having fallen off on most of the subsequent series, the new installment, Aquarion: Myth of Emotions had enough of a gap from the last that this felt like a decent place to jump on.
A lot of the core concepts from the earlier series are in place here – giant combining robots, the pilots having a psychological link when the robots combine, a shared background in an ancient, mythic past between the protagonists. On top of that, they include varying levels of conspiracy, with a mysterious organization backing the Aquarion robots, complete with a sinister international council overseeing things. Well, some of that I think is new – it’s been a while since I watched the original show.
What is distinct to this iteration is the concept that each of the teenage pilots, psychologically, has something missing. Sakko, for example, has no sense of fear. Another cannot hate. It’s an interesting idea, though with some rocky implementations – one of the characters doesn’t feel romantic love – that’s just being aromantic, but that doesn’t make you incomplete.
That said the whole execution of the series is generally well done, except for one issue – it’s too short. Every Aquarion series before this one has been 26 episodes. This is 13 episodes long. This means there are a whole bunch of concepts that are just half-baked or otherwise rushed because they have half the time to let them play out. This is especially the case with some of the character relationships and how they relate to the mythology of this series universe.
I did like this show, but man, do I wish it had a longer manga adaptation that I could read for the rest of the story.
Aquarion: Myth of Emotions is available for streaming on Crunchyroll.
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