No question about it, Sousei no Aquarion: Myth of Emotions is my biggest overperformer after roughly two weeks of the winter season. And predictably, Philistine anime fans have mostly derided it. The characters designs are awful (read, not from a cookie cutter) is one complaint I hear a lot. Tastes vary and people are obviously going to like what they like. But for me this show has been a breath of fresh air – it reminds me a bit of Eureka Seven AO (another series the Philistines love to hate). And for the record, I love the visuals – including the character designs. It’s the most interesting mecha series to come around for quite a while.

If the visuals are quirky, the story is about as classic as mecha gets (which may be part of the problem with some viewers, too). A bunch of kids roped into saving the world (in this case, the Universe) and facing death in the process. And of course they’re given a “choice” which is really no choice at all. One of my favorite moments of this episode was when Munakata-sensei said “Of course it’s your decision whether to pilot this thing. The Universe might be destroyed if you say no, but I can’t force you.” The pure hypocrisy of the situation is a trope of course, but you’ll rarely see it crystalized quite so effectively.

Every mecha franchise has to put some sort of wrinkle on the template of course. And with Aquarion it seems to be the focus on ancient mythology (including but not limited to Japanese). The core of the problem (I’m assuming this was the case with earlier iterations of Aquarion but don’t know for sure) is this split in the Universe that took place 12,000 years ago. These “shadow angels” from the other universe are trying to gattai it with ours – and if they succeed, whichever one is bigger (even by a micron) will subsume the others. Also I guess my original guess that DEAVA was an AI seems to have been correct after all – and it’s the one calling the shots.

Bottom line – whether it’s decoded ancient tablets, a pre-modern supercomputer, or anything else, these are children drafted to fight for humanity’s survival. Sakko tells us some personal history here, and it explains why he’s so cynical now. He was pulled into a special program after taking a test as a small child. 30 other kids joined him – including Sayo. One by one they dropped off, some of them “broken”. Sakko views this as his parents having sold him off, rightly or wrongly. He and Sayo remained friends and wound up in a “deconstructing” club along with Momohime (and only the three of them).

The fun turns to trouble when they took to the caves under Kamakura and build a robot (“Churo”) from the scraps, one which started ranting about the end of the universe as soon as they activated it and attacked Sakko when it tried to subdue it. Sayo took the blow for him, but although there were multiple witnesses the true events seem to have been swept under the rug. Sayo taking a blow for others is a recurring theme, as is the idea that her death is an important cornerstone event. Apparently the universe can “self-correct” – including forwards or backwards in time – but there are limits on just so much. It’s implied that Sayo dying is some sort of flagged event that’s part of this process but at the moments that’s conjecture.

When another crack opens and what looks liken the same monster returns, the four youngsters are summoned (it sure didn’t have a voluntary air to it). When Toshi wigs out and has to be sidelined, it’s pretty obvious what’s going to happen. Sayo volunteers to go into battle, the gattai happens again, and she winds up taking a fatal blow to protect Sakko when he gets too careless in his zeal to attack. This is an event for which both Sakko and Toshi are certainly going to blame themselves, with certain impact on their role in the piloting program.

It’s all here – the tiger-cub fierceness, the special moves (like that three-way Captain Tsubasa Golden Combi), the tragic death, the exploitation of children. But I really like the execution. The characters (the kids are least) are all likeable and interesting, the premise is cogent and coherent, and the visuals and consistently engaging. Sakko calling his finishing blow “Ultimate Despair Punch” kind of says it all about the mecha anime experience, and that’s typical of Aquarion MoE so far. This show has an elegance and eloquence to the writing that I rarely find in modern mecha series, and that’s certainly the most important among several winning qualities it’s exhibited in these first two very good episodes.