Aquarion EVOL - Episode 26 [End] Discussion / Poll

[Auron Requies]

Originally Posted by Vena

I meant more that the show turned for the worse after Jin's death. A lot of the bad, bad, bad scripting and writing reared its head after Jin's death. It was always there but the show just started spiraling out of control with Jin's death... right around when the show tried to be serious.

Ah is that so. Personally I reckon it really started with episode 18, when Zessica had that whisper of being the typical "Lets do our best as Love Rivals" from the episode before...and then just being damn gloomy in the next

[Vena]

Originally Posted by Auron Requies

Ah is that so. Personally I reckon it really started with episode 18, when Zessica had that whisper of being the typical "Lets do our best us Love Rivals" from the episode before...and then just being damn gloomy in the next

Nah. It was 15/16 where Kagura is saved, and no one seems to care enough to ask why, and instead we have misunderstanding drama with no one trying to figure out the reason. Of course, the show has always had trouble getting people to talk to one another about important things.

[Auron Requies]

Originally Posted by Vena

Of course, the show has always had trouble getting people to talk to one another about important things.

Seems to be cause during that time Amata's important thing was to get into Mikono's skirt while Andy's was to get a legal hold on Mix's big bang's They are in a school after all lol

[miketyson]

kuromitsu: if I was going to do loose translation (which is all this finale deserves, honestly) I'd have gone with "Miss Mopey" or "Sadface Sister" or "Sadsack" or something else for that, all the literal translations sound too serious for the context and stuff like "bitch" (what? ) is far too harsh in context.

Kagura's revelation could've been phrased better in any language, ~"I was reborn to love Sylvie, but that right there isn't Sylvie, it's Mikono! Go, my brother, go to the woman of today that you love!", but no matter how you phrased it then Amata's speech after would've just undercut it a lot (and I don't think they were going for some kind of ironic or nuanced take on it, either didn't notice, didn't care, or deliberately wanted to undermine it because ...).

The finale still puzzles me. The CGI action sequences would've had to be planned out pretty far in advance, but the rest of the episode seems pretty flexible and easy to rework, even compared to a typical episode of this show. Probably more due to Okada making sure Mikono never gets a chance to do much than a deliberate plan to be flexible, but barring an atypical tell-all interview it's unknowable and not worth speculating on. Though I am curious: did I misunderstand something somewhere that production on the finale wasn't wrapped until as recently as maybe 2-3 weeks ago?

Now that it's all sunk in I think I finally get what they were going for on this show, and although some (or really: a lot!) of the decisions still baffle me I can at least rest in peace feeling like I know what this was supposed to be. Close down the Aquarion mythos with a gradual descent from mythic figures (Apollonius, Celianne) to larger-than-life heroes (Apollo, Sylvia) to ordinary folks drawn into the mythic nexus (Amata, Mikono).

It just doesn't work that well for a variety of reasons, but mostly because genre conventions force Amata to be more competent and active than really suits an "ordinary guy" in that context, which makes Mikono look bad by comparison. Throw in the mishandling of the side characters and odd ducks out that makes them also more sympathetic and likable than the leads, the ill-considered origin for Kagura in that context, and the poor handling of the central romance and you get the lumpy mess we wound up with.

Or so I'll tell myself, because I'd like to think there was more going on here than mere incompetence.

[Vena]

Originally Posted by miketyson

More going on here than mere incompetence.

Why lie to yourself? (Incompetence is a given when the creator has to tell you that you misunderstood his character, and then explain to you the goal of his story.)

[miketyson]

Vena: because in the end when I take the time to watch and participate in discussions like this I do it to try and reverse-engineer as much of the work as I can, including as much of the creative process as I can reasonably infer from the end result (which is > 0 but admittedly not much).

So yes, they are incompetent, but I'd like to know exactly which types of incompetence were at work rather than just drop it. I'll move on in a few more days though, , and file this one away as the show that recapitulated the entirety of Lost's six season "quality arc" in the space of six months...

EDIT: Expanding, I don't think it's obviously incompetent until episode 20 or so. I mean, by that point it was far, far past being airtight and well-plotted, but it wasn't horrible. Even in the end it's fine on episodic basis for me, just that there's ridiculous lack of episode-to-episode coherence, which is the root form of incompetence here I think...ah well, in the end theres not much point kicking an angel dog while it's down, .

[kuromitsu]

Originally Posted by Vena

It'd still come off as *sudden* given its, well, sudden appearance. I'm used to the characters acting like different people between episodes, but Kagura's was a real extreme. It was his entire character, not that it was much, in this show.

Of course - as I said it wouldn't fix the problem, but it would at least make it a bit more smooth.

Originally Posted by Vena

By translation, I mean from Jap to Eng. I don't think the subs did it much justice from the pictures I've seen floating around from the subbed version. (Same with the "bitch" thing, which he simply does not say. Pathetic or depressed or bottom of the barrel is much more accurate.) The English translation makes it look like he just threw up his arms and gave up everything all of a sudden. Where its more accurate to say that he simply realized (rushed as it was) that he loved Sylvia, not Mikono, and realized it. He didn't have a turn of heart, which is almost what it looks like in English, he just made a realization. (Of course, if you fix the translations you'll get the Kagura and Zessica shippers mad. )

Oh god. So, is there any decent fansub for this show that I can recommend to friends? Obviously [gg] is right out. (Btw turn of heart was just me sucking at English.)

Originally Posted by Vena

Otherwise, he's just left in a state of loving Sylvia, dead as she has been for 12,000 years. But I guess that's par for the course in this show. Yunoha's in love with a dead person, Cayenne is *ahem* friends with a dead person, Zessica is in love with a taken person, and Kagura is in love with a really, really dead person.

As for Kagura and Zessica, I wouldn't say so. I think the fact that they both faced the situation they were in and did certain realizations counts as taking a step forward. Obviously it's not going to happen fast, but at least now they have the chance to grow to be at peace with themselves and their circumstances. As for the others, Yunoha may be in love with Jin (whom she's known for like 3 days before he died...), but she's pretty cool about it, and Cayenne and Shrade... they have a Special Relationship. XD

Originally Posted by Vena

Guess we have the ground work for AQ3 already.

In which we learn that Fudou wasn't really Apollonius but one of those Atlandian fairies who was in love with Touma... (hey, why not kick the angel some more )

Originally Posted by miketyson

kuromitsu: if I was going to do loose translation (which is all this finale deserves, honestly) I'd have gone with "Miss Mopey" or "Sadface Sister" or "Sadsack" or something else for that, all the literal translations sound too serious for the context and stuff like "bitch" (what? ) is far too harsh in context.

Ah, thanks. XD;;

Originally Posted by miketyson

Though I am curious: did I misunderstand something somewhere that production on the finale wasn't wrapped until as recently as maybe 2-3 weeks ago?

According to Yamamoto's twitter they finished recording on June 9th. Mind you, that's the recording, obviously there's still animation work to be done after that.

Originally Posted by miketyson

Now that it's all sunk in I think I finally get what they were going for on this show, and although some (or really: a lot!) of the decisions still baffle me I can at least rest in peace feeling like I know what this was supposed to be.

Well, a sequel to Genesis. ^^;; I don't think there was anything more to it, really.

Originally Posted by miketyson

Or so I'll tell myself, because I'd like to think there was more going on here than mere incompetence.

Think of Hanlon's razor. Their decision to do the Apollo=dog retcon must've thrown a wench into everything they'd been planning up until then, which accounts for the "wtf?" relation to Genesis and also for much of the Kagura situation, and as for everything else the incompetence is plain to see: bad treatment of main charas, artificial writing, lack of proper foundation for the big twists and surprises (re: Kagura's reverse speech/power, the whole Pollon thing), bad pacing, bad focus... And frankly, I'll blame mainly Okada until we have proof that it wasn't mostly her fault.

Originally Posted by miketyson

EDIT: Expanding, I don't think it's obviously incompetent until episode 20 or so. I mean, by that point it was far, far past being airtight and well-plotted, but it wasn't horrible.

FWIW I don't think the show was "horrible" by the end, at least if you accepted that this is the writing you must live with if you don't want to drop the series. ^^;; But I think writing problems had been very obvious before that. And then stuff just... accumulated.

[Triple_R]

I know that I'm dreaming in technicolor here, but it might be nice to get an Aquarion EVOL one/two-episode OVA that focuses on Kagura/Zessica starting a relationship together (that could also try to retroactively make sense of their actions in this episode). We could also catch up a bit with the rest of the cast, of course.

Honestly, if Aquarion EVOL wanted to "cash in" further, giving Kagura and Zessica fans something to cheer about would probably be the best way to do it.

[KleenexGhost]

Originally Posted by Triple_R

I know that I'm dreaming in technicolor here, but it might be nice to get an Aquarion EVOL one/two-episode OVA that focuses on Kagura/Zessica starting a relationship together (that could also try to retroactively make sense of their actions in this episode). We could also catch up a bit with the rest of the cast, of course.

Honestly, if Aquarion EVOL wanted to "cash in" further, giving Kagura and Zessica fans something to cheer about would probably be the best way to do it.

That would be a good way to cash in, maybe go with an Andy/Mix OVA as well. More of the big bangs!

I'm interested to see how copies are gonna sell. A lot of people are predicting that the Yunoha/Jin arc is gonna sell well, but what about the series as a whole? What do you guys think?

[Vena]

Originally Posted by Triple_R

I know that I'm dreaming in technicolor here, but it might be nice to get an Aquarion EVOL one/two-episode OVA that focuses on Kagura/Zessica starting a relationship together (that could also try to retroactively make sense of their actions in this episode). We could also catch up a bit with the rest of the cast, of course.

Honestly, if Aquarion EVOL wanted to "cash in" further, giving Kagura and Zessica fans something to cheer about would probably be the best way to do it.

There's really no reason for it since they're not exactly shown to care about one another in the epilogue particularly at the very end when Kagura doesn't care that she's there and she was walking away. They, Yunoha, and Cayenne, are in the same *moving on slowly but still in love* boat, and from there you can pair them up however you want. Kagura and Yunoha might make a great pair, what with Kagura having been Jin's friend. Cayenne and Zessica were paralleled in the first gattai sequence when boys met girls.

They'll make far more by redoing the story in an OVA and keeping Jin alive as well as having a better focused plot and developments.

[Destined_Fate]

Originally Posted by Triple_R

I know that I'm dreaming in technicolor here, but it might be nice to get an Aquarion EVOL one/two-episode OVA that focuses on Kagura/Zessica starting a relationship together (that could also try to retroactively make sense of their actions in this episode). We could also catch up a bit with the rest of the cast, of course.

Honestly, if Aquarion EVOL wanted to "cash in" further, giving Kagura and Zessica fans something to cheer about would probably be the best way to do it.

Sounds like a cash in but Aquarion without a mecha battle might not sell well and since the big bad is gone forever and there's no one left to fight.... Yeah. Than again Zessica and Kagura are really popular so if it's about them and not Amata and Mikono it should do well enough.

As for Jin, let him stay dead. I don't trust them to handle him well at all at this point. Using him for fan service may end up killing what made Jin so popular.

[miketyson]

Originally Posted by kuromitsu

Oh god. So, is there any decent fansub for this show that I can recommend to friends? Obviously [gg] is right out. (Btw turn of heart was just me sucking at English.)

You're out of luck gg is it. I've been collecting to watch with relatives and they're all that's out there.

Originally Posted by kuromitsu

According to Yamamoto's twitter they finished recording on June 9th. Mind you, that's the recording, obviously there's still animation work to be done after that.

That's what I must've been thinking of, I've really only skimmed these threads this past month and remembered something like that.

Originally Posted by kuromitsu

Well, a sequel to Genesis. ^^;; I don't think there was anything more to it, really.

In my limited experience there's almost always something more to it that gets them out of bed in the morning, at least at first, but then again mere boredom can be a powerful motivator...

Originally Posted by kuromitsu

Think of Hanlon's razor.

Repeated applications of Occam's razor will get me there eventually I'm sure.

Originally Posted by kuromitsu

FWIW I don't think the show was "horrible" by the end, at least if you accepted that this is the writing you must live with if you don't want to drop the series. ^^;; But I think writing problems had been very obvious before that. And then stuff just... accumulated.

Tastes differ. For me the show had three hooks: fun goofy antics, a fun lighthearted romance between Amata and Mikono, and a potentially thematically interesting alternative to that if Zessica had won Amata over. The first just disappeared a bit after the midpoint, the bad writing wore out the welcome on the second, the third didn't happen and the appearance of the possibility was just a result of baffling decisions.

So it lost me after awhile beyond morbid curiosity. Oh well. Has been fun speculating and joking around with you guys.

[Zuul]

Now just a question :

Have you ever watched an anime as badly written ?

Because I haven't.

It's so bad I'm half convinced part of it is intentional.

Sure is that Okada wasn't much motivated by the project. She fleed to AKB as soon as she could.

[miketyson]

Zuul: yeah, Guilty Crown, in recent memory. Easily worse than this on every front, though suffering from a different root incompetence ().

[Destined_Fate]

Destiny was pretty badly written, got worse when they pushed Shinn out of the main character role and suddenly changed the military setting to Kira being the next coming of Jesus setting. Though before the Kira shift Destiny wasn't that bad, they just were taking too long to develop Shinn into his own man. I blame too much Athrun abuse, what kind of teacher beats the hell out of their subordinate like that? Not exactly sending the best message to Shinn that way...

Still, this was the worst written anime I've seen. Only Zessica and the mecha battles were the saving grace for me that I toughed it out. Though that's why we have amazing minds like Terada around, he can fix any Mecha anime!

[Zuul]

Originally Posted by miketyson

Zuul: yeah, Guilty Crown, in recent memory. Easily worse than this on every front, though suffering from a different root incompetence ().

Now I'm curious.

I'm wondering if I'm going to watch it out of 'morbid curiosity' (as you said).

Maybe that gundam thing as well, but I don't like the gundam franchise as a whole (too much complicated politics).

[miketyson]

Zuul: one of my longest posts on this forum is just a breakdown of what went wrong in GC, but to paraphrase it the issue with it is just having way way way too many ideas for plot arcs that would've been ok on their own for a half-cour or full cour's worth of storyline, and trying to cram them all into a 22 episode run.

Cut out any half the arc ideas and tighten it up and it'd be ok, but instead it's just laughably ill-conceived, because none of the arcs get time to develop things to where their emotional notes make sense or have much impact on the viewer.

Whereas EVOL would surprise with stuff like the banana episode or Schrade's mech playing its bow like a violin, GC would surprise you with like "whoa, can you believe where we were only two episodes ago? How did we actually get here, precisely?"

[Bern-san]

Well finally I decided to comment on the finale:

- So in the end they made Mikono do nothing but apologizing and being saved by Amata, great. It's my fault for having expections.
The same thing can be said to Fudo. I expected more than that scene with him letting Mikage inside him.

Talking about Apollonius (I haven't watched the first series so these are ramblings), doesn't he feel lonely? I understand that Mikono isn't Celiane so he decided to support Mikono with Pollon's reincarnation but when he talks about how Mikono reminds him of her I feel kind of bad for him. At least he has Mikage.

- The kiss and all that was cute but since it has been a long time since the last time we got any Amata x Mikono scenes it felt weird to me. I was supposed to be happy for them because at last they're together but in the end my reaction was "Yeah, good. Next scene please?"
Note: I loved Amata and Mikono's previous interactions and don't hate their characters.

- On the other hand I really enjoyed the little interactions between Kagura and Zessica (if only this was developed before...). Kagura is definitely more suited for her, aside from the fact that both ended up being plot devices, especially Kagura and the sudden change in his personality (well I prefer this rather than him remaining a beast screaming Sylphieeee)

- It was a nice treat that in the end Crea helped a bit. Wish they talked more about her since she still remains a bit of a mystery. And of course Shrade's appearance is worth mentioning.

- The teachers being together was so cute! Especially Donar's reactions. Those scenes in the end reminded me of the first episodes of EVOL.

All in all, it was enjoyable (both the anime despite its faults and reading the discussions here). Don't know if I should watch Genesis after knowing how it ends and all that...

[kuromitsu]

Originally Posted by miketyson

You're out of luck gg is it. I've been collecting to watch with relatives and they're all that's out there.

Daaamn. :/ Well, at least it's been licensed in an English speaking country, maybe the official translation will be better. (What makes me sad is that this will be the fansub that gets translated to various languages, and people will accept this as the definite translation... :/ sigh.)

Originally Posted by miketyson

In my limited experience there's almost always something more to it that gets them out of bed in the morning, at least at first, but then again mere boredom can be a powerful motivator...

No, I mean - I'd reckon Aquarion is something of a pet project for Kawamori, which is why he returned to it when he had the opportunity. Obviously something like Genesis wouldn't be too popular today (it wasn't particularly successful back then, either), so let's enlist a popular writer for her creative input, focus more on the romance side of things, add some twists and turns to spice things up...

Originally Posted by miketyson

Repeated applications of Occam's razor will get me there eventually I'm sure.

Originally Posted by miketyson

Tastes differ. For me the show had three hooks: fun goofy antics, a fun lighthearted romance between Amata and Mikono, and a potentially thematically interesting alternative to that if Zessica had won Amata over. The first just disappeared a bit after the midpoint, the bad writing wore out the welcome on the second, the third didn't happen and the appearance of the possibility was just a result of baffling decisions.

Well, as you said tastes differ - I think it was a pretty fun ride, despite all the bumps and crashes. (I suppose it helps that I'm pretty shallow and that after a certain point just tend to take things as they come... also that it takes a lot for me to dislike something I already like just because of sucky writing.) Not that there weren't things that soured the enjoyment, but overall I had fun.

Originally Posted by Bern-san

All in all, it was enjoyable (both the anime despite its faults and reading the discussions here). Don't know if I should watch Genesis after knowing how it ends and all that...

Do what I do and convince yourself that Evol is AU and has no bearing on Genesis. Genesis is most definitely worth watching - not for the plot or the romance, but for basically everything else. (Just avoid the OVAs/movie if you prefer Aquarion to be fun and lulz and weird.)

[Destined_Fate]

Genesis didn't have a happy ending though, would still need Evol if you wanted that. The best thing to do is watch Genesis than skip over to episode 26 of Evol and pretend that Amata is Apollo and Apollo is still Apollonius, Mikono is Silvia(Though pretend she's punching Mykage out instead of being useless.), Mykage is Touma, Ignore Fudo's identity, Zessica is Reika, and Kagura is Sirius. Everyone else is just filler.