[Mangaka-chan]

Watching the sub did not help to make sense of this episode at all. @_@

Spoiler for episode 17:

Bananas? Hot springs?? Huh??? Strangely the banana metaphor made slightly more sense than the point of the hot spring, which kind of just came into the plot with no rhyme or reason. Even by Aquarion standards this episode was weird and random. I did laugh at how Kawamori substituted the apple tree with the banana tree; not to mention all the jokes you can make with bananas.

The appearance of the cherubium soldier surprised me at first, because it was from the original series and we've so far never seen it in EVOL. But Fudo's attitude after it appeared made me think he sent it there to provoke a fight and spur the students to find the original Aquarion. That makes me think maybe the Fudo of this series is somehow connected to Touma of the original series.