Sea Slugs! Anime Blog

We start off by meeting the two nerdy characters that will be joining the cast: Jun Li, the nerdy haxxor, and Tsugumi Rosenmeier, the nerdy shoujo-ai senpai-worshipper. Everyone has gathered for Element User classes, and Rena bribes Apollo to come with a bag of chips. Thanks to Jun Li’s amazing hacker skillz, it’s officially revealed that Sirius was the former prince of the former Alisia, in his former life, and Silvia was the artist formerly known as Princess Serian. Things get off to a bad start, with oily Pierre asking for Tsugumi’s sizes in front of the class, and Silvia ranting about how Apollo ruined her first real union. Because he only wants to save Baron, Apollo doesn’t care too much about the class, and eventually comes to blows with Silvia. This time, Apollo’s ready for her weakass Element attack, and before long, he’s got her in a rather compromising position.

With the fun and games over, we get to watch the Stellvia-esque piloting skills of the new class. Jun’s doing ok with Sirius (although he has a bit of lag), but the other two are having a bit of trouble. Apollo pilots like a crazy man, and Tsugumi is all blushing about piloting with Reika. Although Silvia and Apollo have really poor mind dynamics, the glowing red crotches on the monitor indicate that the two have awesome “aura dynamics” and that their red spirit levels are resonating. In other words, they bicker, but secretly they want each other (the sexual tension will probably end up so thick that you can cut it with a knife). They even end up accidentally kissing while they struggle for the controls. Naturally, Pierre offers some more innuendo-laced commentary during the training. Speaking of which, the three also get their first union, with a hilarious after-effect on Tsugumi that ends up blowing the fuses on the simulators. Be still my beating heart!

Afterwards, we begin to get into the requisite angst. While Reika distresses over her inability to perform in clutch situations, Apollo feels tremendous bishounen angst over Baron’s fate. Apollo is only going along with the charade in order to gain the power needed to save Baron, and so he feels helpless in the down time. This cues up Dr. Sophia Belin to do her best Dr. Ritsuko Akagi (from Evangelion) impression, and Apollo tells her about how he met Baron (and got that funky talisman from him) and how it felt like a Apollonius was speaking to him during the last fight. Sophia notes that Apollo has the same eyes as Fudo Gen (scary, but lonely), and tells Apollo that it was his feelings that moved Aquarion.

Just as the angst reaches unbearable levels, a Harvester appears, and Reika, Sirius, and Silvia are summoned for the sortie. The ever predictable Apollo sniffs out Silvia and sneaks aboard her Vector Unit. Unfortunately, as he falls into the cockpit, she ends up with a face full of his crotch T_T. During battle, we finally learn why Reika always gets so badly mentally owned by the Shadow Angels; apparently her special ability to discern the Angels’ weak point also shows her these super creepy images of all the sucked out souls. This time, as soon as Reika figures out that the middle of the Harvester’s heart is its weak point (go figure), they swap her out for Pierre. Pierre is all pumped up to unionize with Silvia, but Sirius calls for formation M-S-L, landing Pierre in the back of Mars Aquarion. After the foursome unite into the “Beautiful Shape” T3T, they take out one of the two Cherubim Soldiers with their Fire Saber and skewer the Harvester for the win. Or so they think. As the Deava group celebrates, the remaining Cherubim Soldier suddenly springs into action and tackles the Harvester through the portal, right before it closes. Everyone is shocked about how harsh reality is, and Sirius is pretty pissed at himself.

With another strong episode, Sousei no Aquarion has cemented itself as a series that I eagerly anticipate releases for. We finally get the OP that everyone knew was coming, and the music was fantastic as expected. The OP animation was decent, and I look forward to the OST being released. In addition to the standard unintentional comedy, we also got super awesome helpings of angst this time. Fortunately, great moments like the Sirius hair flip and the fantastic ending helped lighten the mood. I was dying when the Deava team got punked while they were celebrating, as this is the sort of thing that almost never happens in an anime series or sentai show. To see everyone’s shocked expressions, you’d have thought that they had just seen a mahou shoujo girl get interrupted multiple times during her transformation stock footage or something! Really great stuff, and of course the angst is a necessary ingredient to change all the male characters into true bishounens. I got strong Naruto vibes during Reika’s bloodline limit scene, and even stronger Neon Genesis Evangelion vibes with the pseudo-seductive Sophia and the angelic Deava symbol. Apollo and Silvia make a nice couple, and it was so heart-warming to see him help her pilot. You know, cause she’s not good enough to do it on her own.