Cinnamon Ass - Reborn Like a Zombie

Sousei no Aquarion Episode 9 - The Route of Dreams

The latest Shadow Angel attack is to trap children and teenagers' souls in their sleep to sap their Purana, so Fudou's newest line of attack is to have all the Element Candidates sleep to try and catch the Cherubim responsible, Titania. Of course, this is Aquarion, so we get plenty of crack-induced dream sequences as a result, from Jun serving tea to a robot dog to Reika being chased by giant Noh Masks (perhaps most interesting is the small flash of odd symbols before we enter Sirius' dream, including Da Vinci's Everyman and a Fruits Basket-esque rabbit figurine - some clues to Sirius' past life, perhaps?).

Anyway, Apollo manages to smell that something's up and doesn't get tricked by Titania, although he wakes up with chokemarks (what hurts you in the dreamscape hurts you in the real world). Only he, Chloe, Pierre and Silvia have escaped, and the first three head back into the dream world to face Titania, sleeping in their cockpits - only Apollo makes it in properly to start with, and faces off against a dreamscape version of Sirius in a sword battle that hurts both of them until Silvia screams for them to stop - Apollo and co. use the "Route of Dreams" to transfer their Vector Machines into the dreamscape (who cares if it doesn't make sense?) and face off against Titania - as she uses her Gorgon-esque snake tentacles to sap the life out of them, Sirius manages to inspire Silvia to "head ot the other side of the dream!" (blech) - she knocks herself out to transfer in instead of Chloe, and she takes control of Aquarion Luna to shoot Titania and her various clones. Everyone can sleep easy, and Fudou brings Apollo back from being lost in the dreamscape with a bowl of rice - as always, he's hungry.

More filler, which is a bit of a shame, but at least it's half-decent filler at that - the usual levels of Aquarion crack (which aren't really having the same hysterical effect on me they were earlier on in the series, but are still enjoyably silly) and a fairly enjoyable, if slightly cliched, story. I just REALLY want to get onto some kind of over-arching plot line soon, that's all.