#aqmoe

first off: I'm so mad they killed sayo just like that in ep 2! It'd have been more interesting if her "maybe alive, maybe dead" situation continued for a few more eps before the universe "self-corrected" and killed her—we didn't really get to know and appreciate this character imo, so to kill her off like that was a big ole nothingburger to me. I came away the ep annoyed that they killed the only girl on the team (just so they could bring the next girl on), but the death itself didn't have an impact on me at all. Like... what a waste of a character. I really hope she continues to drive the plot forward through flashbacks in later eps, because her character had potential.

another thing that kind of bothered me a bit: Toshi supposedly "lacks curiosity", but the only way this is reflected is that he sucks at retaining information from studying, which... I wouldn't necessarily say is indicative of his lack of curiosity. I wouldn't have caught on to his supposed lack if they didn't literally tell us, whereas Sakko is reckless even before they tell us he lacks fear, so the reveal feels more natural to me. Rimiya's lack of empathy is mostly expressed as him being a bit insensitive at times and not knowing how to connect with people emotionally, but he's been noted to be popular amongst his peers and seems very friendly, so he probably masks well enough that casual friends don't notice. His comment about "ppl cry at their classmate's funeral (even if they don't know the deceased)" suggests that he is performing/learning off of social scripts, and i really hope they don't veer into "ohhhh scary low-empathy disorder ohhhhhhhh" portrayals when his character gets development (especially since his assumed past life might have done something awful to Momohime's past life). I think we should be good, but one never knows...

Speaking of past lives, it looks like Rimiya was a woman in the past (and past!Momohime's younger sister...?) but in their present life he's a guy and seems to have a slight crush on Momohime, so I'm interested to see where that goes. In the trailer there's a part where Momohime says something like "Sorry Rimiya-kun, what I feel for you... isn't romantic" and Rimiya goes "Me too! It's not as simple as romance (僕もです！ただの恋愛じゃなくって)" so i'm interested to see how that gets resolved. Plus in the OP there's a glimpse of his assumed past life form being tagged with "punishment", while in the ED his assumed past life form looks away in sorrow/shame, so i'm really curious about what happened back then and whether it plays into his current "lack of empathy" in the present day. (My guess is that his past life betrayed Momohime's past life somehow, though it might've been done without foreknowledge/and accident etc? And the man who looks like Sakko's past life says something along the lines of "I'll throw away my cowardly heart and do battle with the goddess", hinting the current cast's "emotional imbalance" might be related to the past.)

I'm also really iffy about framing the lack of romantic attraction as an "emotional imbalance"—I know Sakko and Momohime are probably gonna be the main couple* by the end, and it makes me real uncomfy that Momohime not feeling/reciprocating romantic attraction is her 'main flaw' that she will 'overcome' so a guy can 'win her'. I'm also wondering if her lack of romantic feelings is because of shenanigans in their past lives, and I'm lowkey anxious about how that's gonna be framed if it comes up

*this is mostly from the framing of the OP and their (assumed) connection in their past lives, and aquarion is famous for its reincarnation romance; tbh from their interactions so far i don't get a romo vibe off of them and i desperately hope that won't change

(As a side note: I dig it when reincarnation stories don't have the characters always be the same gender, because it never made much sense to me that your gender always stays the same even after you reincarnate as different people.

HOWEVER, it could be a fake out too—just because they have similar hair+eye colors doesn't necessarily mean they are the reincarnations)

another thing i thought was cool is that the lack of fear is framed pretty exclusively as a negative thing so far? imo if Sakko wasn't so reckless, Sayo wouldn't have died like that... in the OP there's a pink haired character tagged with "hatred", implying that she lacks hatred/dislike—and that lacking that emotion is also going to be framed negatively, which could be interesting.

also, the ending song slaps