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View Poll Results: Aquarion EVOL - Total Series Rating
Perfect 10 3 7.32%
9 out of 10 : Excellent 5 12.20%
8 out of 10 : Very Good 8 19.51%
7 out of 10 : Good 5 12.20%
6 out of 10 : Average 9 21.95%
5 out of 10 : Below Average 5 12.20%
4 out of 10 : Poor 3 7.32%
3 out of 10 : Bad 1 2.44%
2 out of 10 : Very Bad 0 0%
1 out of 10 : Painful 2 4.88%
Voters: 41. You may not vote on this poll

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Old 2012-06-29, 04:22   Link #1
NightWish
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Aquarion EVOL - Overall Series Impressions & Total Series Rating

This thread is to be used for discussing the entire episodes of Aquarion EVOL ... your thoughts about the show, overall impressions, expectations and hopes about Blu-Ray/DVD-exclusive footage etc.


A few subjects you might want to ramble on about:
  • General impression of the series.
  • Opinions on the overall story, writing & plot devices.
  • Thoughts about the animation quality.
  • Characters/Character Design
  • Voice Acting
  • Which kind of footage (Blu-Ray/DVD-exclusive) you feel you'd really like to see.
  • What the show meant to you.
  • What could the creators/animators/writers have done better.
And so on.

The poll represents your total series rating. In other words, how you would rate all the episodes combined (1-10)? If you'd rather rate the whole series by technical/artistic merits, you can do so. An example:

Animation Quality: 1-10
Voice Actors: 1-10
Script: 1-10
Soundtrack: 1-10
Editing: 1-10
Enjoyment: 1-10
Emotional Involvement: 1-10

Average = Total Series Rating

Or a combination of the two. Or your general gut feeling.

Feel free to discuss and more importantly, have fun
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Old 2012-06-29, 08:52   Link #2
mayumi
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I give it 5/10. It was not a fun ride after ep 16 at all. All the fun episodes in the beginning were light hearted.
The characters kept changing from one episode to the other, no flow of writing from ep 17 onwards.

While the animation quality was good, the story and themes were confusing and all over the place.
I enjoyed it less than I did Genesis mostly cause I thought Mikono was not a good heroine and Amata had his moments when he was like a hero but overall he came out to look like some obsessed fool. Alot of this has to do with him being Apollo's reincarnation and not wanting to leave Silvia behind again but then where was he defying fate exactly?

I guess we can say he was defying fate so that he could have a happy ending with Mikono since his past life didn't.

Zessica's character fought hard to try and defy fate and lost, her ending song line "flare fighting the moon" and lost. But I think and hope Zessica can get over it because she is a good girl and guys will surely come to love her when she opens up to loving someone again. So, I hope she can move on and there is no sequel with her being the next Pollon's reincarnation or whatever.
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Old 2012-06-29, 09:48   Link #3
NoemiChan
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I gave it a 9/10.

Animation Quality - 9/10 Computer animation was so obvious.
Voice Actors - 8/10 They did well.
Script - 6/10 I wished more of Amata and Mikono Lovy Dovy Scenes... thank you Kagura.hmp!!!
Soundtrack 8/10 Cool. epical.. emotional
Editing: 7/10 I don't know.
Enjoyment -7/10. They save the only best on the last part.
Emotional Involvement - 9/10 My post said it... I'm so involved that I tried defending the "useless pair"!!!!

Total Rating : Good
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Old 2012-06-29, 11:34   Link #4
justsomeguy
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Overall:
* Animation is great.
* Music is phenomenal. Kimi no Shinwa is one of the best OPs I've heard in years, Gekko Symphonia's classic piano is completely different from most EDs, and Yunoha no Mori is one of the most bittersweet and touching songs ever.
* At least some of the characters were good, eg Andy, Mix, Jin, Yunoha.
* The Pollon the dog plot was a blatant troll. Well played, but that was still and assholish thing to do.
* The plot could be better, but then again Genesis did not exactly have a very good one either. I think the plot would have gone down easier for viewers if the characters were stronger.
* Mari Okada's character management needs work. I marathoned Genesis before Evol started, and I can say that show did a lot better in this regard, developing all of the characters while managing to squeeze in a battle every episode.

The Characters:
* Amata: a bland mc. Even when he's supposedly showing emotion, his affect is dull, undramatic, and unconvincing. He's supposedly pissed because his parents abandoned him, but most of the time it really doesn't show. Apollo had character. This guy, barely. I also think Okada should have let some other characters pilot instead of constantly sticking Amata in.
* Mikono: a bland main girl. Her father sees her as useless, and unfortunately for us he's absolutely right. Her entire contribution to the show is to be the damsel in distress and the MacGuffin. She likes Amata, but doesn't do anything about it other than rage when he's with another girl, and spends the entire second half being attracted to Kagura without knowing why.
* Zessica: how can Okada present her as a serious contender in the love triangle if she doesn't develop her? All we know is that she likes Amata and sexy clothes. There's no backstory, no other hobbies, nothing. At least after doing nothing more than mope for the first half of the show, she gets to confess, get rejected, and end up with Kagura in the end. ED1 suggests that she's Celiane (maybe the half that went to Sirius?), but that doesn't get followed up on.
* Andy and Mix: listed together because they were written to play off each other, and the best characters in the show. There's actually not much to them other than the horny guy and tsundere act, but it was a well developed conventional romance and at least they were doing what they could to push Fudo's "Love is banned" rule, while the main pair did nothing. Getting Mix back after she got abducted and turned into a male actually got more focus time in the plot than the Mikono plot.
* Cayenne: he's Mikono's sister, dislikes Amata, and supposedly a pretty good pilot, but he barely interacts with her or him and doesn't get to pilot the Aquarion enough despite his hax precog ability! I thought he would be an important character, but he contributes next to nothing to the show other than stick around and be Shrade's fanboy.
* Yunoha: like Andy and Mix, one of the better developed characters in the show. Grows from invisible shy girl to a mature sad girl. She really needs to get to do more though.
* Jin: also well developed, going from mission-focused to actually liking Yunoha. Too bad he died so early, didn't get mentioned enough in the second half, and did not make an appearance in the finale.
* Shrade: Okada pushed the "OMG you'll die if you pilot Aquarion" schtick too many times, and for what? He actually gets to pilot more than Cayenne, Sazanka, or Malloy! There's also the "darkness in his heart," but that was mentioned once and then dropped. The only characters he interacts with are Cayenne and Crea, without more social ties he's rather boring.
* Kagura: focused solely on Mikono, he's basically just an animal being used by Izumo and Mykage. Without being much of a thinker, there's a limit to how interesting he could be. His decision to let Amata have Mikono after realizing he wanted Silvia, not Mikono as she is, was too sudden and demonstrated an intellectual side he was not shown to have before.
* Sazanka: She's a fujoshi and she can rust metal. That's her entire role in the show. No backstory, no plot contribution, barely gets to pilot despite her hax power.
* Malloy: He can make materials fragile. That's his entire role in the show. No backstory, no plot contribution, barely gets to pilot despite his hax power.
* Blond flat girl, braids girl, sunglasses girl, paper bag girl: background characters at most. I can't even remember if their names were ever stated in show.
* Donar, Suomi, and the fat commander guy: basically useless.
* Fudo: Same as the previous series, except this time he seems to be more of an ass (especially considering how he's arguably the cause of all the problems the whole time), less sophisticated, and with an obsession with donuts.
* Crea: It's not revealed whom she's the reincarnation of, even though a young girl who is somehow commander of Neo-Deava deserves more focus and and explanation.
* Izumo: All this time, he couldn't figure out that the Curse of Eve was caused by Ianthe? That's lame. His role as the enemy commander also got overshadowed by Mykage's schemes until he kidnapped Mix.
* Mykage: surprisingly has nothing to do with the Curse of Eve. He's just angry because Apollonius abandoned him and then tricked him into going for the reincarnation of his magical dog. I'm surprised that he actually got a good ending when Fudo took pity and accepted his soul into himself.

7/10. Genesis developed its characters evenly and had a battle every episode. Evol did not, instead focusing far too much on the stalled romance between the bland main characters, when Okada could and should have set that up as the background plot and let other characters have more screentime and development.
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Old 2012-06-29, 11:54   Link #5
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Time to crack those knuckles and write out a bit of a review of this show.

Animation Quality: 7
Quick: Its pretty but its pretty cheap.
Long: The animation quality is deceptive in this show. There are great background shots and the environment (as inconsequential as it was to the show, you could have replaced the city with a prairie field and gotten the same effect) but many shots are still shots with only small parts moving. There are many, many panning mouth moving shots, reused footage all around (gattais, cockpits, characters in the cockpits) that each episode probably had the equivalent of another OP/ED worth of eaten up by reused things. Let's not forget the grotesque immersion breaker of suddenly appearing Genesis-quality art for flashbacks.

The technology used in this show, computer based coloring for lighting effects, was pretty spotty. The colors of many characters changed to unnatural hues (or out right different colors) under certain lighting conditions which really stood out. It was probably cheaper to go about it this way but, unfortunately, it shows. Strangely, though, this problem didn't really appear until the later half of the show.

The CGI was neat to look at when still but there's a lot of motion-quality blurring when it moves, it looks very clunky in some scenes, and really sticks out amongst the many 2D backgrounds.

Voice Actors: 9
Quick: It was good.
Long: Not anything overly long to say, the voice actors were good in this show, very good, but much like GC before it, I think there talents were a bit under appreciated. I give this section a 9 because the actors did their jobs, did them well, and they deserve their praise.

Script: Ep. 1-13: 7 Ep. 13-26: 3
Quick: It was decent for the first half and then, along with Jin, the creative talent died.
Long: The show was much better during the first half where they kept more to the antics and silly hijinks of *boys vs. girls*. During the early run the plot was better focused with Altair serving as the big bad, Mykage being something of a puppet master, and in general there being an established good vs. bad with some mystery thrown in. Jin was a good window into how different Altair and Vega were, presented in a cutesy-comedic fashion that really marked the high point of the show. Characters had weird *because the plot says so* interactions even now but there were still consistent interactions and steps forward.

With the second half, focus seemed to get lost quickly. Altair becomes something of an afterthought, its big mystery turns into an unbelievable joke that makes it seem like a planet of idiots, and its not given any sort of resolution aside from telling the audience what the problem was... but no one actually went about fixing said problem. Mykage becomes a glorious bastard and is easily the saving grace of the second half but the many changes introduced to the story that affected Genesis, the reveal on who was Mykage, all of this served to the detriment of the show. The Kagura being Amata revelation seemed more self-destructive of the shows themes than was really worth it even if Kawamori really wanted to show off his rather awkward Buddhist views through his donuts, zeroes, and Ying Yang philosophy.

Of course the biggest detriment to the show were the characters, in that there really weren't any. Just puppets that danced as the plot needed and acted in unnatural, completely silly ways: never taking to one another over important issues, brother and sister only acting like brother and sister when necessary, magically appearing and then magically disappearing father figures, wangst all over, inconsistent characterization for the sake of moving the plot along, etc.

At the end of the day, its gets an average of a 5.

Soundtrack: 9
Quick: Delicious.

Enjoyment & Emotional Involvement: 7
Quick: It was enjoyable all the way through but the latter half saw my interest (and posting here) quickly wind down as my interest in the show died, little by little, with my interest in the decaying plot and characters.
Long: Episode to episode, the show was very enjoyable but on the overall it ends up feeling shallow and I cannot really see much replay value because the twists are no longer twists, the many peculiar character mishandling will just have me groaning, and the overall irrelevant plot just leaves you with little to look forward to other than pretty colors and robots and bananas.

So overall, this comes out a little higher than I expected as an aggregate at around a score of a 7 or 8, but I was fairly forgiving in certain aspects where my overall interest in the show suffered (I'm a person more fond of story than pretty visuals and *twists*, and there's a lot of disappointment left in me over what I had expected and what I got). There's just a lot of wasted potential from a little less than stellar first half that gets brutally murdered by a contrived, confused, and headless monstrosity that arises in the second half. Its a pity there won't be any new anime originals coming this next season (the season 2s don't count) but I hope for something new to show up next season to take the place of EVOL as my week to week anime original dosage.
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Old 2012-06-29, 18:06   Link #6
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Animation: 7
Not the most impressive I've ever seen, but not bad either. But I must say I loved the images in the first ED. If there's ever an artbook or what not released for EVOL I hope it'll include those pictures so I can drool over the prettiness.

Soundtrack: 10
The highlight of the show for me. Having seen Sousei no Aquarion years ago the music (and the weird gattai scenes) were what stuck with me most. And EVOL certainly doesn't disappoint in this regard. There is not one song I did not like; even Yunoha no Mori, which I started out being ambivalent towards, grew on me.

Main Characters: 3
I'm splitting this section into main and secondary characters because I'm very disappointed in the main cast. I started out liking Amata, thinking he'd evolve into a strong, interesting character, but he ends up spending 26 episodes running or flying after Mikono. Mikono hardly did anything during the show, Zessica's character was completely under-developed, and Kagura's sudden OOCness at the end was groan worthy.

Secondary Characters: 9
The highlights, character-wise, were the evolution of Jin and Yunoha's relationship and the romantic comedy provided by Andy and MIX. I remembering rolling my eyes at first when Yunoha was revealed, thinking she'd just be the token moe character, and Jin was going to be just a reclusive secondary bishie character. But after the balcony scene in episode 10 they become my favorite characters as I realized there was a lot more to them than I'd thought (the Romeo and Juliet angle also helped, despite my proven trepidation that something bad was going to happen to them). Andy and MIX provided a nice dose of lighthearted relationship comedy that did not involve Amata floating away and Mikono getting jealous. Granted it's cliched, it was still enjoyable to see them banter.

Script: ...?
I really don't know what to say about EVOL (or Aquarion in general) script-wise. Up 'til now Sousei was the crackiest anime I'd ever seen and I think EVOL topped that with Special Training of the Grave, and hot springs filled with bananas. Also there was a lot of loose ends at the end of the show that were never addressed, such as what happened to Altair after Mykage was defeated, what's the origins of the Curse of Eve, etc. Last but not least the Pollon plot twist really had me reeling for a while. It made a little more sense after seeing some posts on how there were hints of this in Sousei, but it still boggles me.

Emotional Investment: 9 up until episode 14; 3 for the episodes after 14
When I first started watching EVOL I was primarily concerned with who's the reincarnation of whom from Sousei no Aquarion. But I soon found myself caring less and less about that aspect of the show as it became apparent things weren't going to reveal anytime soon. I really enjoyed the JinxYunoha pairing, and had most of my emotional investment in their relationship until Jin died. After that I just couldn't make myself care about the other characters save for Andy and MIX.

Overall: 5
Maybe my expectations were too high and the incoherent story telling really disappointed me. Still, the secondary characters were great to watch (at least in the first part of the show) and the music is fantastic.
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Old 2012-06-29, 20:47   Link #7
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Loved this anime with all my heart. 8/10. And this is why.

Animation: Good. CG was ugly, but overall, it was decent.
Story: Couldn't give a shit.
Soundtrack: Fitting
Characters: Everyone but the main characters were interesting and funny. And thankfully, the mains don't get that much screen time, so I didn't have to sit through bad attempts of the anime trying to make me like a character I knew I wasn't going to like (I'm looking at you, Haru) in the end.
Jokes: Hilarious. Both intentional and unintentional made me laugh a lot the entire anime.

This is one of those anime that I will love, not because of its strong story and characters, but because it's legitimately fun. Favorite (and really, only) of Mari Okada's stuff that I love. Over-the-top cheese at its best. Now I have to go watch that prequel that got bashed on a lot.
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Old 2012-06-30, 20:25   Link #8
Triple_R
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My view is similar to Vena's. The script is a 5, enjoyment and emotional involvement is a 7 (it had significant peaks and valleys for me), and just about everything else is a 9.

So for me, it all averages out to about a 7. EVOL's terrific theatrical flair, creative mecha battles, strong supporting cast, and excellent main antagonist (Mykage) made this show largely enjoyable to me even at the worst of times. But it couldn't completely mask weaknesses within the love quadrangle that many of us (myself included) have absolutely beaten to death over the past few weeks.

On the one hand, this show is like Guilty Crown in that it leaves me dwelling on how awesome the show could have been with better handling of the main characters and an overall tighter plot.

But on the other hand, I find myself already missing Aquarion EVOL (at the thought that the roller coaster ride is over), and I think I'll look back on this anime fondly. It's like Hanasaku Iroha to me in that its flaws made for excellent discussion fodder, and its visuals/style meant that the show typically had an eye-candy appeal to it anyway.

That said, I really hope that one of these days the anime industry can finally pull off another truly epic and excellent mecha show. It seems like it's been ages since I watched a mecha show that I thought was simply great.


Anyway, I'm going to skip a lengthier breakdown because most of the points I'd make are ones that people here have seen hashed over a helluva lot before, so I don't see much point in hashing them out again.

7/10.
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Old 2012-07-01, 06:27   Link #9
kuromitsu
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I'm not good at this "overall review" thing, but since there are all these nice guides I'll try to write something...

Meanwhile, my overall "evaluation" is here - it was written before the finale which didn't fix anything that was wrong with the show before, but at least provided a very entertaining and satisfying (if, as usual, clunkily written) closure.

Animation Quality: 7? Maybe?
It was pretty nice, I guess? The actual animation was a better-than-average fair, as for the CG... I guess it didn't blend in seamlessly, but the whole thing was so colorful and lively that it didn't bother me. The designs were nice, and every now and then there were some absolutely gorgeous scenes.

What did bother me was reusing footage from Genesis (sorry, I just can't get over this ). Now that was cheap and amateurish and every single reused frame stuck out like a sore thumb. Different character designs, different colors, different animation, seriously, what the hell? And all just because they couldn't have been assed to link the show to Genesis in a way that doesn't involve flashbacks. (It would've been possible, you know!) Not to mention it made the whole thing less accessible for first-time Aquarion viewers.

Voice Actors: Good, I guess?
The seiyuu did their job well, nobody was bad, nobody was miscast, etc. A special mention goes to Fujiwara Keiji and Nakamura Yuuichi, who were not only spot-on as Fudou and Mykage but provided deliciously hammy performances that fit the tone of the show wonderfully, and it felt like they were just having loads of fun with their characters.

Script: 4
The individual episodes were mostly OK (not perfect, but very enjoyable), but overall? Yeah, I still can't believe anyone got paid for this. I mean, if at least the dialogue had been good, but... no, it was average at best (and it was kind of pathetic how they kept stumbling over Kagura's reverse speech). I rant about this at length in the post linked above, here I'll just say that I feel very sorry for the main characters, especially Amata & Mikono, and also Zessica for what she turned into for most of the show. They would've deserved a much better treatment. (Good thing that my likes and dislikes tend not to depend on how well the writing treats a character, so I kept liking my favorites and rooting for them.)

Also, dogs. FFS, REALLY, COME ON, did you really have to drag Genesis into that?

Soundtrack: 10, except most of it was reused from Genesis which is not only cheap, it's also questionable since the score was written for a different show... ah well. Most of the time it did its job well, though, and wasn't jarring. However, I still can't get over using Yunoha no mori as the second ED. It's not even a question of whether it's a good song or not, it's just.... wtf?? Yunoha?? the hell, really.

Editing: as in series editing? It sucked, big time. See above.
Sigh, just to think what this show could've been with a good writer in charge.

Enjoyment: 8
Because despite everything it was still hugely entertaining. And the finale managed to close everything on a positive note for which I applaud the creators.

Emotional Involvement: I... dunno? I really enjoyed the show, despite all its huge flaws. It had lots of laughs, lots of "whoa pretty!" moments, etc. and I cared about my favorite charas enough to enjoy them and keep rooting for them throughout the show (even when everyone hated them), and my feelings had ups and downs, though most "downs" were related to how my favorite charas were doing, so... I suppose this counts for something. On the other hand, the glaring flaws in the writing kept me from getting as emotionally involved as some people here and elsewhere, which is good because I could keep enjoying the show without taking everything personally, so to speak. (I think everyone knows what I'm talking about here...)

Average = Total Series Rating = Aquarion.

Last edited by kuromitsu; 2012-07-01 at 06:43.
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Old 2012-07-01, 18:54   Link #10
GoldenLand
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I liked the characters in this series a lot, even though they didn't get enough individual attention except for Mykage. I regret a bit that we weren't able to watch an EVOL where they did get enough attention, because that would have made a huge amount of difference to the overall quality of the series. Even MIX and Andy, for example, who had a very well produced sub plot, were still very thin characters. Still, I have to hand it to the staff for being able to make the characters likeable despite that.

Animation Quality: 9
I'm not sure about its technical quality, but I found it a gorgeous series to watch. Colour, drama, all that. It has all of the pizazz to it that this series required. The Genesis flashbacks were bad, though.

Voice Actors: 10
The voice actors and actresses were all amazing. Mykage's voice actor stood out, because he had the opportunity to voice such a fabulous villain. I think that Shrade's voice actor also deserves a mention for being able to carry off the extremely hammy scenes he was in. Also, Zessica's voice actress did a very good Mykage impression, albeit a brief one.

Script: 5
The script was entertaining, and suited the cracky scenes very well, but even so I can't rate it much higher. There were plot holes the size of planets (literally!), things went unexplained that should have been, believable characterisation was sacrificed to the plot, and so forth. On the other hand, this is Aquarion, and some of the plot holes can be forgiven. The script also had some truly glorious plot twists, and loads o' drama, which makes me want to rate it higher than I have.

Soundtrack: 8
An excellent, reliable soundtrack. I particularly enjoyed the insert songs for the battles, most of which were sourced from Genesis. I liked the opening songs, and Eve no Danpen. My favourite in the whole series was Gekkou Symphonia, the first ending song. However, I can think of series where the soundtracks have been truly outstanding, and EVOL doesn't quite match up to their standard.

Editing: 5?
I'm not entirely sure what it means, but I suspect this is something which could be responsible for some of the scripting problems.

There were definitely editing decisions which made characters look worse than they were probably supposed to. Maybe the wrong cuts were made.

Enjoyment: 9
This series was a lot of fun, despite its flaws. I'm sad it's finished, because there are few series which can match up to EVOL's entertainment value.

Emotional Involvement: ???
I'm not sure what to say here. EVOL was never trying to be super deep, and I didn't particularly want it to be. It had a few moments of depth, yes, but they were overtaken by pretty sparkles and mecha battles the way they ought to be in an Aquarion series. So I can't say I wanted to be emotionally involved in it, just to watch and have fun watching.

Total series rating = 8
I looked forward to watching this series the most every week, even though there were technically superior shows airing (like Space Brothers and Fujiko Mine). That counts for a lot. No other series had the ridiculous prettiness and plot twists of Aquarion. It didn't take itself seriously, and that's the way it should be.


Quote:
Originally Posted by kuromitsu View Post
Soundtrack: 10, except most of it was reused from Genesis which is not only cheap, it's also questionable since the score was written for a different show... ah well.
I heard there were 22 new tracks in EVOL's first soundtrack, so plenty should be new, though of course the ones with vocals other than about 4 new ones were from Genesis.
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Old 2012-07-02, 10:04   Link #11
miketyson
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Here's my review, not much different from the rest of you guys in the end..

Animation Quality: 9 for illustration/visual quality, 5 for animation quality. There's a notable gap between on the one hand the quality of the static imagery like backgrounds, cgi models, character drawings in static scenes, and on the other hand the quality of the animation when there actually is animation. The latter is very low, but there isn't much of it.

As an overall "visual appeal" rating I'd put it as a 7 for me, the cheapness of the animation got to me after awhile, and the lack of diversity in the settings and backdrops also grew very, very tiresome.

Voice Actors: 8-10, depending on the role. Mykage aside, no one was really mind-blowingly good for me, but no one did a bad job.

Script: 7 first half, 5 first half of second half, 3 from 22 onwards. I don't have as many complaints about the scripts as some of you guys do, they're never that bad (actually-bad scripts are truly terrifying and rarely make it to air in any genre). Most of the problems with the writing have more to do with the editing, about which see below.

Soundtrack: 9, not really anything bad to say. Everything was very good, but I there wasn't anything stand-out enough to push this into 10/10 territory.

Enjoyment: 7 for watching it and discussing it, about a 4 by the end.

Emotional Involvement: started high (8-9?), ended low (2-3?). The longer the show ran on the more the things that first drew me into it started to fade out, and such new elements as were introduced later either also fizzled out or weren't enough to compensate on their own.

Editing: 2. I'm using editing for "scenario planning" or "cohesiveness", and moved it to the end because it's what I have the most to say on. Short version: the story feels like the writing equivalent of starting out trying to make steak and potatoes with broccoli on the side, realizing your beef isn't not quite "steak-grade", and deciding instead that you should make some chinese-style beef with broccoli. But then when you do that for a bit you realize you don't have any rice, so you wind up improvising and serve the beef-and-broccoli on top of bowls of mashed potatoes (instead of rice, because you didn't have any rice, right?) . Would've been far better either to take the time to make rice or to serve the potatoes on the side.

If that's too opaque, it's as if the story ideas -- the characters, the settings, the major plot points and major conflicts, etc. -- are largely conceptual leftovers from some fairly different initial story concept (or several past revisions, perhaps?), and don't really mesh well together. There's just too much contortion to get it all to work together, and even then despite all that contortion it still doesn't really work well most of the time in the second half (like beef-and-broccoli over mashed potatoes, ). Nothing actually fits together very well, and I don't think it's just "bad writing" at the technical, script-writing level that's to blame; that's probably a mix of weak creative control and a rushed/resource-constrained production environment.

Compounding this problem is that the plot itself is full of "wild plot twists" that turn out to be basically pointless by the end, but still seem as though they must've forced the writers to go through even more contortions to fit them in. If you've watched the show you can probably guess the major twists I'm thinking of, and to a one I don't think they bring enough to the table to have been worth the effort to include.

Overall: 4 for me, hypothetical 7 for someone marathoning it with low expectations. If there's ever an OVA or movie(s) I'll check them out, but maybe only once the dust has settled and I can take them in in one go.
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Old 2012-07-02, 13:55   Link #12
KleenexGhost
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Join Date: May 2012
Location: Sunriseland
Took me a while to get my thoughts together for a review, I'm still thinking so there might be some edits later on.

Animation Quality: 8 Technically the show was pretty well done. I liked the character designs and it was very pretty to look at, with the finale definitely being a stand out episode. There were some issues when they blended in the CG, but overall it was well done.

Voices Actors: 8.5 The casting was great. A lot of good performances from the cast, including Kana Hanazawa, Daiuske Namikawa, Kosuke, Toriumi, Ayumi Fujimura, Yui Ogura, Hiroki Yasumoto, and others. On the negative side, Yuki Kaji was simply playing Yuki Kaji. He's got range, I've heard some good stuff from him, but he didn't really show me anything that I haven't seen from his other performances. But the two standouts of this series are undoubtedly Yuuichi Nakamura and Keiji Fujiwara, they were excellent.

Script: I'm pretty much on the same page as Vena. The first half of the show was pretty good, but when the second half started there was a huge decline.

Soundtrack: 9 Only negative I can say is that there was nothing really good enough to push it into perfect score range.

Editing: Nothing I can say will top what miketyson said. A quick rundown: Things felt jerky and rushed. It felt like the show was trying to run before it could walk and ended up tripping over itself multiple times before it crossed the finish line.

Enjoyment: 7 during the first half, 5 during the second half Evol started out knowing when and when not to take itself too seriously. The first half felt fun, it introduced us to a lot of the characters like Andy, Mix, Yunoha, Sazanka and it had a charm. Stripping your clothes off enhances your reflexes, I can't make this up. Then the second half brought a much more serious tone. With Evol people have said before if you take the story too seriously then you won't have much fun and that's true. Evol is a spectacle, a lot like a Hollywood blockbuster.

I've been rambling on for a while now so basically what I'm trying to say is that Evol was very fun at first, but with the decline of the second season then fun factor went down. It did give us a lot to talk about on the forums though.

Emotional Investment: 5.5 Like GoldenLand said, Evol felt like it was trying to be deep but often times it didn't know what tone it was going for. The reincarnation cycle is very serious subject in the universe but I can't lie, I laughed my ass off at the Pollon reveal. I just couldn't take that seriously. The central couple of Amata and Mikono never really gave me a reason to root for it. I get that they are the main characters but that's not reason enough for me to wanna see them get together and see love conquer all. The supporting cast I got really got nothing negative to say about them. They come off as very likable and I easily got invested in characters like Andy. In fact, I thought I was gonna hate Andy because I personally can't stand comic relief characters if they aren't done right. Needless to say I was pleasantly surprised. He was developed well, was genuinely funny and I came to care about his relationship with Mix. For me characters go a long way if I'm gonna be invested in a story, I didn't get that with the main characters, save for Mykage who I actually started rooting for in the end, but the supporting cast definitely did their job.

Main Characters: 3
Supporting Characters: 8.5


Overall: 6 Blame it on expectations or just an utterly disappointing second half but Evol comes off Average. The art style, majority of the voice acting, soundtrack, solid but fun first half, cast of supporting characters, and pretty good villain are good points. The weak second half, story that takes itself too seriously at times, poorly developed main characters and lack of an emotional investment in the end, bring an anime that I thought was gonna be really good just down to Average territory.
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Old 2012-07-02, 14:21   Link #13
C.A.
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Age: 36
Animation Quality: 6, The animation was average, lots of static scenes like most anime, nothing technically outstanding in both 2D and 3D.

Voice Actors: 8, Quite a nice cast, but no one made a significant impact to me.

Script: 2, The script is horrible even if you judge it alone and not as a sequel. Main characters are one dimensional, extremely childish and are all driven by selfish desires. Characters and plot seem to forget and lose their development the very next chapter, especially Mikono who probably went backwards more than anything.

As a sequel they've completely destroyed the original characters, cheapened all the character development and significance of the 12000 year romance. All the heroism, badassery are completely gone, leaving characters who are just bitter over their love lives. None of the main characters care about the worlds that their petty fights are destroying.

Soundtrack: 9, Music is probably the most enjoyable part of the anime, as expected of Yoko Kanno.

Editing: 6, Pacing is abrupt at various times, graphics and soundtrack is ok.

Enjoyment: 3, First half was decent, but Amata and Mikono were cringe worthy, second half is a complete trainwreck.

Emotional Involvement: 5, I guess anger and disappointment is also counted as a form of emotional involvement, and not because it was compelling, but because it was just so bad.

Overall 39/7 = 5.5, It gets an average 'passing mark' only because of music and voice. If I judge it as a story, its probably 3 or below, one of the worst trainwrecks ever.
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Old 2012-07-15, 00:09   Link #14
Kyuu
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Join Date: Aug 2007
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OK. I watched this series for some of the perverse subtleties. Unfortunately, it ended rather corny. Nevertheless, I'm not gonna let the ending take all that much away from the series overall. Plenty of parts in the beginning and middle was quite entertaining -- especially the Andy + Mix stuff.
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Old 2012-07-22, 10:56   Link #15
wisteria233
Senior Member
 
 
Join Date: Dec 2008
Location: New York, NY
Animation: 8, The set was really beautiful and it game me feel of a futuristic world, however it loses points for reusing Aquarion footage, instead of just reanimating the scene.

Voice Acting: 7, It was really good voice acting all around, although Mix's voice actress wasn't good at portraying a male character.

Soundtrack: 10
, Yoko Kanno nothing more needs to be said.

Script: 3, The story started out solid, but soon it descended into a mess of horrible ideas. The reveal of the dog Pollon did not add anything to the story but rather took away from both the love story and the narrative in general. Its an idea that was just better off discarded, just as it was in Aquarion, because just like the writer for Aquarion said it distracted you from the romance in general, and it makes Apollonius out to be a asshole, and also makes it seem as though Apollonius didn't love Celiane. Also Pollon is not an established character, he didn't even have a name, was only seen twice and he looked like a puppy aka a young shadow angel. Just because its a seems interesting doesn't mean that you should include it. Also I shouldn't ever have to question who is the main character, the romance was also very weak for a show with love spell backwards as a part of its title.

Characters: 4, again even though I liked many of the side characters they are not main characters. The main characters themselves seem like they would have been interesting if more had been revealed about them or if the writers ever tried to focus on more than one aspect of their personality. The only character that I have little no problems with is Mykage, the rest are just horrible in many different ways, and the sad thing is it really isn't their fault, but I'm only going with what I see from them.

Editing: 3, I'm using to mean cohesiveness, and pacing. The plot was both everywhere and nowhere. Too much time was spent on side characters, with their problems, most of which did not move the story forward, leaving only one to two episodes to handle the big reveals, which they just dumped on you last minute with the expectation that you'd just accept all of it. This score may be low but to be honest I was being generous.

Enjoyment: 6, If I'd had to commend the series for anything it'd have to be that it isn't boring, however, I do find a good story and characters to be very enjoyable and this series gave me neither.

Emotional Involvement: 4
, I started out caring but then I stopped caring half way through.

Overall: 4.3, The train starts out rolling smoothly along, but then quickly crashes and burns, and not in an enjoyable way either.
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Old 2012-07-22, 18:24   Link #16
Thess
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Join Date: Jan 2010
Mykage's happy ending is what made this enjoyable. That and YunohaxJin.
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