[kuromitsu]

Originally Posted by ReddyRedWolf

Were you not paying attention? Fudo took out all the pages referring to the third pilot.

Yes, he did. And so what? Again - as far as the TV series goes, on its own, Scorpius didn't exist. He was only brought in with the OVAs that were connected to the series, which is all fine, except in the series his existence is rendered meaningless. Eh, I'll get into details below...

Originally Posted by ReddyRedWolf

Said dog used to be on the side of Dark/Shadow Angels.

Fallen angels, actually (literally). Also, please show me the darkness on that screenshot you linked. Yes, it's Rena and her weirdo-vision, but when I hear "yami no kemono" (I think that's what she said) I think something similar to the demonwolf and not a cute little blue doggie. Or Apollo-doggie, with butterfly wings. (It's not even a big dog.)

Originally Posted by KleenexGhost

Yep, that's a load of evidence there to justify the plot twist

Oh, I don't mean justification... But basically, this is my theory:

Kawamori & Oonogi make Genesis of Aquarion (TV), and all is great and joyful. They have this epic story with super robot elements, all very tongue-in-cheek, great fun and also great drama, etc. Except halfway into writing they realize that for whatever reason they can't do the story the way they planned. So they scrap some elements, including Reika=Scorpius and Apollo=dog (most likely because they had not been elaborated on yet so scrapping these would hurt the story the least), pull the remaining lines together, and and create an ending that is serviceable and makes sense.

There is a price, however: this way the whole backstory is more than a little vague. But hey, it appears the producers have some more money to burn, so they greenlight a two-part OVA series which essentially becomes "Aquarion: without the silly bits." It elaborates on the backstory, introducing Scorpius, connecting the whole thing to the present, and then connecting the whole thing to the TV series. And in some ways it works and some ways it doesn't - mostly because the TV series' second part has been written with a different story in mind, so in light of how the story ends in the series stuff like Reika being Scorpius' reincarnation is basically inconsequential. But anyway, it does fill some holes, and as long as fans are happy, right?

But curiously, not even the OVAs touch the Apollo=Pollon idea. Maybe they thought it was too silly, after all. Also it doesn't really mesh with the theme song lyrics.

Fast forward a few years, Kawamori hits the jackpot with Macross F. So he dusts off his pet project and decides that after half a decade he's finally going to create the ending he always wanted to, but couldn't. DOGS, he says. I WANT TO SEE DOGS. (Maybe he was hanging out too much with Oshii Mamoru...) And with this in mind, we get a sequel in which he retcons the aborted Apollo=Pollon plotline to be actually true, and, well, here we are.