Genesis of Aquarion

Eleven years before the start of the series, a disaster only referred to as the "Great Catastrophe" destroyed significant parts of the world and killed off many of its inhabitants. Along with that disaster came the appearance of the "Shadow Angels", a winged humanoid species, which seems to have been in slumber for twelve thousand years. These beings harvest the humans on Earth, which they call the "wingless ones", like cattle, as to extract their prana (life force) from them, which serves as energy and nutrition to the Shadow Angels.
The Shadow Angels facilitate their harvesting via giant, floating harvesting machines which are guarded by giant golem-like creatures, the "Cherubim Soldiers". How these are normally piloted is unknown, yet there are times when they are piloted by Shadow Angels.
Ordinary weapons prove ineffective against the giant fighting weapons, but a human expedition under the leadership of Gen Fudou had eventually excavated three very technologically advanced fighter planes. Gen Fudou disappeared, but an organization called Deava took over the research of these machines, which they call Vectors, trying to find out how to use them. The three Vectors are called Vector Luna, Vector Mars and Vector Sol.
They find out that only people who are Element users can control the Vectors and, ultimately, unite the Vectors to form the giant fighting machine Aquarion.
During the first sortie to fight a Cherubim Soldier, they encounter the young boy Apollo, who seems to be the reborn hero Apollonius, also known as the "Solar Wing", who has betrayed the "Shadow Angels" for his love, Celiane.
Later on, it is revealed that military development, in association with Deava, has created military Vectors; similar in ability to the first three, but with additional conventional weaponry.

Genre: Mecha, Romance