Hmm, a lot of you will probably disagree with this, and I’m currently double-checking to make sure of this… but this episode was pretty much amongst my top 5 endings of the year (along with Natsuyuki Rendezvous, Chihayafuru, Natsume Yuujinchou and Sakamichi no Apollon for those of you who were curious).
Why? It just went all out, tried to do a ton of stuff in just 50 minutes and managed to wrap itself up really well for the circumstances, and the way its plot ended up focusing on Renton, Eureka and Ao was just the icing on the cake: the thing I’ve been waiting for for so long, and this show delivered on it. It gave plenty of character to Renton, Eureka finally got some closure, we finally know what happened to Ao’s brother.The entire episode was erratic as hell, and the huge amount of time-skips made it quite hard to follow everything that went on, but that has always been the selling point of this series for me: not holding your hand, and just delivering plot twist after plot twist. And my suspense of disbelief has always been high enough for the characters to not want to bother with the plotholes.
The ending itself, for Renton to not be able to be with his parents… I liked it. After the entire series was building up the themes that children shouldn’t be in the battlefield, and that adults should try their best to support them, Ao entirely turns that around by just trying to do everything himself. This could be his coming of age, or just that he got what was coming to him. I mean, it’s not like this show tries to portray its main characters as right: they too have their flaws, and I really like that Renton wasn’t portrayed in a positive light in this episode, rather than glorifying him way too much.
And the production values were also just awesome. There were lots of gorgeous dogfights and action sequences, and Bones really made use of their time to deliver a feast for the eyes, but the ears as well. The techno soundtrack here really caught my ears and made this an adrenaline rush from start to finish for me.
The thing I like about Bones’ sequels is that they don’t sell out. The creators could easily have made some shallow copy of the original series. I believe that this is what happened to Last Exile’s Fam. Instead, the creators decided to do something completely different with Eureka Seven Ao, and you can see that with all of their sequels: Darker than Black 2 was miles away from the first season. The Full Metal Alchemist and Eureka Seven Movies were also completely different from the TV series, FMA Brotherhood had a completely different style from its first season despite having the same set-up, the Wolf’s Rain OVA went into a drastically different direction. I used to hate this, but as time goes on, I have to say that I really like this: they try to experiment and they’re ambitious with different styles and premises, rather than milking out the same over and over. It is this ambition that I’ve been longing for for quite a while now, and Ao just answered it perfectly. It is both fanservice for the original Eureka Seven, and something completely different at the same time.
Review will come up tomorrow. Too late for that now, unfortunately.
Rating: 6/8 (Awesome)
A lot of you will probably disagree with this
count me in.
Nah. I agree with you, psgels. People who complain will complain, but I had a similar experience as you, so I understand exactly what you’re saying.
It’s really a matter of perspective and experience, I guess.
Instead, the creators decided to do something completely different with Eureka Seven Ao, and you can see that with all of their sequels: Darker than Black 2 was miles away from the first season. The Full Metal Alchemist and Eureka Seven Movies were also completely different from the TV series, FMA Brotherhood had a completely different style from its first season despite having the same set-up, the Wolf’s Rain OVA went into a drastically different direction.
That’s just not true. Darker than Black 2 is as bad as the first one. E7 movie is abysmal. FMA Brotherhood turned into a typical shounen series. And Wolf’s Rain OVA went into a drastically different direction…..What??!!!! It’s written by the same group of people!
FMA Brotherhood is better than FMA
I said different. Not better. Of course some of those series didn’t work for me either (most notably the first FMA movie) but still I really appreciate the variety.
I found the ending very interesting and satisfying, and this make Ao and Renton become one of my most respected characters ever. They both throw away their own happiness in order to protect their own family. Renton sacrifices his chance to be with Eureka to protect Ao from the same fate as his sister and Ao sacrifice his own existance to let his parents can have a happy life together without letting them to kill the Scub Coral. Ao, you are one great man who can be proud of being the son of Renton.
Renton should also be proud of Ao for making such decision. 😉
As a fan of the original Eureka 7, I think this was a travesty of an ending and a very mediocre show overall.
In fact, I’d argue Bones actually did “sell out” because the show literally drags some of the themes of Eureka 7 and even of its original ending through the mud, by introducing new plot holes and twists that retroactively ruin the conclusion of the series and go against previously established knowledge in exchange for…nothing worthwhile, other than perhaps making the lives of Renton and Eureka a little bit more miserable. Nice going!
The fact that psgels is praising this series finale for all its twists and shiny action sequences but doesn’t care about plot holes is rather telling. It’s ironic, even.
My opinion is that if they really wanted to do something completely new and different, to the point of making a mess of the original story, then they shouldn’t have called his Eureka Seven in the first place.
That way the show would stand on its own merits. You can’t say AO isn’t milking E7 when they’re using the name of the old show to sell.
You can see that even people at BONES don’t give a shit about AO anymore, judging from how much money they are pouring into Tempest right now. Sadly the AO fans will never admit it.
Tempest is being done by a different division from AO you fucking idiot. It’s also fucking bombing!
wow, ao fan, watch your language. Is this how ao fans generally behave? such vulgarity. anyways, a different division still gets money from the same company and the same company can only have that much money therefore Eureka seven ao is an experimental side project from Day 1.
O forgot to mention this experimental side project turned into garbage in the end but nobody cares except you stubborn ao mules.
saosucks: I think this is a case of a pot calling a kettle black. Sure, Chocobar also isn’t very nice, but you are sounding really elitist right now, as if your opinion is the only one that matters.
saosucks: Again, why don’t you learn how the industry works AO hater. There’s nothing that states AO was an experimental project nor anything that shows Tempest getting “better” treatment. Both were handled by different divisions and teams within the studio.
But I don’t expect AO haters to know anything about common logic.
Chocobar: you too be civil, or I’m going to start deleting stuff. >:(
How they hell are they milking it when it’s coming out 7 years after the original ended? How the hell are they milking it when the cast and setting are completely new and none of the old characters returned barring Eureka and Renton? It’s like the haters for this show don’t read what they write
how does time after the original, new cast and new setting have anything to do with milking? maybe you should some research on what milking is before before assuming people are “haters” and not legitimately criticizing the show.
There are many reasons why we consider it as milking. First it’s unnecessary to bring back series that ended beautifully, especially one that ended 7 years ago. If they had any intention to have done a sequel, they would have done it earlier. To bring back a popular series at such a time, we would presume that they are doing it for money. Second, the story is much much sloppier compared to the original, and could also reside as it own series considering the number of conflicts it has with the original. Yet instead they slap on the eureka logo and toss in the same concepts, which is why we assume they are milking the original.
Most of what you wrote was complete bullshit. That’s not what milking means at all and E7 was never “popular” to begin with. The fact that this sequel distance themselves from anything from the original proves they weren’t just trying to shamelessy rehahsh it like fantards like you wanted. How you feel about the show is subjective but saying they were milking the E7 by making a sequel that’s nothing like E7 is downright retarded. You E7 fantards need to get a life.
– “disproves” one point with own subject belief to call the entire arguement bullshit
– e7 never popular
– constant poisoning of well with “fantard”
– has own def of milking, cares not to explain
– distance from ao from original is about the distance between modern warfare and black ops
– e7 never popular
– nothing like e7…
yep im out
If this is how an E7 fantard displays his point then no wonder they hated this sequel.
Gundam, cough*
Terrible example
Gotta agree with you there. About the plot holes that is. You can of course! like a series because of its characters and just disregard all inconsistencies. And you can of course! openly declare that you like the episode.
But you cant call that objective, its just that: one single opinion among countless other opinions. Theres nothing that sets psgels opinion apart from others now because there are no arguments.
and also you cant expect others to agree with you, let alone understand what you’re saying. Thats why I dont like this “review” (read:statement of an opinion).
He never did call that objective. Your stance isn’t objective either so I fail to see what was the point of your post
Yes, I see that you fail to see it, even though its clearly written there.
It’s not
It was certainly tough to follow with all those timeskips and odd subtitling. I’m sure it made more sense in japanese, but I’ll never know.
I think the tougher thing to follow was the typos in your post. :p
The reason I follow this blog is for your insight, so I’ll just chalk this up as a rare rushed job.
ao’s brother…. you sure it wasn’t a sister?
have to disagree with you here, with this, the plot has… well i have no idea how to say it. it’s just sloppy. the most sloppy moment that come to mind has got to be that renton decides to use the gun to eliminate the first scrub, and then attacks ao because archetypes…
This reminded me of blood c. In blood c, we have a great deal of questions, and then we get a half assed conclusion that “answers” questions. Ao had a great deal of questions as well, but instead the plot direction changes so much within the last episode that it makes the rest of the story almost irrelevant. what once was a story about the freedom of okinawa, truth screwing up everyone, ao’s conflicts with scrubs and secrets, turns into… jumping through the northern light (which nobody ever realized was a portal), saving his mom, and then shooting disposable secrets that gave him the fate that his mother had. (hey looks like there’s more than one way you can turn into a ghost) Sometimes there’s good twists, and sometimes it’s just bad writing.
you mean for Ao to not be able to be with his parents. Ao kind of just tries to do everything himself anyways, literally every secret battle end with him taking them on mano a monster
also I think Ao has a sister not brother
“The ending itself, for Renton to not be able to be with his parents…”
Nope.
“And the production values were also just awesome.”
Yep.
this ending was well, here are some unresolved sub-plots
Ao and Naru-Nope
Ao and Fleur- Nope, and Fleur seemed like she would’ve confessed her love or something
The members of Gekkostate-Forgotten
Naru and the Scub Coral, pretty unclear
the ending was too compressed, it seems obvious that thiswould’ve benefited from being 50 episodes like its E7
I’m in the camp with the nay-sayers. This ending was an ass-pull on so many levels, and it left me numb at the sheer stupidity of it. The production values were the only good thing about it. I can accept ass-pulls when the show delivers high-quality entertainment (ie Code Geass, Auqarion, or Needless) but that was not the case with this ending. And I’m one of the few people who thought the show was doing fine up until then, I didn’t write it off as a complete trainwreck during the first 22 episodes.
Having said that, I’m glad you liked it. But you should watch it with subs in order to get an idea of how bad it really was – your post indicates you watched it without subs, or you are just really sloppy with details. Like, even sloppier than the ending itself was.
disagree. code geass was ass pulling for the entire second season.
A third of the first season was pretty swiss-cheese as well, to be frank.
Finally someone who agrees with me. I must say, I love the ending to this, and while I would love there to be more (lets see what the OVA that comes out with the last BD holds for us) I still feel warm knowing how it ended. People made a big deal about how it wasn’t happy, and that it was terrible, but in reality, it’s great. Ao was happy to return to his time, he got to see his father and mother, and kind of bonded with his father. I know it won’t ever be what the original is like, and maybe the fact that I consider it as it’s own thing instead of the “Eureka Seven” sequel, that I like it so much. But it tried to be it’s own show, and didn’t try copy it’s predecessor. Overall, like I stated above, I loved the ending, and I loved this anime. People may think differently, and that’s fine as not everything will strike ones fancy.
10/10 for me, being that guy that’s easy to please.
tl;dr
I like it, and /a/ over reacted.
Agreed.
“People made a big deal about how it wasn’t happy, and that it was terrible, but in reality, it’s great.”
That’s just denial right there.
Sure, Ao returned to his own time. But nobody remembers him. Also if there’s no traper in this world then he just dies from the fall at the end. However if there is traper then his board activates and he dies eventually by turning into stone.
Sure he got to see his mother and father. Who both despite doing everything to save him, in the end just let him sacrifice himself for their own happiness without a single complaint.
Sure it tried to be it’s own show but in the end tossed away everything that made the original unique. In retrospect a copy would have been a better show or even it could be what a sequel is supposed to be. A chance to expand on the world and show the lives of characters we love after the ending. Either of these would be better than being different for the sake of being different.
You liked it. Good for you. But don’t dare try to ignore it’s flaws. Acknowledge them and like it anyway.
Liked this episode… Disliked the rest of the series… If only it was more like this from the beginning, because in the end the only characters I cared about was that family.
Erm, have to say that; the biggest thing is come is when AO meet his Sister later…well, the ending prove that Truth is needed by Ao when time come; and that only happen in movie i guess…The real last ending…I think
Great production values but super rushed. It felt like this must be what R;N’s Elephant-Mouse syndrome must feel like. XD I got the feeling that the production team may have taken a great deal of their break pow-wowing over how the story should go. Those two episodes felt like 10+ episodes worth of key scenes pieced together into a single compilation and everything was flying at breakneck speed to the point where I wondered if there was enough time to finish the story.
It was weird seeing the friendly secret’s head still intact where it used to be in the Japan lab even though it was destroyed by Truth. And I don’t buy the part about original Scub’s destruction meaning the erasure of people infected. It’s more likely they just live their lives as if they were never infected in the first place. The people really at risk might be people who were born Scub or part Scub like Ao and Eureka herself.
A lot of cool stuff, lots of Renton, Eureka and Ao moments. And even Truth. A bit disappointed that some important side characters like Fleur, Naru and Elena didn’t get their conclusions told too. Or even a proper conclusion. Like…um…Ao falling out of the sky with just a trapar board. Sure hope there’s actual trapar in the air or he’s in for a hard landing. XD
But I think it covered enough bases to call it a win.
Although I certainly didn’t hate some of the ideas that Eureka 7 AO played with throughout its run….the series itself is undoubtedly a big, messy trainwreck. I don’t mind a monster-of-the-week approach to series initial half followed by some kind of overarching storyline….but why should I really care about any of that when Eureka 7 AO’s main cast isn’t even an iota as good as the first series’ cast was?
From what I can tell, they really rushed the hell out of these last two episodes, and as a result I feel like whatever point or purpose that the plot was trying to make is a bit diluted and incoherent. Ex: so the Scub Coral was fleeing through the past in order to avoid reaching the Limit Of Life and whatnot…wasn’t that resolved to a degree at the end of the original series?
Honestly, things would have been a whole lot better if they filled in the story gap between the end of Eureka 7 and AO as opposed to this….tangential mess. :/
Nice try BONES, but you need to iron out your scripts with more finesse before animating them so beautifully. xD
I wonder if they ran out of budget to do it better. It feels like they would have liked to have done more. Perhaps they ran out of budget to do the rest well so decided to squeeze what they could into two good episodes rather than drag it into more episodes at a lower quality.
Someone should complain to BONES ><; even the official site haven't released the summary for the two episodes…mmmm
I’m so said for how this story ended, and I’m not talking about AO. Sure I guess, Renton and Eureka managed to have a child that survived, I mean that’s a plus and Ao is a in a place he likes. It’s nice and all, but still. Lots of what made me happy about Eureka Seven just got shattered.
Bones did the biggest mistake one can do when making a sequel: destroying the original happy ending.
I really wanted to like this series, but in the end i wish it never existed.
and really, how could they let Keiji Fujiwara voice Renton, i can’t get over that, it’s so ridiculous.
the ending was rushed and inconclusive, i’m so disappointed, i don’t even…
For me it was an OK ending. Battles were very well done but I didn’t feel myself heated up with them.
I really loved what they did with Truth and also how despite losing against Truth the next moment he’s being glorified as the savior of the world (normal thing with Truth in the Nirvash). Though I must say, as others, they’ve left too many loose ends.
I’d prefer to see a continuation to the story, rather than it ending like that. A shame it couldn’t get a 52 episode schedule, as I think the problem with the coral was not adressed (only the secrets were shoot with that weapon and the final consequences and state of affairs were not even shown).
Just Ao returning in a cool way to his place and cutting there left me a bit unfulfilled. Great ending only if they promised more chapters and story in an undetermined future.
Dude, you made two mistakes in your post, it wasn’t Ao’s “brother”, and it wasn’t “Renton” who couldn’t stay with his parents…
Anyway, I can’t say this is the perfect ending, as the episodes before 23 & 24 were quite a disaster, but they did wrap thing up quite nicely, and saved this series in my opinions.
Oh, and I forgot to say, if there’s anything I’m not satisfied with the ending, it’s that Naru didn’t die.
I have hated her deeply ever since she learned the “truth”, when I saw her getting hit I was yelling “F*** YEAH B****!!”