Aquarion EVOL 08

This show just keeps on giving. Episode 8 was a storm of good old classic Aquarion silliness and exposition gone rampant. It wasn’t quite the Zessica focus episode lots of people were hoping for, but who cares? Zessica got to pilot Spada, show off her strengths, and do a real live finisher. Also, Go Tight.

Sazanka

Sazanka stalking powers activate!

Sazanka may be in the comic relief brigade for now, but she’s prominently in the theme song and she got quite some attention in episode 5. This week she showed off a side of herself other than “ships hot guys,” revealing that she’s an amatur photographer, not to mention paparazzo-in-training. The question on everyone’s lips, of course, is how she got them (both the field trip pics and the ones at the end of the episode). Sazanka herself is staying silent.

Casual use of superpowers always makes me happy, and EVOL is no exception. Yunoha’s power flickers in and out according to her mood (and technically, so does Amata’s, but in his case, it’s not helping him one bit). Cayenne might be using his powers to help his sharpshooting. Andy uses his to get places, his motives aside. And who knows what Shrade gets up to in his hidden piano room?

Mikage

 

The obvious interpretation of this is that Kagura really is the new Apollo, Mikage is the old Toma, and the Head Angel is getting revenge on his old flame. As much as I like that theory, I don’t think it’s too likely.

Here’s the main reason why:

 

This goes way beyond petty reincarnation drama. ZEN and Mikage are both playing the long game. I can’t tell you how because I am neither clairvoyant nor Kawamori, but here’s the deal: Mikage forces Kagura to watch Jin (so Kagura thinks) try to hurt Mikono and won’t let him think of anything else. I’m sure he’s brainwashing Kagura to become obsessed with stealing and keeping Mikono so he can ultimately sic his enraged beast boy on Aquarion Evol.

Also, Mikage being a bitchy Toma doesn’t make sense. 12000 years ago, Toma was interested in the Tree of Life, and he tried to reclaim Apollonius too because Apollonius was there. I think if he had to choose, he would have chosen the Tree.

Finally, Toma got Apollonius. I don’t know what Genesis of Aquarion you watched, but Toma has no reason to be mad about Apollonius getting stolen away from him because at the very end, he locked himself up with all of Apollonius with only half of Celianne (the worse half, no less) to get in the way.

Altair’s Backstory

 

 

Thanks for explaining, Izumo.

So basically, this is what all the “true Eve” business was all about. Lots of questions remain, though! Why does Eve need to be an Element? What is it about interdimensional travel that makes them unsuitable as Eves? Where is Alicia, anyway? And what does Mikage have to do with all of that?

Speaking of all that Reaigler business, no one ever said the Abductors were only abducting females, Element or no. Maybe their drones just aren’t smart enough to tell.

Also, this “most powerful Reaigler” business? Kind of an odd way of saying it, since the actual meaning isn’t the most powerful Element, but just one with the right qualities to not get screwed up when dragged through the dimension gate or whatever. Why should there only be one? And if there is one, what if it’s a man?

I really want to say this is a case where the show is building mystery and we should wait for the payoff, but part of me remembers that Aquarion has just always been much better at goofy teen dramedy than having a solid plot, and suspects that EVOL just isn’t any better than its predecessor in that regard.

Blogging about character voice

Boy, ZEN is a lot of fun to try to write for… but lately, especially this week, I feel like I’ve been falling short. Like my lines for ZEN are too low in a way, not wise-sounding or poetic enough. “Naked” was a word choice I made at the time and at the time it sounded right, but the more I think about it the more vaguely uneasy I get. Mikage’s “Feel it hard” is gnawing at me the same way, lightly but achingly. Dialogue and voice is what I like to consider my thing, as a writer.

Part of the reason (or just a bad excuse?) is, I suppose, that gg is a speed sub group, and when I translate in a few hours, I don’t have time to analyze, revise, and polish as much as I would like to to call it art. Oh well.

This had nothing to do with anything, I just wanted to vent to the internet.

TL notes

Two stars of calamity shine in the heavens...

The Book of Twin Stars in Japanese sounds just like the Book of Genesis, and for want of a nail I would have put Genesis in the subs. Spoilers floating around 2ch seem to say the name is Twin Stars, and I’m far from the only one to have been confused by that. Fortunately, the Book wasn’t terribly important to the show at large.

He’s not a real person. Vedernikov is a real name (and happens to have been the name shared by a couple of famous musicians), but no tunneler (in fact, no famous person at all) by a name remotely like Alejandro Vedernikov existed (the closest is one of those musicians, Aleksander), and the quote itself is completely made up, though I suspect something much like it exists for mountain climbing. Hey, it’s been 24000 years.

(If anyone can source the man or the quote, please please let either me or [gg] know.)

This was a basic localization. It doesn’t make sense, but really, neither did the original. Mix tries saying anata ten times fast, ends up saying ana ana instead, and gets mad (ana is Japanese for “hole”). We used a simple, but kind of lame, substitute. Well, that’s the job.

Timing errors

Substitute timer this week. He doesn’t know the show so there were a couple of minor bugs.

Attributed to Yunoha. Should have been said by Andy at the beginning of the next line.

Attributed to ZEN, should have been Crea’s next line. Much less of a context issue than the previous one, and I wouldn’t be surprised if nobody noticed this one at all.