, also known simply as Aquarion is a Japanese anime television series written and directed by Shoji Kawamori, produced by Satelight. Set in the future, a giant fighting machine called the Aquarion is humanity's only effective weapon in the fight against the technologically advanced species called the Shadow Angels. Aquarion was broadcast on TV Tokyo from April 4 to September 26, 2005. An alternate retelling of the television series, the Genesis of Aquarion OVA, premiered on May 25, 2007. The television series is licensed in North America by Funimation. On April 27, 2009, the series made its North American television debut on the Funimation Channel. A sequel to the series titled was announced on February 25, 2011, and aired in 2012.
Plot
Twelve thousand years in the past, mankind was at mercy of the mythical creatures known as , immortal winged beings with overwhelming powers and technology. That is, until one of their kind, Apollonius, fell in love with a female human warrior, Seliane. Apollonius joins forces with the humans to free mankind from oppression, by using the legendary giant fighting robot .
Eleven years prior to the story, in a disaster referred to as the "Great Catastrophe" Earth's magnetic field shifted devastating significant parts of the world and killing off many of its inhabitants. Along with the disaster came the return of the Shadow Angels who had been in slumber in their city of since their battle with Apollonius. The Shadow Angels began invading human cites to harvest human beings, dubbing them "the wingless ones", like cattle, to extract from the captured humans. Their prana serves as energy and nutrition not only to the Shadow Angels, but also to the legendary . The Shadow Angels facilitate their harvesting via giant, floating harvesting machines called which are guarded by giant mecha called . They are sentient machines, yet there are times when they are piloted by Shadow Angels.
Ordinary weapons prove ineffective against the Cherubim, and rings of projectors around the remaining cities, tapping into Earth's strata to project a quantum shield to keep Shadow Angels from entering or materializing in them, provide only limited protection. However a human expedition under the leadership of Gen Fudo excavates three very technologically advanced fighter planes, and an organization called takes over the research of these planes, called , trying to identify how to use them. The three Vectors, colored mostly in white, are identified as the green , the blue , and the red . DEAVA discovers only people with special powers, called , can use the Vectors and the three Vectors are in fact the pieces of Aquarion, the same robot used to fight the Shadow Angels twelve millennia before. They also discover the Elements can ultimately unite the Vectors into one of three formations of the giant robot in battle, and can use it to fight and defeat the Cherubim.
During the Elements' first sortie against the Cherubim by uniting the Vectors into a formation of Aquarion, they stumble on 13-year-old Apollo, who seems to be the reincarnation of Apollonius. They become convinced of this when he single-handedly takes control of the Vector Sol, unites the Vectors into the Solar Aquarion formation and defeats the enemy, thus causing him to be recruited by DEAVA to join their ranks.
Religious references
Age of Aquarius
Age of Aquarius, also known as the Aquarian Age, was a concept popularized by Carl Gustav Jung. The Age of Aquarius was seen in contraposition with current the Age of Pisces: whereas the Age of Pisces represents duality and antithesis (thus, conflict), the Age of Aquarius is an age of synthesis and spiritualism (in some ways, a new golden age). In the New Age, because of the implications of love, comprehension and one-ness, it can be associated with the fourth chakra. Aquarion as a name is a reference to this concept, but the show digs deeper in symbolism in using the Aquarion as an instrument for a "new era of holy genesis", managing to resolve conflict between the opposing parties of humans and Shadow Angels and showing a not-so-metaphorical process of oneness with the Earth.