Forum - View topicNEWS: Full First Episode of English Aquarion Streamed
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Kyouki-Kamikawa
Posts: 33 |
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ughs , i tried to watch that anime but it reminded me of hentai without nudity , opening song is awesome tho
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PurpleM
 Posts: 21 |
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I just watched the first episode. It doesn't seem to be my type of show, but like Kyouki-Kamikawa, I looooooove that opening song (it's inserted near the end of this first episode). Lord knows I've listened to it hundreds of times on nico-dou. Thanks for not dubbing over it, Funimation! As for the episode... the colors are really bright and vibrant, there's a lot of action (mostly mechanical-related), and the dubbing seems all right. Some of the lines and the delivery are a little silly. I've never watched the Japanese version, so I can't make a comparison. The original Japanese credits in the opening scenes are left alone (always a good choice!). The low-res version loaded pretty quickly, but the high-res is, um, still loading even after I watched the low-res version. ^_^;
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BladeDragoonZETA
 Posts: 586 |
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seems interesting I saw a bit of Getter, some Raideen and a splash of Macross in the series
could be promising and a sound track by Yoko Kanno is usually a good thing |
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Zalis116
Moderator
 Posts: 6867 Location: Kazune City |
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But beyond the unintentional comedy, there were some other things that just stood out as plain bad to me. I can understand that Aquarion wants to be an epic "teens pilot mecha against supernatural adversary" series on the lines of Rahxephon, Evangelion, and Fafner. Nothing wrong with that; after all, originality is a rare and valuable commodity, and it's not absolutely necessary for a series to be entertaining or well-made. Still, I didn't like the "exposition overload" in this first episode. In Eva/RX/Fafner, there was an air of mystery as the viewers got introduced to a main character in a normal "baseline" status, followed by some complicating events in the form of [enemy] launching an attack, and then the introduction of the defense organization, the mecha, the other characters and so forth. Aquarion spends its opening scene explaining every little detail about the plight of the world and the workings of the Aquarion units. And that's not the only "exposition overload," as later in the episode, spoiler[that guy busts into the command center and one of the subordinates cries out, "Oh my, you're that presumed missing legendary historical figure who did this and this and that!"] It'd be like Misato from Evangelion explaining in the first episode, "Shinji, I'd like you to meet Ritsuko Akagi. She's spoiler[the daughter of a famous programmer who designed our computer system. Her mother imbued Gaspar, Belthasar, and Melchior with her three selves as a wife, woman, and mother. The names come from the 3 Magi in the Christian Bible, by the way. Anyway, her mother committed suicide because she was in love with your father and got jealous over his affections for Rei Ayanami. So yeah, Ritsuko has some issues over that, and she might have the hots for my on-and-off boyfriend Kaji.]" I might have some details wrong, but seriously, where's the intrigue in that? If Aquarion is going to be so derivative of its predecessors, the least it could do is execute the formula decently. Even so, I probably will get Aquarion at some point. After all, I did like Fafner, Evangelion, and (begrudgingly) RahXephon. I just won't go out of my way to get it anytime soon. At the very least though, Funimation's dubbing sounded just fine to me. I haven't seen the Japanese version for comparison, but there's no reason to judge the English track on an arbitrary "how inferior is this to the Japanese?" criterion. I wonder why Funi didn't use the song/sign subtitles as hardcoded subs for this streaming version, the way ADV did with Kanon. |
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Veoryn87
 Posts: 808 |
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I thought the dub was pretty good. The art and animation was better. But the whole thing was kinda ridiculous (in an entertaining way sometimes). Yet another anime where the main character suddenly powers up and kicks ass in a mech that he's never used before.
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Westlo
 Posts: 1684 |
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I've only seen the first eight episodes of Aquarion back when it came out in 2005 but from what I've seen you should be laughing. Just wait to you see some stuff that happens in the later episodes, more lol moments. I think it does get a lot more serious later on but a lot of the time it just doesn't take itself seriously. My one "hope" for Macross Frontier is that for it Kawamori finds the right balance between Macross Zero and Aquarion. The OP song which was used as an insert song near the end is one of my fav anime theme songs ever. It's the main reason I watched another 7 episodes of Aquarion... Oh yeah this has the best Gattai sequence ever. "IKUU!!!!!!!!!!!" |
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LordPrometheus
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I agree. I wanted to take it seriously, and it was entertaining in its own way, but just way too much yammering and not enough mystery or fighting. The story seemed like a mishmash of about twelve different shows. It would probably make more sense if it WAS a parody. 
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MagusGuardian
 Posts: 589 |
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I've seen the whole serries in japanese with english subs and it's pretty good it gets serious about half way into the anime but there are still plenty of laughing moments
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Veoryn87
Posts: 808 |
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So are the production values relatively consistent or are there huge quality breakdowns in some episodes?
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MagusGuardian
Posts: 589 |
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Vicserr
 Posts: 480 Location: Carolina, Puerto Rico USA |
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I liked it. it has the appeal of Classic Giant Robot shows like Getter Robo with a bit of the Eva mindset blended in but this in execution is closer to the 70's Giant Robot shows, an in my opinion, there is nothing wrong with that.
And about the exposition, that's a standard trait of the genre, the line between the good and evil characters explicitly drawn. the mech action was cool, and with mecha design by Kawamori, what do you expect?.... I'm in it for the long haul, that I got the 1st set Super cheap from BestBuy.com was a bonus . 
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8JF
Posts: 88 |
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After watching that episode I don't think I'll enjoy the series. It's pretty, flashy and very vibrant but also heavy with the dumb fun. I was hoping for another show that wants to mess with my head and pull out the pseudo-mythological technobabble.
Is the orgasmic merge scene the gimmick here like the the sky surfing in E7? 
Last edited by 8JF on Mon Mar 10, 2008 8:07 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Keonyn
 Subscriber Posts: 5567 Location: Coon Rapids, MN |
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I found the series interesting when I first saw mention of it, but honestly the episode just didn't do it for me. I don't know, but it just didn't seem like the kind of show it first seemed like it was going to be when I first heard about it.
Zalis touched on a few of my gripes as well in his comments so I won't go in to great detail. I'm a big E7 fan and honestly I really enjoyed that the series kept a lot of what was going on a mystery until the time was right to bring it in. While I don't expect a series to constantly apply a sense of mystery to that degree, I really do despise a series that thinks they need to spoon feed me every bit of information, especially right at the very start.
Gimmick is such a cruel way of saying it, heh. But Gimmick or not I thought E7 pulled it off great, especially since it was used as a vital plot element instead of just an excuse to let them fly. Nothing wrong with applying a unique twist or "gimmick", as long as it is used effectively. |
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Zalis116
Moderator
Posts: 6867 Location: Kazune City |
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According to something I read on the AoD forums, it's possible that the opening exposition scene was "tacked on" for this streaming release. If true, that would improve my view of Aquarion to some extent. Time to go verify it for myself.
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8JF
Posts: 88 |
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I'll have to take your word for it. I only watched the first few episodes on disc 1 and lost interest in the series. I've probably missed several good series by being turned off by the early episodes. |
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