But there's a love story behind it all. In the first episode, two pilots from Deava, the Earth protectorate group, seek out a feral boy named Apollo, thinking from his energy readings that he might be the reincarnation of a 12,000-year-old Shadow Angel known as Apollonius, the Solar Wing. Sure enough, he turns out to be a typical anime Chosen One, with exceptional power and promise in anti-Angel combat but no tact, patience, finesse or ability to get along with other cadets.

Many of the initial 13 installments of the 26-episode series are episodic monster-of-the-week stuff, focusing on individual members of the Deava team, or on specific philosophical/abstract lessons that turn out to have a bearing in combat, as when a lesson about knowing people by their footprints turns into a practical lesson in fighting a Shadow Angel minion by standing properly. But the final segments of this 13-episode boxed set delve into Apollonius' past, his lost loves, his relationship to Apollo and how this affects Apollo's present.

And all this plays out amid a riot of CGI mecha combat and bright, vivid designs that should be familiar to many anime fans: Series creator/director Shoji Kawamori was also behind such series as Vision of Escaflowne, Macross Plus and Earth Girl Arjuna, and he brings many of his familiar obsessions to the table, particularly unrequited love, Christian and kabbalistic religious iconography, archery and his trademark glowing images. Kawamori's work has become nearly as recognizable for its peculiar specificities as Hayao Miyazaki's, and almost as indicative of quality. (And as a major bonus, Kawamori usually works with composer Yoko Kanno, who delivers her usual wildly diverse, lovely soundtrack here.)

Hopping vampires, zipping story

Aquarion is frustrating in parts because it's so very familiar: The specific characters are far too reminiscent of characters from Kawamori's other anime, right down to the designs, and the Shadow Angels' minions are so much like Neon Genesis Evangelion's Angels that it's hard to take even the most beautifully animated combats entirely seriously. Long-term anime fans could probably point out the source of nearly every familiar anime type here, from the bespectacled smart kid who resembles Pidge from Voltron to the blind, white-haired seer girl who seems to have popped out of X.

And yet, for all that, it's easy to get caught up in Aquarion's emotional drama. There are a ton of plot threads tangled up here, largely concerning pilots emotionally or sexually obsessed with each other. The usual transforming-robots trope becomes something a little more graphic here, as pilots whose ships are combining also Merge psychically, in an intimate and intensely pleasurable process; they talk about it often in only barely veiled sexual terms, particularly as regards their "first time," and whom they most want to Merge with. (Most of them have complicated emotional attachments; fortunately, they learn early on that jealousy, rage and misery power their psychic attacks just as effectively as stern willpower.) The hormone level is high, and yet Aquarion isn't particularly titillating; it has Escaflowne's sense of broad, romantic/dramatic sweep instead.

It also has Escaflowne's visual style. The CGI isn't always masked, but it's often stunning, and the more traditional animation is beautiful as well. The best parts of the series involve the Shadow Angels, whose bizarre world and outlandish designs are the most creative part of a series that's otherwise so driven by its influences that it sometimes resembles parody. Between the visuals, Kanno's elegant score and the vast emotional power of the story, there's plenty here for anime fans to love, even if they can't get over how derivative it is. Looked at another way, though, it can be seen as the ultimate high-tech update of previously loved shows, and certainly a shinier, sleeker twist on a set of familiar stories about teen pilots and sinister alien threats.