Aquarion comes to DVD

Aquarion – Volume 1

Label: MVM.
Certificate: 15
Discs: 1. (6 episodes)
Running time: 150 mins approx
Video: 16.9
Sound: English 5.1, Japanese 2.0
Subtitles: English.
Release date: 16th November 2009
RRP: £15.99 – AmazonPlay

Aquarion – Volume 2

Label: MVM.
Certificate: 15
Discs: 1. (7 episodes)
Running time: 175 mins approx
Video: 16.9
Sound: English 5.1, Japanese 2.0
Subtitles: English.
Release date: 7th December 2009
RRP: £15.99 – AmazonPlay

Brief synopsis:
Eleven years after a great Catastrophe befalls the Earth, much of mankind is left homeless and starving, scavenging in the streets, just trying to survive anyway that they can. Now, after a twelve thousand year slumber, Shadow Angels invade the Earth once again, decimating humanity with their sheer, overwhelming power, instilling fear in all who live long enough to see it.

But mankind has a way to fight back in the shape of a trio of flying vessels that can combine to form the Mechanical Angel Aquarion. But only a select few can pilot Aquarion, a rare breed of human who can entwine their souls to power and control the great mechanical savoir and warrior. Prophecy tells of the end of the world and as the end times approach, one amongst humanity must arise if mankind is to survive.

Comments:
If there’s one thing that American dubs excel at, it’s working on shows like this. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that when US distributor Funimation first picked up this show there must have been a impressive number of voice actors over at their head office waving their hands in the air going “Oooh, me, me, pick me, please, I sooo want to do this show”. It has everything that the Yanks love in an anime dub. I kid you not, if this thing got any more gung-ho it’d be wearing a Stetson, swinging a six-shooter and yelling “Yippee-kai-yay”. There’s huge amounts of pointless & incredulous shouting, grandiose posturing, lots of calling out loud not just the names of each of your attacks and also that of each and every finishing move. But for once the very thing that would usually put me right off the dub version of an anime actually made it better. Plus there’s more free-flowing psychobabble and mythological guff than you can shake a stick at. Even with all that, once you look past the bluster and pretentious bollocks this is actually a fun show to watch, and surely that’s what counts.

Once you actually get into the guts of the series it has a real Vision Of Escaflowne meets Macross 7 feel to it. This isn’t at all surprising as it’s written and directed by Shoji Kawamori, creator of both these aforementioned shows and Aquarion’s lineage is evident right from the outset. It also owes a lot to the likes of Rahxephon, Vandread and Evangelion. If you can imagine a version of Evangelion where Shinji wasn’t the lead contender for World’s Whiniest Wimp and Gendo wasn’t a total heartless bastard then you’re a good part of the way into Aqaurion country already.

The plot’s not particularly subtle or complex – but this isn’t really a show that needs to be – and goes somewhat like this; big scary aliens attack the Earth forcing a shadowy organisation to gather a rag-tag group of teenagers to pilot big powerful robots with mysterious origins and eventually start kicking arse through the powers of Friendship, Truth & LoveTM etc. Sound at all familiar? Well it should do as we’ve seen it all many many times before. You can figure out pretty quickly which characters are going to do the big betrayal and change sides faster than the Italian army, who’s going to have the hots for who (and deny it) and who’s going to have the crisis of conscience / nervous breakdown before coming through for their team-mates right at the last minute. There’s some character development along the way, not much I’ll admit but I can assure you it is actually there, hidden away between all the pointing and shouting. The concept of the three ships combining to make different types of robots is used as a metaphor for the way the different personalities in a team have to compromise and work together to accomplish their goals. The combining itself, or merging as they call it, involves a rather corny “naked transformation” sequence which is taken to another level with this “union” of souls being shown as something akin to a positively orgasmic sexual experience with all the blushing, noises and dirty talk in the shower rooms afterwards that comes with it. As I said, “subtle” is not the word of the day.

But what could quite easily have been a bad anime is saved by the shear amount of effort, goodwill and, most importantly, cash lavished on this show by everyone involved in it’s creation. The animation is spot on the money and of consistently high quality and often even little details like the expressions on the faces of those out of the foreground are priceless. There’s been no expense spared on the background and scenic vistas either as these are all very impressive. Incidentally that’s probably the only time you’ll ever hear me say the words “Vista” and “impressive” in the same sentence. If I had to sum up the visual look of this series I’d go with “Classical Greek architecture meets rabid Transformers fan meets whacked out art student smoking something probably not at all legal” which I think sums it up quite nicely. Animation company GONZO have become quite well known for their heavy usage of CGI over the last few years, especially their habit of sticking in a series regardless of whether it’s warranted. Here though the CGI’s really found it’s home and out of all the GONZO series of the last half decade I would go so far as to say that, CGI wise, this is one of the best.

Musically Aquarion is very impressive. There’s a number of infectiously happy J-pop numbers as well as some uplifting power themes, one of which becomes somewhat of a musical cue whenever there’s about to be some major arse-kicking going on with the heroes powering up and saving the day yet again- which happens to be about once per episode. Slotted in nicely between all the action is a large amount of opera and classical music which works surprisingly well.

Ultimately, if you’re happy to ignore the plot holes and the whole OTT-ness of it all and just let yourself put your brain in neutral and go with the flow then this could be the show for you. Aquarion – Volume 1 and Volume 2 comprise the first 13 episodes of this 26 episode series so it looks like the whole series will only span 4 discs -rather than the usual 6 or 7 – and with the impressive discounts to be found out there this show is certainly good value for money.

Extras:
Volume 1 comes packed with extras including an interview with director Shoji Kawamori, Tokyo International Anime Fair 2005 Talk Show, Four versions of “Tsugumi’s ‘All About CGI’ Series”, Textless opening and closing animation and trailers. Volume 2 however comes with nothing What-So-Ever. But then Volume 2 does boast 7 full episodes, which helps to soften the blow.

Aquarion – Volume 1 is available now while Aquarion – Volume 2 will be available from most high street and online retailers from 7th December 2009.