Note: It is suggested that you watch Eureka Seven AO before reading this post, but it is not necessary. It is divided into three parts so that anyone can read it: 1. Relatively spoiler-free thoughts on the characters. 2. Spoilers on Eureka Seven AO. 3. Spoilers on Eureka Seven AO and Eureka Seven. Each section is clearly marked.
It has now been a while since Eureka Seven AO finished and I feel like it is time to share some of my thoughts on the series. I will avoid going too deep into the details since I do not remember them all, which is not that odd considering how the series introduces lots of ideas but never really does anything with them and the fact that I never really like it to begin with.
In other words, if you see some mistake, please call me out on it! When I someday re-watch it in the near future, I will go through every episode and point out the flaws. You can view this post, along with the other coming two, as scattered thoughts on what I believe the Eureka Seven AO did wrong.
To start, let us talk about how poor the characters are.
All Posts
Why Eureka Seven AO is Bad #01 – When Shallow Characters Dominate
Why Eureka Seven AO is Bad #02 – A Story That Never Really Matters, Identity Crisis and Other Things
Why Eureka Seven AO is Bad #03 (End) – It Goes Against Everything Eureka Seven Stood For
General thoughts on the characters from Eureka Seven AO
(relatively spoiler-free)
It is not rare for anime to have shallow characterization, with characters not rationally or logically dealing with a certain situation. Often they also lack any kind of proper development or traits, only leaving a blank slate that acts in a certain way because the plot demands it. Sometimes the characters may also change personality from one episode to another without any good reason.
This may all work in silly harem, but in a series that believes that it is all about its characters it simply becomes a case of crashing and burning. Eureka Seven AO is such an example, using all the aforementioned and even more without feeling any shame. This seriously hurts an already plot-wise weak series since there is not a single character to care about or be interested in.
Are we supposed to care about the main character Ao, someone that barely has any personality? We never follow his train of thought and only see him trying to make everyone happy, something that is mind-boggling at times. What is even his motivation? Finding his mother? No, that was only important in the first couple of episodes.
Grab something to eat, because this will be a long post.
What about the side-kicks? Except Elena and Naru who change personalities in basically every episode, there is nothing at all. No character-building. No growth. Nada. There is barely any interaction between the characters as well. Only in the wonderfully whacky OVA, Eureka Seven AO: The Flowers of Jungfrau, we actually see the characters truly talk to each other in a casual way. It is episodes like this that helps build the characters, but sadly Eureka Seven AO forgot about that. Instead it does not really know what kind of series it wants to be. Stand-alone or sequel? Episodic or not? It suffers from an identity crisis. However, this matter will fully be discussed in the next post.
Another problem is that the characters themselves feel inconsequential to the overall plot. Nothing they do affect the story in any way, something which becomes painfully obvious when a character outright screams about having killed people and no-one bats an eye. The characters only care when the plot needs to move forward, the writers decided and that is the law. It is lacklustre and frustrating. Nothing matters and I could care less.
Let me talk about the characters now.
Individual thoughts on the characters from Eureka Seven AO
(spoilers on Eureka Seven AO)
Ao Fukai
Ao is the main character of the series and also the son of Renton and Eureka from the original series. At first I liked Ao since he was a character that had a clear goal in mind (“I want to find my mother!”) and actively did things on his own. After the initial arc on Okinawa, however, this all vanishes and he becomes the typical “good boy” that is hesitant to basically everything. He also switches sides two times in a single episode for no apparent reason (among other weird things).
The viewers are never really introduced to Ao, despite being the main character and the one we should root for. Why does he not want to attack Truth? What does he feel about Naru? Why was he fine with sending his own parents and killing the Scub? Nobody knows.
Fleur Blanc
Fleur, along with Elena, are two characters that could loosely be described as secondary main characters. They are always around Ao, but they never really amount to anything. In Fleur’s case she is the daughter of the president of Generation Bleu and that is it. Later on she even becomes the new president of the company, effectively removing her from the story completely.
She does care about Ao, but it is rather vague if she loves him due to it being portrayed as if she has a crush on Gazelle during the entire series. In the final episodes it seems like she does love Ao, which completely comes out of the blue since we rarely saw them talk to each other.
Elena Peoples
Elena is one of the worst characters in Eureka Seven AO and the purpose of her existence still makes me confused. At first she is a generic otaku character (yes, seriously) that spouts references at any given time which completely clashes with the serious mood. Not before long we are told she hates Eureka for whatever the reason and that she took another person’s identity and god knows what more.
Her character is a mess and becomes crazier by each episode, changing personality at a pace only rivaled by Naru. And not anyone cares about her cryptic lines or her even saying that she is not the person they think she is. Elena stands out like a sore thumb and only has the purpose of creating horrible drama about identity. Eureka saved her by transporting her to the future which, for some unexplained reason, is a big deal for her.
“I’m crazy, why don’t you care?”
I cannot help but feel that her character was re-written as Eureka Seven AO went on, which I loosely base on her appearance. In the first series, Eureka Seven, the Humanoid Coralians shared two visual traits: distinct hair- and eye color. Eureka had turquoise hair and purple eyes, Sakuya had purple hair and pink eyes, while Anemone (a human modified to be a Humanoid Coralian) had pink hair and purple eyes. Not exactly common colors, are they? These traits are what made them stand out. In Eureka Seven AO this trend continues with Ao having turquoise hair and violet-red eyes.
Now, take a look at Elena again. She has pink hair and purple eyes, which clearly is not normal. One could argue that this is in fact just dyed hair and colored contact lenses to prevent revealing her real identity (or her only being an otaku), but doing so would be forgetting that she had these colors even as a little kid. The same applies to when she showers. In other words, something here is amiss. Did the writers of Eureka Seven AO completely forget such an important detail? While the writing honestly is pretty awfully, they did pay attention to this particular topic since Eureka and Ao were discriminated back on Okinawa.
Was Elena originally going to be Ao’s sister (or related to Anemone)? It would not surprise me, considering how much nonsense the final episode is in its current state.
Ivica Tanović
He is the chief of Team Pied Piper and the one in charge of Ao, Fleur and Elena. He once fought in a way and his family was killed, but later joined Generation Bleu. Despite being the chief he barely plays a big role and is reduced to only worry about the children.
Team Gazelle
From left to right: Pippo, Gazelle, Han Juno.
In the first few episodes it looked like these three would play a similar role as Holland and Talho from Eureka Seven, meaning they would the semi-adult friends who introduced the world and the likes to the main character. But after Okinawa they completely disappeared, only to appear when the plot needed them. I kind of liked these guys.
Team Goldilocks
From left to right: Maggie Kwan, Bruno Hans, Chloe McCaffrey, Maeve McCaffrey.
Also known as “Team Worthless”. They only screw up and barely got any screen-time, yet we are supposed to care about them. Bruno dies when we are introduced with him and it’s so, so sad. Except it is not. Oddly enough, Maggie gets screen-time in the “second reality” (after Ao used the Quartz Gun) despite having none before. Are we supposed to care?
Team Harlequin
From left to right: Member, Hannah “Mama” Bester, Member, Member.
Okay, so I do know the members’ names, but I have no idea who is who because Eureka Seven AO never even bothered trying to introduce these characters. The names are: Liu Ing, Lerato Hood, Rajkumar Nair. They have fancy IFOs and live in space. And Mama Hannah is a nice person. Somehow they are important so they switch sides to help Ao. Hell, why are the characters in Eureka Seven AO so shitty?
The Tech Crew
The middle three characters, from left to right: Ivica Tanović, Rebecka Hallström, Alexander Boyle. The rest are not even properly introduced.
Of course, Ivica and Revecka are not from the tech crew. These guys take care of the IFOs, but they are only shown a handful of times and even then only as background characters. Great development!
As for Georg, he is the AI that is used throughout Generation Bleu. He is later replaced by a Secret, though.
I still wonder what those ear-thingies are.
Naru Arata
Naru is rather similar to Elena when it comes to execution. She changes personality all the time, from one second being friends with Ao and the next hating him. Suddenly supporting Truth, but also the Scub. She is inconsistent as heck and I cannot bring myself to rant over her. Just read what I wrote about Elena being weird and apply Naru instead. She is a horrible character that adds nothing to Eureka Seven AO. She does not do a thing except being annoying!
Truth
Truth is the worst character in Eureka Seven AO. Not even Elena and Naru combined can beat Truth in terms of awfulness. When first introduced I was already preparing for the worst outcome, but never would I have thought Truth would be so much worse. It is hard to comprehend, even!
Truth is a Secret that “lost his mission” and became a human, but also part-Scub. It is kinda confusing, but it is not that bad. The main idea is that Truth lacks identity, which is a running theme in Eureka Seven AO (see Elena, for example), and therefore goes crazy. He also wants to find the “truth”, which in his case is another world. This is where it all fails, because Truth is a single-minded character with no other purpose than to act as a villain.
He does not know he is a Secret even though he can use their powers and clearly is not human, yet he refuses to accept it which only makes him crazier. He kills some people, but spares some. Truth is (pun not intended); he is so overpowered that he could kill everyone in the series if he wanted to! Yet he does not, because that would be the end of the series. He can change appearance, create explosions and whatnot. He is an example of when writers create a too strong of a villain.
Truth must be a mere afterthought. He barely plays an important role for the overall plot of the series, but even so he somehow managed to become the final boss of the series. He pops up when action is needed, which is only a handful of episodes, and then disappears and is never cared for again.
I believe that when the writers of Eureka Seven AO had finished the script some smartass commented on how there was not a villain. The political stuff did not matter, the Secrets became allies and the Scub were not a visible threat. So they added Truth. Screw him.
Secrets
Secrets are never fully explained, despite being pretty damn important for the series. They are Earth’s “immune system” and exterminate anything that does not belong there, which in this case is the Scub since they come from another dimension/time (it was never clarified whether Eureka Seven AO was time travel or dimension hopping). For some reason this also lead to them attacking humans. Another weird thing is how they come in different shapes and do not seem to co-operate with each other. And stuff.
Why were Secrets never explained anyway?
The Forgotten Characters
Top, from left to right: Christophe Blanc, Stanley Fry, Rebecka Hallström.
Bottom, rom left to right: Toshio Fukai, Niki Tanaka, Nakamura Yasumochi.
Here are some characters that acted as if they were important to the story, only to never make any sense or actually be important.
Christophe and Stanley, despite being the bosses of Generation Bleu, did nothing.
Rebecka was in Team Pied Piper and it seemed as she was a spy or something along those lines when introduced, but she never really had a part in the series except making the backgrounds of the series less empty.
Toshio is Ao’s guardian, but only appears at the start and end of the series. Also, he kept a secret from Ao and the viewers that is revealed at the end, just because. Gotta keep them secrets!
Niki is from the US army while Nakamura is from the Japanese Defence Force. They get screen-time for political babble, aka the stuff that never really matters.
Thoughts on recurring characters
(spoilers on Eureka Seven AO and Eureka Seven)
Eureka
Truth be told, Eureka is probably the best character in Eureka Seven AO. She acts as you would expect her to do after all these years, which is a Good Thing™. Due to her being stuck in time for the most part, she does not get much screen-time, sadly. The only thing that baffles me is that she never told Ao, or anyone close-by, about the current situation despite knowing it. But as you all know… gotta keep them secrets!
Renton Thurston
The main character of Eureka Seven comes back at the end of Eureka Seven AO to save the series! Or so I thought. Instead, it was not really Renton after all. This character only magically shares the same name and a somewhat similar appearance, but that is it. Do not let people fool you, because this clearly is not Renton from Eureka Seven.
Whereas Eureka was as you would expect her to be, Renton is not. Gone is the clumsy and naïve young boy. No, here is the cool and badass adult! Not a single character trait is left. Renton is here to destroy the Scub despite him saving it in his own universe! And killing the Scub means killing Eureka too! What about his child, Ao? He does not matter in the slightest, might as well let him die too, because “only the original timeline matters” as he says.
Good grief, what the hell is wrong with you Bones? I can accept Renton having grown up, but this is just an insult to the fans of Eureka Seven. Not only does he act like a different character, he also looks very different. Yes, he has roughly the same hair (except that someone spilled white paint on it) and face, but he looks very old. He does not smile. He wears black. He is cool and badass, because that is what the plot demands.
To make it worse, he is not voiced by his original voice actor Yuuko Sanpei but Keiji Fujiwara instead. Yes, I am aware of the fact that Renton wanted to grow up and become like Holland in Eureka Seven, but to actually take his voice?! That is insane! If you got to change the voice actor, you do not use someone that voiced another character before.
This is not Renton. If you had said Holland, then maybe I would have accepted it.
Final thoughts (spoiler-free)
Seriously, why the hell are Eureka Seven AO’s characters so shallow/poor/shitty/you name it? I can accept that they all do not have any deep back-story, because that would take up too much time, but the least I could ask for was to make them consistent and actually play a part in the story. But they do not! Heck, they barely even talk to each other, which is a much greater insult. Why have characters if they will not interact with each other in the first place?
Did anyone here actually enjoy the characters?
Because I sure did not.
Anime Viking 
Too much truth. This series is terribad.
I don’t get Truth.
I liked certain elements of the characters such as Elena’s original character, and Fluer at times, but they are all inconsistent. I found that they had actually changed Eureka substantially for this series, making her far weaker and less likely to do anything, whereas in the original series, while quite passive at times she was still a much stronger character. I actually ignored Renton since he clearly isnt the same character and is more akin to being a ‘Holland Jr’ rather than an older Renton.
The problem with such series is that they do rely on the characters being good to make the story as a whole work, and when you have so many inconsistencies and generally annoying characters it doesnt help.
I can’t say I liked the “original Elena”, because for me the otaku-type really clashed with the story and how it tried to be serious. Fleur was semi-interesting and it’s a shame she didn’t get more time in the spotlight, because I really liked her character design (well, I like blue!).
As for Eureka… the problem was that she was mostly stuck in time. When she was not, she did not have any kind of “goal” in mind except, so it’s not weird she didn’t show her stronger self. I personally liked how she showed actual emotions, something which developed very well in the first series.
Warning: AO Spoilers in this comment.
——
Good stuff! You pretty much hit on every single problem I had with the characters (with the exception of that cult leader guy who raised Truth. Another subplot that went absolutely nowhere). What annoyed me about every single character in AO is that it looked like they were going somewhere with them – most had flashes of backstory, or the first signs of some kind of character development – but then it either changed completely or just never got resolved. The best shows utilize Chekhov’s Gun (showing you a gun in the first act and firing it in the third). AO showed you an entire arsenal of weapons in the first act, but then threw them in the garbage and spent the third act staring at a pinwheel.
To me, AO was like Guilty Crown x10 simply because it carries the badge of Eureka Seven. At least GC was a self-contained disaster. AO not only belongs to a fantastic franchise, but also had a ton of potential, in my opinion. I thought the settings and the general idea for the plot were good, and allowed them to do both the same thing and different things than E7 did, but it was almost like the show was conceptualized by people who were talented, but actually made by people who weren’t.
Your right when you say the conceptual AO does not match with what was implemented. I got that feeling at several key points throughout the show. There were just far too many dead end subplots, neglected “main” characters, and ultimately irrelevant framed details scattered through the series. Lol… These could serve as the “chalk outline” of the original AO story. They should make a show entitled “Who shot AO?”
Hahaha yup. I called it “A Tale of Two AOs.” Or even “A Tale of Two Aos.” Works both ways. 🙂
I pretty much agree with everything you said. The idea is fine, but the execution and certain details are just… bad.
Also, regarding the father of Truth, I was gonna bring him up in the next post. There’s not that much info on him, anyway.
Reminds me of any gundam series ever constant swipping swapping extremely retarded ba characters that just make you wish they would either shut up or die mainly the latter extremely bad dialouge I mean not even the Star wars prequels are as whiny as Gundam or parts of this and many other animes.
I could not agree more with regard to the characters in this show. I understand that shorter, plot driven series will not get similar character development as Psalms of Planets, but Bones seemed to bite off more than they could chew with the ambitious initial direction that this show took. As you astutely pointed out with your breakdown of circumstantial evidence leading to a presumption of her being rewritten mid show (perhaps even multiple times), I’m of the opinion that quite a few of these characters were initially intended to have far more significant, or at least different, roles in the story than they did in the end.
Others have told me that I give Bones far too much credit when I postulate such things, but I find it difficult to trivialize a system so regimented and process oriented as story development with any creative work. The amount of work that must be undertaken to a certain degree of quality before potential sponsors will even fund projects leads me to believe that something rather catastrophic occurred within the studio which lead to this abortion. This is not to say that I am unrealistic about the fact that anime, in general, lacks a decent track record of quality and artistry as opposed to generic and serialized money factory franchises (the track record is, more than likely, similar to other realms of the entertainment industry). But this conflict serves to highlight the most tragic aspect of AO’s failure. Dai Sato crafted a (flawed in its perfection) masterpiece of fairytale storytelling and compelling character development in Psalms of Planets. Instead of doing what is necessary to sustain the franchise (and make more money) by treading water in the wake of the original story and throwing viewers a bone or two until the next series or OVA, it seems like Bones chose D. screw PoP and lets bury this franchise…
It would not surprise me, considering how many different plot-threads AO started but never finished. Just take Fleur. Remember how it was noted that she had a scar on her stomach? Never brought up again.
There’s a line between “world/character-building” and dropping threads. To give an example from the same franchise, Eureka Seven had a line about seasons in episode 17. It’s a simple line that is never brought up again (because for the characters, there’s no reason to care).
“”A woman’s mind changes like the autumn wind”, huh?”
“Autumn? What’s that?”
“Dunno… It’s just an old saying.”
That’s world-building! A simple, yet fine example of it. The episode itself is full of character interactions, too.
As for the rest you mentioned… I have no clue how the creation of anime works. I do remember reading cases of stuff being re-written, but that isn’t common, right?
What I find fascinating about this whole thing is that this series script was written by Aikawa Shou who is one of the script writers behind Rahxephon. That series had similar twists and turns to AO, but made them work and remains one of the few really ‘talky’ anime series that I love. Admittedly there were three people working on Rahxephon’s script (one of whom actually wrote the script for Guilty Crown interestingly enough).
You get the feeling while watching the series that they wanted to do so much with it, there were all the signs of various story arcs and different characters moving around one another as part of a complex and potentially fascinating series. The problem is that it didn’t go anywhere and had an almost schizophrenic approach to how it used its characters – marking one out as important one episode only to be forgotten about 5 minutes later and utterly ignored in very next episode.
I am not a fan of the ‘alternate reality’ element, but the world itself had a massive amount of potential that was never realised, which is probably one of my residing memories of the series as a whole, wasted potential. That the characters were inconsistent and largely pointless to any sort of narrative that the series had going on seems to be fairly inconsequential not considering the numerous problems that the series had as a whole.
Bones are a studio that only seem capable of making two kinds of the series, the brilliant and the mundane. Even during their mundane work we see glimpses of something better, something amazing that for whatever reason will never be fulfilled. I do think that in this case part of the problem lay in the name ‘Eureka Seven’ – the gravitas that such a name brings with it may have ultimately harmed the series, especially when it will always be viewed in relation to its far superior if flawed older sibling. In many respects I think that Bones could not have made a series that stood up to the original, partly because of how good it was with everything falling in to place. Unfortunately its like they never even tried and instead created this mediocre mess which would still be bad without the Eureka Seven name, but is even worse because of it.
Your right. Rahxephon’s story seemed to work much better than Astral Ocean’s. I think the difference is proofreading… But seriously, the type of oversights that are blatant throughout this series seem to point to significant change after the fact, not just with the characters, but with the plot as well. I have suffered through more than my share of poorly written anime, but I will have to agree with you that AO seems more like an unfinished product that just had the misfortune of bearing the “Eureka SeveN” moniker.
You bring up an interesting point. There is indeed a difference between advancing/creating plot lines and true world building. The thing that gets me is that, though subtle, Bones instantiates another world (or timeline or whatever you wish to refer to it as) that has the conceptual potential to be quite unique and engaging if properly decorated and explained to the viewer (your quote from the first show is a perfect example of this). Instead, it seems as if Bones pays homage to the original story through a shared awareness in some of the characters that the world is not what it should be. This was done before in a similarly haphazard manor in this same franchise with “Pocket Full of Rainbows”. At least this time around we got some new animation and weren’t subjected to mostly stock footage.
In both of these cases it’s almost like the writing team decided, “we know that we can’t reproduce the type of story that we were able to deliver in PoP so were going to focus some of the poor characters that are trapped in this world we created on fixing things so that they can live in the PoP world… oh, by the way… we have 24 episodes to do this”. Truth, Elena and Nakamura (and Truth’s adopted father) were all obsessed with either changing everything or going to the PoP continuity to such an inexplicably rabid degree that it just seems like there should be more to it then there actually was (especially Nakamura… what the hell was that all about?). Bones had a pre-built world to use and they discarded it in favor of this new one… then did nothing with it and reminisced about the old one by way of tormented, woefully underdeveloped, characters that never communicated with each other. This seems a strange strategy to use on such a beloved franchise. Being a steadfast fan of Macross and Evangelion, I can’t say that I have never been trolled in my home franchises before, but for some reason this seems far worse…
A quite elaborate post, I share most of your thoughts, I have to say.
Eureka Seven AO was a bit more than disappointing especially for fans of the first Eureka Seven. At first I had some hope for a good action adventure with a little romance, Ao and Naru could have been such a nice couple, but it never turned out to be like that in the end 😦
These many twists in the story ruined he whole storytelling somehow, in the end not much sense after all these events was left. I’m quite annoyed by this horrible work of the writers and the director.
The twist seem to have become the main focus of this show, instead of developing one or two characters.
I think they’ve put too much in just 24 episodes and let it end in a very halfhearted way.
Yes, they tried to put in way too much. 😦
I read your post about AO! Funny how we both believe the OVA was good.
yea its not even half hearted…I can understand they probably never planned on building a superb universe like they did on 7 but mannnn the inconsistencies of the characters and the shitty plot. That they had to invent a gun that can magically change everything so they can clear up all the messes they made..YET! still failed in delivering a proper timeline. I dont know who their target market was cuz it certainly wasnt for mecha nerds as there weren’t enough action scenes, definitely not for kids either as its just too fucking complicated… UNLESS its just a suck our dick to the previous fans of eureka 7 to market and over exploit the great almost franchise they could have created.. Either way major kudos to eureka 7 and FU bones for ever creating AO.
I applaud you for sticking with it all the way and I am absolutely amazed you remember (or researched) all the minor characters names.
I dropped it about 15 episodes in and I think that was probably a smart move. From the sounds of it Renton shows up and is just like “What the hell guys! This shit isn’t Eureka Seven” and then he blows stuff up and goes home.
Final thought: At least the music was good.
Your right about the music. That was certainly a highlight of this show. I remember thinking that exact thing as the last scene in ep# 24 played out and the ED started playing… that and “at least it wasn’t 50+ episodes!”
Well, I mostly remember the first-name. Eureka Seven has always been good at making me remember names, for some reason. Had to look up the rest and some minor characters (like the guys from Team Harlequin).
And… you pretty much summed it up. That is exactly how it went.
And music? It rocks! Far too good for this series.
So in shiort, Ao has sequel-itis. Saw a similar situation when fans backlashed after watching Kiddy-Girl and. While I’ve “embraced the moe” long ago, I can understand why hardcore fans would bash KGa after the well received Kiddy Grade.
Back to ES. I haven’t seen Eureka 7, nor have any interest in doing so but your “wrestling mark-esque” flaw rundown more than explains what I need to know without having to go deeper into the main plot, which you’ll do next post.
Sequel-itis is a disease that has been present in the entertainment world since the The Phantom Menace (Obviously much earlier than that) and all we can do is hope the next sequel of another show delivers where a previous sequel of a previous show failed.
Is any of this making sense to you, Orgaf the Relentless?
I have no idea what you’re talking about.
It’s best you don’t. I tend to get long-winded every now and then, scaring people away from me.
Let me try again. Sequels and spin-offs are often inferior to their prequels. This show, according to your post, is one of them.
Yes, this show is worse, but I am not taking the original into account when writing this. That goes for the final post.
Alrighty. I’ll look forward to more of your constructive criticisms as they appear.
Well, the idea of my posts is this:
1. Characters of AO suck.
2. Story etc of AO suck.
3. It does not even work as a sequel.
Who the heck is AO for anyway?
That is why I used “Kiddy-Girl and” as a comparison. While I enjoyed the show for what it was, I won’t deny the same topics you’re going to talk about, can be used to describe Kiddy Girl’s inferiority to Kiddy Grade.
Okay, I won’t take your time any longer. I honestly can’t wait to see how you’ll break down the main plot of AO’s flaws.
Well, I hope you’ll like it! But I seriously cannot bring myself to remember every dropped sublot, because there are millions. When I rewatch the series I will blog each episode, so view the next post as a “simpler” overview on the matter.
Awesome. That reminds me. Speaking of “torturing yourself by watching episodes of a bad show in the name of science”, is Sword Art Online a guilty pleasure to you, or a source of unspeakable mental pain?
A source of unspeakable mental pain. “Who Is Imouto” was guilty pleasure.
I feel ya brutha. I felt the same pain while enduring th blasphemy that was Nisemonogatari, or as I like to call it, the sell out sequel.
As for Ore no Imouto, as much as I enjoyed the show (Kirino and her friends aside) for the messages, topics it conveyed and most importantly, Kuroneko and her little sister (THE REAL TITULAR CHARACTER!), I can understand you not having enjoyed it as much.
A guilty pleasure of mine would have to be Kodomo no Jikan. I’d explain but I’ve already reviewed it and it’s hard to convey in short why I surprisingly enjoyed it more than I should have.
Wow, we’re actually having a conversation of sorts.
“Who Is Imouto” isn’t Oreimo! It’s “Kono Naka ni Hitori, Imōto ga Iru!”.
I don’t pay attention to English Translated titles that much. Anyway, you now know my guiltiest pleasure in terms of anime.
I 100% agree with you, I can’t believe Bones made an anime with characters like that, in almost all others bones anime the characters are great.
Well, sometime you gotta fail, right?
I have to disagree with the description of Renton, because:
Ao proved Dewey right. That’s why Renton, realizing this, took up the task of finishing the job. He’s still the hero, only he no longer has the option to be a naive child after he saw one of his kids die because he protected the scub while the other is going to if the scub win in Ao’s world. His characterization is justified in that, after suffering through a trauma conga line ending with everything he ever believed being proven wrong by this series, going on a genocidal rampage is the only option left to him.
Renton didn’t have a time altering quartz gun. He didn’t have a family anymore. He didn’t even have the real Nirvash, which could bring about miracles, to compensate for any of his inadeuacies. All he had was an imitation Nirvash without a soul, a heart filled with regret and the fact that he’d become a total badass in E7’s finale. It would be unrealistic to expect Renton to be the same in the context of Ao, not after 50 episodes of growing up only to have Ao deconstruct everything he ever fought for AND THROW IT IN HIS FACE. Being the badass true final boss is the best possible scenario for him, as opposed to being dead or just crying in a corner.
The Renton who carved a love letter into the moon had stopped letting his fate be decided for him, only this time, his knowledge puts him at odds not with the psychopathic know-it-all Dewey but instead with his idiot know-nothing son who just happens to be the designated hero. Unfortunately, Ao’s more of a plot device, while Renton STILL comes off as the hero, even if real heroism in the context of Ao leaves of a bitter taste in the mouths of viewers who hate what this series has forced Renton to become.
Renton and Eureka were arguably the most well thought out characters in the show. But that’s probably because they had an entire series worth of development to fall back on. The rest were new, and the writers were making it up as they went along. In the end, everything wrong with Renton is little more than the reasonable outcome of an unreasonable plot. Had Ao been different, so would Renton. But it’s not his or his writers’ fault that the entire plot of Ao was specifically devoted to completely and utterly destroying everything he ever believed in or cared about.
Still, future Eureka and Renton are the best damn characters in the entire series, and it’s a shame they didn’t become part of the show sooner. Maybe then there might’ve been hope for the series. But probably not, because the plot still sucked.
Not sure if you have, but if you read my third post on AO you will probably understand why I dislike how they ruined him. His drastic change doesn’t make sense. He did not even try to communicate, he just went on a mindless rampage! That is a complete change of character and not who he was in the first series. It has nothing to do about growing up. Bones changed his character.
I wonder about that. Eureka’s Nirvash Spec-2 had a soul, for some reason, and it seemed to be the same with Nirvash Spec-V3 (its hand moved on its own).
I was never in my life more excited to be watching An anime such as this one… To finally have a new series of Eureka Seven Come out was more than a dream come true…only to have it broken down to a point where i find out that Bones have completely screwed up the entire series and made nothing from Eureka Seven itself mean anything. I am highly disappointed in what they have done here and hope deeply from my heart that they remake this into a better telling story and alot less rushed.
I feel your pain 😦
I’ve heard that the original writer of E7AO backed out of the project after the first two episodes (which explains why the writers had no idea what to do with the Okinawan independence subplot). Also, Naru was going to be a member of Pied Piper. I wish I could find a source for all this. Really, it’s clear the writers had no idea what to do with Naru.
I have heard the same, actually. There were some internal conflicts which made the story a mess. But, just like you, I cannot find a source on it.
[…] Posts Why Eureka Seven AO is Bad #01 – When Shallow Characters Dominate Why Eureka Seven AO is Bad #02 – A Story That Never Really Matters, Identity Crisis and […]
[…] Posts Why Eureka Seven AO is Bad #01 – When Shallow Characters Dominate Why Eureka Seven AO is Bad #02 – A Story That Never Really Matters, Identity Crisis and […]
I FULLY AGREE with everything you’ve posted in all three WESAOiB. Im gonna address all 3 here instead on separate posts.(Sorry its so long)
The characters sucked, completely. Not one character stuck with me besides Ao and that was because he was in fact Eureka and Renton’s son. AO was about him. Thats all.
I watched the first episode when it aired and I read the first manga. I stopped right after. I had to brace myself for what the series was going to become. I did however go into AO completely expecting the dimension hop due to Pocket Full of Rainbows. I just finished the series today (marathoned it) so my mind is fresh to give a good opinion.
What I learned the hard way: Dont go into AO thinking you’re gonna get a Eureka Seven feeling. Its not even close.
Now lets get to plot, it indeed had great potential to be a lot more than what it was. IF THEY HAD SLOWED DOWN. The entire anime was rushed, hands down. Like the Okinawa arc, nonexistent. Then Naru’s arc, what is that? Then Ao looking for his mom, what? that was mentions a handful of times. Then overall how they tried to figure out who was the bad guy (Ao even mentions this in the last episode) which was obviously the main downfall of the show. First it was the Secret, then it was the Scub-coral, then Truth, then each other, back to the scub-coral, then back to truth. I had a hard time keeping up and almost dropped the show twice. The only thing that kept me watching it was the hope of seeing Renton and maybe some characters form the original series. I was also able to watch it because as an Eureka Seven fan and knowing what should be where (and im a serious hardcore fan) i was able to fill in the plot gaps that ONLY surrounded Ao and the intentional plot Bones was going for while watching it.
The only way i can describe this series: its a good typical series in itself (if you fill in the gaps) but a complete stab to it predecessor. I guess you can take AO as: Right now the world doesnt know how to change itself and accept things that are different, but if you really work towards it then maybe one day. Whereas in Eureka Seven its: The world needs to be changed and there are a lot of people wiling to make it happen no matter what they have to do. And I think the people in E7 (except the military and leaders but even they come to understand later) are more open minded because they “moved to a different planet” giving them the reality of “there are unexplained things in the universe” and they are accepting of aliens and people that are different. And Eureka then Renton became that symbol of that hope that changed that world with their unity.
But in Ao there is no Renton and Eureka, just common sense and military and politics. Just people that want to accept one reality and shun whats different and get rid of it by any means. Everything that was different was the enemy, over and over again. I think this was the main plot they wanted but was crushed under bad writing and horrible characters. This is where the line stands between both series, Ao was in the wrong world at the wrong time. Doesnt help that AO takes place 2027 which is a lot close to the current year we’re in right now, and as you can see our world is trying to change and be more open minded about things but thats still not going very far. Politics I dont really care for them so i dont want to blame it on them but thats a big part in my opinion. Whereas Eureka Seven takes place a 1000+ years in the future and in the future people will be more open minded. LOL
Now for the characters.
Eureka was portrayed perfectly in my opinion, the only problem i had with her was the fact that she was piloting the Nirvash while being pregnant and Renton let her lol
Renton I had no problem with at all. I could be a bit bias because he was the main reason I stuck with the series so no matter what he did I was like “YEAH RENTON!” But As another person said in their comment, AO crushed his beliefs and threw them in his face like a dirty rag. He grew up, and I dont think he thought the Scub-coral were bad, I feel he thought that he had no other choice. As you can clearly see hes been world hoping to find Eureka and each world(time) he went to the scubs had already destroyed everything, women and children (thats probably what hit him the most). Then finally finding the world where he sent Eureka he finds out shes stuck in time, 10 years had passed (whoa for him), the scub-coral are destroying that world, and even his son is battling to protect everyone. It seemed like he was probably ready to make the decision to destroy the original Scub if the time came with Eureka, regardless. Eureka did say that someone told her that having a kid was selfish of her, whos to say that it wasnt said to Renton as well? Knowing Renton and Eureka, this was probably a conversation and decision that they had made a while ago (but we will never know cuz AO was butchered). As for the whole Renton had a fake Nirvash, thats not true at all. Renton HAD Nirvash. I suspect that Eureka’s (Now Naru’s) Nirvash was one from a different time or dimension or something and the one that Ao is using is a Nirvash copy made by Renton (which is why he got so mad when it had a archetype). Other than this Renton was fine, did you see them tears, whats Renton without crying! I didnt watch E7 in japanese so i didnt know he had Hollands voice, thats way stupid. Bones get it together. Also that white travesty on his head, everyone can live without that. What was even the point.
Ao, the only things i can say about him was that i gave him a huge chance because he was Eureka and Renton’s son. But he didnt really have character growth and the whole time i watched it I kept thinking “You’re definitely Renton’s son!” He was similar to Renton in a lot of ways, more minor than major but Renton nonetheless. Which sucked because that outright told me his character was going to be great or his character was going to be boring. He was neither, he was just there, literally. Just like all the other characters in the show.
Sometimes i expected a lot from him and other times i didnt expect at all. Even for the last episode, i knew he wasnt going to choose his parents, that was obvious before Renton even came. He barely cared about Eureka (only when the plot wanted him to) and he didnt want to care about Renton, even though he never even asked about him, he just assumed which annoyed me a bit when it came to the “I hate my dad episode” and he just agreed and had no reason for it.
I dont even have to evaluate the other characters, you pretty hit the hammer on the nail with them, i’d just like to say I hate Naru.
As far as music, I only liked two songs when compared to the original series. Each song for Eureka Seven FELT like an E7 song. I didnt get that from any of the songs from this series at all. The second Opening was nice because there is a part from “Days” the first E7 opening and the Song in the last episode “Parallel Sign” because its a remake of “Niji” the last song in E7. Parallel Sign was the only song that felt like a E7 song to me. The other songs were wasted on this series.
Now to try to answer some of your questions from the second post.
What is the Quartz Gun?
Or basically how did it came to exist. The answer i have will only open two more questions but here it goes. The quartz gun is quartz obviously, it was transformed because Ao touched it with the Nirvash. Things in E7 transform all the time because of the Nirvash. Or it could’ve been because it was Ao piloting the Nivash that made it transform from his will to save everyone.
Now the questions that arise: How did it transform if the Nirvash doesnt have an archetype in it and If the Scub-coral is bad and isnt talking to anyone why would the Quartz from the scub-coral transform to help Ao?
– Why are there North Pole Lights in Eureka’s own world? They only come from the Quartz Gun.
– Where does Seven Swell come from if it is not from Nirvash and the Amita Drive?
The answer to this was explained by Renton. The scub-coral made the quartz in Eureka’s world to transport to other worlds so of course the dimension travel had to start in Eureka’s world.
Now the answer for the second question was loosely to not explained at all. Eureka became quartz herself when she disappeared with the quartz. Then using the quartz she made some bogus Seven Swell to call Renton (Also if you look at Episode 0 Eureka goes on about breaking her body into 7 pieces, i dont know if that has anything to do with it but it did just come to mind).
When Ao entered Mark-1, also known as RA272 Nirvash, his hair- and eye color changed to Humanoid Coralian colors. Why?
Yeah no i agree, why?
Why did the Nirvash Spec-2 Eureka came in have a mind of its own?
I think i gave my theory already, Its from another dimension lol
Why did the Scub attack mankind in Eureka Seven AO?
The word “Attack” is overused in AO, i think the scub coral was simply doing what it always does, evolve and learn. Who’s to say that it wasnt just trying to repeat what it did in the first series? (Referring to your third post) They told Renton and Eureka that they would find another world to live on….thats what they’ve been doing. Lack of communication between the Scub and Eureka man, all of this could’ve been solved~
Why does Renton have partly white hair?
Holland complex. Or maybe he lost a bet? (Lol Im with you though, like why??)
So, about Naru… what was her plan? Why could she fly in the first episode? How could she see the world from Eureka Seven inside the Scub?
I dont care for her character AT ALL, I disliked her more than anyone. But she could fly by using Trapar waves. But that leaves room for another question: Why couldnt Eureka and Anemone fly in the original series?
Other than that I agree with ALL of your questions and then some, cuz there really are more plot holes indeed (like that Tanaka guy wanting to destroy the world for no reason).
“It is as if Bones decided to make Eureka Seven AO a series that never happened”
I actually believe this as fact. I think by the end of the series they knew the fans would hate it, they most likely hated it themselves. They just stupidly choose to air it since it was already completed, funded, and promised. AO is that one F on a perfect report card that you dont want your parents to see. So they pretty much crumbled up the paper, threw it away, and put this series behind them like it never happened~
Wow, that was a long comment. I’m amazed you could write that much! o_o
One thing I can comment on is that I really like the music in AO. It may be different (less techno and more violins), but it’s pretty great. Not always used that well, however, but that’s another thing. 🙂
Agreed on Naru part, she does not do a thing except being annoying! Also too plain, I hope Ao go with Fleur.
I really wanted to see more of Fleur. It felt like she could’ve become a really neat character if we actually got to know her.
I swear, you have read my mind. I went on a twenty minute rant about the show on episode 20 and said EVERYTHING you just said. Needless to say I agree with you. I initially thought i just wasntt getting the series cuz it was hard to follow. Really it was just hard to follow because the writing was crappy.
“Crappy” is putting it lightly. I wish I could just ask the creators what went through their minds. 😦
Just finished E7 … read the reviews on the movie. Horrible… and now E7A has the same. -.- I just wanted to see what happened to Renton and Eureka after the 1year on the ending of the 1st series. With this review, prolly I’ll just stick to my imaginations. Thanks for the early warning on Eureka 7 AO
Sadly so 😦
What did you think of Eureka Seven?
Eureka 7 is definitely a good one. I saw it airing almost a decade ago but i kept ignoring cause I dont like the artwork. Im a total evangelion fan so feels like The leading lady, Eureka is somewhat like evangelion’s rei. That’s why I totally didnt watch this before. But having watched every ‘good’ mech anime, I couldnt care less. I watched it. I really dont know how to do a review/commentary but all I can do is compare it to some other anime. Sorry Eureka 7 fans but it really is like the Evangelion. The leading lady, the chosen boy, the first ever mech found is the strongest one, the destruction of mankind, the sages which is very much like the seele of evangelion and some Biblical quotations. And Anemone is like eva’s Asuka. and eva 01 is moving by itself like zero type to protect their pilots. With a twist of Gundam Seed’s Archangel and its crew. What I enjoyed the most is the romance and cheesy moments that most other mech genre lacks. “Kyaaa~ <3"
Although some scenes are really redundant like how the children and Renton childish impulsiveness were shown. Same with the on and off chemistry/issues on the two leads. I know they are part of character development but its really annoying.
Good thing it did had a happy ending so its a plus for me. I personally dont like tragics.
I see. I don’t really agree with your view on it being like Evangelion, but everyone thinks differently!
After watching the series I had a sense if emptiness,not kidding though,sense of emptiness probably because the nirvash is fully machine until almost the end of the series and Ao character is like meh not to mention nirvash spec 2 looked a lot more simple than this new nirvash and I think the one that Renton is using is from Eureka Seven:Pockets Full of Rainbow when at the end of the movie he transformed into this kind of mage laser nirvash,I don’t even know how the hell he got it,probably by going to that universe as we all know the character in the movie actually saw the ‘real’ world of Eureka Seven there so he probably went there when the portal opened and took the nirvash 😛
I actually touched upon the multiple Nirvashes in my other post! Check it out: http://animeviking.com/2012/12/12/why-eureka-seven-ao-is-bad-02-a-story-that-never-really-matters-identity-crisis-and-other-things/
It’s sooo confusing.
All I have to say is I wish it was a 50 episode series. I like ao ive seen it three times now. I agree with your findings but I think if it was completely seperate from eureka seven (and longer) you would have liked it. For starters eureka seven is ranked #2 or 3 in basically every anime chart, behind full metal of course. to even think about following that is like finding a new lady after your absolute soulmate passes away, every woman will fail in comparison. Eureka seven is like the mona lisa, basically impossible to follow. So I dont know what yall were expecting, even if the sequel mainly featured renton and eureka ut would still be bad. The only conflict would be watching everyday civilians pick on eureka, which already happened. Completely forgetting about the original AO still had flaws like you mentioned about changing little detail on this world they created and they left old man fukai out since like episode 4. But character development in comparison to naruto bleach soul eater dragonball z etc. The worlds deepest character ever is hamlet from shakespear, and the only reason so is cause he said some cheap shit about life and death and the memory of people( read the to be or not to be part)The only difference is amount of time. Assuming that your an otaku hipster/literary genius, you probably hold a few grudges against these popular animes. But the truth is these are the most popular animes out. You cant tell me thoughs were the deepest characters around. But people love them. Mainly for the concepts and action, yes e7 was truly about love, but honestly ask yourself… take out all the fight scenes lfos and guns nd turn those int police arrest and court oder threats, do you really think you would watch e7 then? Ao takes the concepts and applies a new story. I truly believe that if the series was longer they would have done all the e7 unrelated storyboard ish you complained about. And if it wasnt related to e7, people wouldnt have hated it( mainly because it contradicts the coexistence theory and people only cared about renton and eureka and their story) but they tried to be nice and please the fans wanting more e7 without killing the original charaters. If it were instead about a boy going through life exiled because of his missing mothers mysterious actions, searching for not only her his place in the world, and then continue on up the the ending they portayed with all the confessions and sad goodbyes. Admit it. People would love it. But instead they tried to do the impossible act of following up god. Its like the 2000 slam dunk contest. Lol . All in all I loved ao because the continued the story and the concept of finding ones self and mecha robots lol. in comparison to most animes its pretty damn good and for me its easily in my top 10. And sorryfor the grammer and catastrophic organization. Its like 11pm im typing on a tablet and dont feel like organizing this message.
I think that what annoys me the most about E7 GT, as I like to call it, is that it maybe killed our chances to see another, and propper, eureka seven anime in the future, which realley makes me sad
To be fair, I don’t think that’d be needed anyway…