Cinnamon Ass - Reborn Like a Zombie

Sousei no Aquarion Episode 11 - The Happiness of the Sea Bottom

Reika becomes steadily more and more convinced that she brings bad luck on everyone - she fouls up the weather, makes Gren's condition worse, and causes Tsugumi to "explode" when a routine repair of her computer causes visions of ghostly children to appear. She decides to run away from DEAVA and heads for a train station, where Apollo confronts her and tells her that, while it IS her fault that she's bringing bad luck on everyone, she has to change it herself.

As Reika reminisces about good times with Gren and Sirius, she heads straight into the warzone of the next Cherubim attack - the Cherubim has been lurking beneath a lake and sucking people in to harvest their Purana. Sirius, Silvia and a substitute in the form of Apollo head in to confront the Cherubim, but Reika's zone of absolute misfortune (there's a reason for the Escaflowne reference!) screws up their gattai sequence and they start to drown - Apollo is attacked by the ghostly children once more, while Silvia and Sirius begin to freeze. As Apollo psychically appeals to Reika, she decides to embrace her misfortune and leaps into the water, replacing Sirius and forming a distinctly inverse Aquarion Mars (the looks of disgust on Apollo and Silvia's faces as they combine are priceless!) - using the newly coined "Unlucky Bottom Attack", they burst the jellyfish-esque Cherubim and save the ghost children, who were kids trapped on a school bus that the Cherubim had absorbed and was preparing to take back to Atlantis. To cap things off, Gren gets moved to another facility.

This whole episode felt like a little homage to Escaflowne to some extent. The tarot card that Reika draws (The Tower) is the first card that Hitomi draws in her bedroom as she reads for Amano - it means separation, hence why it gets flashed up again at the end when Reika finds out that Gren has been transferred elsewhere. What with all the fate/destiny/fortune talk as well, I'm sure there must have been SOME intent to reference the earlier show - especially as Reika takes a decidedly odd stance on it by embracing her misfortune instead of changing it like Hitomi tries to do.

Any excuse for me to waffle a bit about Escaflowne is a good excuse.

Anyway, I really rather enjoyed this episode - some nice Reika character development added to the usual spazz-and-lovely-animation made this episode a particularly enjoyable experience. Even better, next episode appears to have more Apollonius and Serian stuff, which is ALWAYS a good thing for Aquarion.