Aquarion Logos

Well, as a fan of the mecha genre who liked the previous Aquarions, once I heard this one was bad that people even dropped it, well, I thought about trying it myself long after it was released, and I had a number of surprises. First, unlike Evol, it's not a sequel, nor a prequel, it's not part of the same timeline. The whole fight between humans and angels, aquarion as being almost like a divine entity, that's not part of the story. The story is completely new and isolated, and the usual entities like DEAVA and Vectors, while keeping the same name, are completely different entities.I was worried it would try adding a 12K years love relating to the original series, and fortunately, that didn't happen. Anyway, the whole problem to be solved is related to the concept of words and their meaning, and if the true meaning of the word is messed up with, anything that can be described with that word goes crazy. Also important to note, by word I mean Kanji, so this series needs some understanding of how the japanese language works, which runs by methods like taking apart the individual kanjis of a composite one, or even taking individual kanjis from their names to create new attacks. It's a very western unfriendly concept indeed. Seems like some people couldn't understand the plot, maybe they didn't knew these things, maybe I just got lucky cause I'm reading a Visual Novel with concepts very much like that (Owari no Chronicle, 1st Gear's Words have Power) so it was easy to absorb. Some characters seemed slightly unrealistic, though still very entertaining until some "bad" points, but those were intentional as problems related to that character, fortunately, upon learning the past of the characters near the end, those behaviors made a lot more sense. I was also surprised on hearing May'n voice on the theme songs, it felt weird at first, but I got used to it, felt a little like Macross Frontier without the Love Triangle, besides OP2 is great. The art also felt weird at first, specially the eyes, but it's not bad, just different from the other Aquarions, also the format of their heads reminded me of the first Macross, so it kinda gave some nostalgic feelings. It's a great anime, but maybe the problem is really the fact that it carries the name Aquarion, maybe if it were to have been released prior to Evol, so as to make people think it would run more like Gundam, with many alternative universos, and then release Evol as the sequel to the first anime it would have been better, but they got people hyped for another sequel, and that wasn't the case.

"Twelve thousand years ago, there was... What's that? That part of the story's gone? And Yoko Kanno's only doing the opening songs? Well... Bugger." The first Aquarion (I rated it an 8) was, despite some incoherence in the plot and cliche'd characterization towards the beginning, a show that nevertheless demonstrated "epic" in visual animation and soundtrack. The second Aquarion (I rated that a 7) was more about a teenage romance told over 24-ish episodes, so less emphasis on "epic", but still a fun time-waster. It still had the "12000 years ago" mythology and some of the lore from the first series and its backstory, albeit withretcons (a winged dog. oookay.). So logically, the production crew at Satelight decided in planning to just chuck all that lore out the window and start fresh, because we want to deconstruct Chinese ideograms, dammit! Yep. That's the entire premise of the show. Words have power, sure, but here they are basically magic spells. Instead of fighting threats in reality as in the previous 2 Aquarions, we go to some sort of alternate reality where a word is running amok, and defeat it because robot show. That pretty much covers more than half the episodes' plot. It was interesting when Fudo Gen/Zen did wordplay, but this got old, fast. They really should've called this a different name, because this is deconstruction for its own sake, and little else. Maybe Kamen Rider Word: The Animated Series or something, because it really felt like an animated sentai show. Speaking of sentai... Ugh, the characters. The horribly cliche'd, perennially infected with Stoopid Ballz, characters. I dunno, is "doing stuff without really showing the audience some connection to motivation" a thing in Japanese television now, or have all the good writers fled screaming to other countries? The cast do what they can with the scripts and direction they're given, but the writing is pretty bad. I know storytelling is like Kryptonite to Kawamori, but Basquash was better than this. It becomes farcical after a while-- I commented over a screen grab of the heroine's face, "Oh, no, are we seriously letting these two hams (the hero and his arch-rival) spend the next ten minutes fighting over who's the hero? Srsly?" Really. Her facial expression was like that. If someone told me this was an excuse to try to sell singles of the first ending theme, I wouldn't be surprised. It's catchy, and frankly, the only reason I slogged through the first half of the show. May'n's song in the second half was the reason I slogged through the second half. The rest of the production... I kinda kept going, thinking there would be a return to greatness, but nope.

Says a saying "It hurts the pen more than the sword", that words can be man's most dangerous weapons. Various souls have more or less expressed this concept in a very tangible way, but, if you want to put it in the mecha area, how to do it? It would take, in fact, a very unpredictable mecha, like the same words and from what they can be born from them, and what better choice than that mecha with divine powers capable of accomplishing the unpredictable as the Aquarion? For this reason, for its tenth anniversary, the letters and words, together with the well-known concepts of lovecapable of winning any challenge, will be the fulcrum of this third spin-off series entitled "Aquarion Logos". As per the typical Satelight tradition, the graphics make their figure, while in the OST area ... we say that there is a step backwards, but the dubbing can make their figure. Despite being a spin-off of the previous series, "Logos" maintains all the typical elements of the saga, including a very varied cast of characters and personalities, with characters who often tell something about them with episodes dedicated to them and with romance present in the air, very characterized and unpredictable enemies in terms of position, twists and backstory that clarify the doubts to the viewer on why those who do this or how that thing etc. happened, and love stories dating back 12,000 years ago ( I often wonder why this number will move the gears of history; and obviously we pass to the clashes that, if in the previous series they were under the banner of unpredictability, here they will reach unpredictable unpredictability levels, with monster-words with disparate powers as absurd as in the forms, as in the Aquarions, here with the higher number of configurations and unpredictable in terms of forms and powers. Although I adore Aquarion this anime does not bind to the two sages

This is more of a spin off that a continuation of the actual aquarion series. But overall i enjoyed it. It's not the best but it's not bad either. For those who are new to the mecha genre, this anime would be a good start. Art? Sure it ain't good, but it shouldn't be the one factor that deters you from watching it. Music/Sound? There's no Akino/bless4 so far, but May'n makes it up for that imo. As for the seiyuu, they fit the characters, that's pretty standard. Characters, this is where Logos shine. they are all weird people with funny aspects to them, and their personalitymash well together. The best parts of the episodes is always the interaction, Akira being totally disconnected from the others from his savior obsession, Maia not knowing anything other than her mission, etc. They make good use of their quirks and made their interaction entertaining. Enjoyment: Refer to Characters. I personally give it a 9. I like good/entertaining characters, and they gave me the latter, in a silly premise.