The original Eureka Seven is a classic. If you like teenagers and mecha, then by all means give it a chance: it has a very rocky start, but has so many defining moments. And so, six years after its end, Bones came with a sequel. It’s quite an interesting series: you really need to have seen the first series in order to enjoy it, yet it is nothing like its predecessor.
The series takes some of the core concepts of Eureka Seven, it takes its defintion of Trappar and Corallian, it grabs the son of the two lead characters of Eureka Seven, puts him into a completely different location and even time, and just goes with it, trying to explain what the hell is going on as it goes along. Where Eureka Seven focused on showing children’s naivety, this series instead turns this around by forcing children in the center of conflict, while emphasizing that they do not belong there in the slightest. With these themes, it tells a story that with one crazy amount of plot twists.
After a bit of a warm-up period, this show just delivers plot twist after plot twist after plot twist. It’s a really good mystery series, with a lot of interesting ideas and twists that come from out of nowhere and give completely different turns to what the plot was before. This obviously has its advantages and disadvantages.
I mean, back with Un-Go, that was a series that had perfect control of its fast pacing. Ao does not, and there are quite a few plotholes. On the other hand though, there are plenty of moments that might seem ludicrous, only to make sense when you start thinking about it. A lot of the plot twists aren’t explicitly explained, or require the viewer to constantly pay attention to what’s going on: this is one series that does not plan to hold the hands of its viewers, and you definitely cannot watch it when you’re tired, otherwise you’ll miss stuff.
Anyway, I have seen plenty of people turned off by the plotholes, but I personally loved what this series tried to do. It’s all about the suspense of disbelief for this series, and let me tell you: if this suspense of disbelief holds, then there is a lot to like about this show. Helping are the characters, who may not be as good as the cast of Eureka Seven, but still are very likable, diverse and entertaining, and this show is also full of unexpected character-development.
What I really encountered here that this show does like none other, is how it treats the old characters of the first series. Out of all the sequels I have seen that focus on different characters than the first, this is BY FAR the best use of the old cast. They are used at the exact right moment, and this show pays homage to them, yet also shows their flaws, it shows who they turned into after the end of the series, and it gives them their own storylines that are more than just “let us old guys just watch over you new guys”. It’s fanservice, but I appreciated it so much.
This is a very ambitious series. You can also see this though the production values, which were some of the most consistent of the year for an action series, containing a lot of fluid and fast-paced action scenes and a really good soundtrack. The plot twists and characters on top of that made it a really fun and entertaining series for me, although this ambition does have its prices to pay with the rushed plot that is easy to get bored with.
| Storytelling: | 9/10 – Love the ambition of this series of delivering as many plot twists as possible that attempt to weave a whole storyline together. Great mystery, though the rushed pacing and plotholes will be a turn-off for some. |
| Characters: | 8.5/10 – Briliant use of the old Eureka Seven cast, Enjoyable and gripping cast of both main and side characters, although the cast is too big for every character to really show his/her best. |
| Production-Values: | 9/10 – Great production values, excellent soundtrack, really fluid animation at times. |
| Setting: | 8.5/10 – Takes the setting of Eureka Seven, expands upon it, turns it into something completely different and completely changes what it stands for. Might be hard to swallow for fans of the first series hoping for the same. |
Suggestions:
– Darker than Black – Ryuusei no Gemini
– Un-Go
– Noein
Thx for the review!
Everything considered the score is fair. I’m still a bit upset with the overall story of the Eureka Seven universe, but its not like I have a choice, and this will have to do. At least they managed to create a living kid. Though we will never know how their bloodline goes about surviving, and their are many unanswered questions about everyone futures. I don’t give points for ambition, creativity, or any of the sort. It’s always been about the story. I especially like Ao takes place in what would have been our world. I can’t say much more. It was a fun ride. Still a bit depressed, but I guess it’s good enough.
Nice review! Thanks for the good work and keep doing it!
I enjoyed this series, but still prefer the original. 8.75 is a fair score, I’d probably give the original series a 9.25.
With that being said, I got a bit lost in some time travel plot points, but thought the treatment of old returning characters was spot on.
Production values were top notch, and the soundtrack was even better BONES always kills it!
No, I’m afraid I can’t agree with this review or with this score at all. But I imagine you already knew that, given my previous comments.
Like I’ve already suggested, I could have liked AO more if it really had nothing to do with Eureka 7. The show wouldn’t be much better, but at least I wouldn’t feel so disappointed. That’s what hurts.
The connections between this series and the original show retroactively created plot holes and harmed the ending of the initial adventure, for little or no real gain. That’s a terrible thing.
I also cannot agree with the idea that the show did anything “good” with the old cast of characters, particularly Eureka and Renton. While it wasn’t necessary to have them appear all the time, now that the full picture has been revealed it’s obvious they existed to serve the needs of the plot, not vice versa. You claim they were given their own storylines, but that’s giving AO way too much credit.
They aren’t even a case of true fanservice, nope, but rather of fan disservice. If anything, the new plot holes and twists involved hurt the way their original story concluded, which in turn makes their character behavior seem a bit weird and questionable during the last arc, to say nothing else. I cannot understand why you would find that praiseworthy, but there’s no point in carrying this topic any further.
I think Psgel likes to praise shows that are criticized elsewhere by “mainstream” anime fans. For example, I still remember, and still can’t understand, that you gave Crystal Blaze a 89/100???!!!!!
wait did anyone other than eureka and renton return from the old storyline?
other than that, still think this is a bit too high for a rating. Plot twists are nice, but when you shove 20 twists into the final two episodes, the entire storyline changes and kills the meaning within the first 22 episodes, which by then don’t even serve as twists anymore. Now what you have is an entire new story that contradicts both the original series and the 22 episodes that precede it. “Woven” would be too kind, as it’s more as if the “twists” were stabbed into the fabric the Eureka universe, creating plotholes everywhere… (wow that was a really screwed up metaphor) In the end, what we are left is a trainwreck that could have used a bit more episodes to make stuff clear.
this is really reminding me of your review blood-c, especially with the emphasis on “suspense of disbelief.” kubo goes about suspending his readers in disbelief by pulling asspull after asspull, but can you call that good writing?
I’m not sure what you mean by that ending paragraph, but “suspense of disbelief” means that anything that usually would stand out as hard to believe has been covered well with other things to make it more believable. In all the literature classes I’ve taken, “suspense of disbelief” is a major goal for good writers.
thanks for clearing up the term, i simply thought of it as something hard to believe. However, if that what suspense of disbelief is then how exactly am i supposed to believe this ending when it’s barely been covered well enough? On one hand the ending solved a few mysteries while introducing a good amount of plotholes that weren’t covered in the rest of the episodes. am i seriously going to consider this as suspense of disbelief? Second, is suspense of disbelief actually truly worth it if it ends up shifting the entire storyline in a completely different direction?
I thought it was really underwhelming, to be honest.
For the bulk of the story: if they wanted to go with their own story, they should have detached from as many elements as the original if possible and limited themselves less. Most of the plot felt frankly wasted and empty – non of themes were portrayed eloquently or well enough, and whatever they were, there was no resolution to them in the end. The characters were never given room to become their own entities (something Eureka Seven had lots of room to do, hence why it was so good at this), AO himself never really took up the reigns as the eyes of the world like Renton did.
And as a sequel, it was not obligated to be a copy of the original. However, it was obligated to not CONTRADICT the major themes, both storywise and symbolic, that it did. This show’s ending basically came out and said “Eureka and Renton’s love will lead to only tragedy and there is NOTHING they can do about it”, which is really, seriously shitty in itself but also in context of the E7 universe. And as you said, plotholes galore. The truth is none of the tragedy had to be there to deliver resolution the messages it did, and yet it was done anyway. It just seemed like Masturbatory 2deep4me Anno/Tomino-esque bullshit for no reason.
The series itself was a mess – the direction of the show we know was completely changed midstream and it really shows. Kind of like Xam’d it had no fucking idea what it was doing, never knew this, and never tried to redeem itself. An absolutely disgusting sundering of what was originally such an optimistic and well done series, I hate it.
Honestly, I think the show might’ve been able to salvage itself if it were only longer. Another 6-7 episodes that could have been spent on fleshing out the characters would’ve been nice. And then maybe another 3-4 episodes to really clear up all the plot details, instead of just hammering in a dozen different plot points into a single episode.
Overall, Ao could never hope to do what the original E7 did, simply because it strays too far from the strong points of the original series (which was, IMO, the relationships between all the members of the main cast).
Even so, Ao could still have been a much better series than it turned out to be. It just feels rushed and very badly paced.
I’m not even entirely sure what they were doing at the end. Over the course of the show, the main characters went on quite the schizophrenic enemy tour: they started off fighting secrets, then Truth, then scub, then the Allied Forces, then secrets, then Truth again, then scub, then Renton (???), then finally secrets and scub? We don’t know if they were even successful because it looked like trapar still existed in 2027.
They shouldn’t and in my mind they don’t. Ao falls after episode 24 and dies.
You really have no idea what good storytelling is, do you? And no, avoiding the harem or incest themes is not enough to be called good writing.
A fair review. Personally I have no problems with the plotholes, more with the loose ends. I’d love to see a continuation or a sequel to this Eureka Seven AO. It has been done differently to Eureka Seven but with its own charm, though I’ll still think it’s a shame the story was forced to end at this point. It deserved more time!
Wow, now I’ve really got to watch Ao. It’s been a while since I saw people this angry about a sequel to a show that’s frankly not as fantastic as people give it credit for. It’s Darker than Black all over again.
87.5/100 for Eureka Seven AO?
Nope.
I wanted this to be so much better. It wasn’t bad but the story telling was far too involved to be told within the anime. Sometimes simple is best and I felt they made the story far too complicated to enjoy and understand.
I found myself getting into it and then just left behind in the latter episodes since with every change of the world timeline the characters would be different but not different enough to really understand how those characters had changed.
Nara, the love interest / childhood friend was never used in a major way yet she had lots of screen time to do so. She could have done a lot to explain the story, instead of ending up being one of the most confusing characters in it. In the early episodes She was a major focus yet all that build up was then just tossed aside and never really used in the story to make use of her build up.
I loved having Renton and Eureka return, that was very good and helped tie together the various world timelines. Yet the underlying world and each of the world timeline changes were not clear enough to let me understand the changes and ended up getting in the way of me enjoying the story.
Ambitious and it had some great story moments but in the end it fell short of knowing what story it was trying to tell. The pacing for the whole show was way off. It felt like they crammed 6 episodes into the last two. Major fail for that.
It would have worked just fine for a light novel but didn’t work as a 24 episode anime. A+ for ideas and creativity, C- for story. Nowhere close to the original in terms of story telling and likeable characters that you cared about.
Ambitious? definitely. That much is obvious. I don’t think it deserves such a high score just because it was ambitious though. The way the show tried to execute its ideas were very hit and miss. I can’t really applaud the way it wasted so much of its time on build-up either.
I must say this is a horrible anime. Even forgoing any connection to Eureka Seven it was bad. Complete ditch of the original concepts and reworking them; trapar, cities, technology, and the absolute disregard of explaining it’s connection to EU. Half why through the anime and I wondered how there was a 1940 time line. Not to mention only kid pilots really? What about All of GekkoState or Sumner Sturgeon and Ruri or was that just an excuse to put in all girl pilots for Ao to hang around with? This was trying too much to be stereotypical that it failed to even be like those other mediocre mecha animes.
Eureka Seven AO doesn’t exist. Nor does this review….i refuse to live in a world where Eureka Seven AO exists…ohhhhhh
Don’t worry the Quartz gun was fired and changed the past and the show never existed. Keep smiling 😛
How can you consider this fan service, when only two characters from the original show up? This stopped being fanservice the moment where the Gekko-Go got scuttled.
This is another Gundam Seed Destiny.
The original follows the old mobile suit gundam narrative format, and this sequel tries to take off in its own direction, only to crash and burn.
disclaimer: I just finished AO recently and the reason why this comment is soooo long is one thing, I’m just so pissed off. But I hope you read enough to see why.
I still believe it’s not a whole disappointment. Here is my assessment of a 7/10 series (No, I don’t agree with a 87.5) Let’s start out by giving these series a perfect score, 10/10 then nitpick or praise it along the way.
(1) In my opinion, the last two episodes should’ve been a whole season! Plotholes are relatively easy to deal with–JUST GIVE YOUR CHARACTERS SOME SPACE FOR GROWTH UNTIL THEY’RE STRONG ENOUGH TO HANDLE THEM. Which FMA Alchemist was able to do and which Xam’d and AO did not. How? As much I hate lengthy animes, the essence of a trainwreck is simple, TRAIN TOO FAST, RAIL TOO SHORT [Guilty Crown, everyone.]
-8 points. = 2/10
—
(2) Though I’m a sucker for happy endings, I found the original E7 series ending to be a disaster. Too bubbly, too sugary–I mean, hearts on the Moon!!!!??? and to have gained something so valuable without paying a particular price is just wrong. THERE SHOULD BE AN EXPLANATION FOR THAT ENDING. IT’S TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE. Don’t get me wrong. Renton and Eureka deserve that ending.
+8 points. This is a necessary evil. Otherwise, go read a bedtime story instead. = 10/10
—
(3) The harsh reality of the setting which E7 was found cannot allow that to happen. I get what BONES wanted to tell us. It’s Ao who gets to pay the price–that was his destiny.
+5 points. Necessary evil, also. It’s the best option to take to solve the problem E7’s oiginal ending faced. = 15/10
—
So much for praises.
(4) Now here’s the greatest nitpick to the AO series: they toyed with the characters. Naru, Fleur, Elena, even the older guys, like Ivica and Gazelle’s gang–they’re all beautiful characters wasted. Good backgrounds, bad decisions. The writer of this series DIDN’T KNOW HIS CHARACTERS WELL. Guys, despite making hard decisions, Renton is a VERY EMOTIONAL GUY. I figured when he’d see Eureka in a hologram form that would’ve been MORE than enough to bring him to his knees, or at least show some bit of despair. I mean, your wife, the one you’d fought the whole universe against just to win her is standing there a hologram, and your son fighting desperately to save her. Tsk. There are some things maturity cannot erase. Thus they screwed with one of my favorite characters of all time.
-12 points. A plot can either be simple or complex. But it’s irrelevant. Great characters make great stories. Even if plotholes abound, when you find characters that you adore, respect, cherish, hate, mourn for and made you smile, you wouldn’t even notice the plotholes anymore. Let’s face it. Real life HAS a lot of plotholes, but the people around us is what makes the difference. Seriously, that’s the essence of E7. No one is alone. And, well, BONES screwed up this one badly. Renton’s destiny was to win Eureka’s heart and save her against all odds and everything that occurred over the original series did just that, to prepare him, to challenge him, to hinder him even, just so he could grow up to be what he should be. I pity Ao. He didn’t get the chance to truly grow like his father did–with the love, hate, and bonds others had for him. Fleur, Naru, Ivica, heck–they did nothing for Ao. But all is not lost. = 3/10
—
(5) “See you later…” Truth. Take note, from the original series, the Nirvash had always been an enigma. Sure, he was an LFO found in the scub. But what is he, really? If they made the plot in such a way that Truth is actually the Nirvash per se, then it makes sense. It’s gonna be tough and I doubt BONES could pull off such a feat.
+2 pts. Promising but not very reassuring. 5/10
—
(6) TWO, Fleur’s Thurd Engine. It glowed purple, didn’t it? They’d better damn sure give Fleur and Ao a chance, especially since they’d had the guts to etch the Moon with a heart. Don’t screw with me. You want it sugary, right? Deal with it, BONES. GIVE ME A SUGARY ENDING THAT HAS SATISFIED THE SACRIFICE-PRINCIPLE ALSO. THE QUESTION LIMITATION HAS FINALLY BEEN DEALT WITH. NOW FIX THIS.
+3. Very promising. But with fingers crossed. = 8/10
Finally, (7) Naru. WHO IS SHE? WHAT IS HER PURPOSE? It’s a given rule among otakus and anime-lovers all around the world, THE GIRL FROM THE BEGINNING GETS TO DO SOMETHING BIG. No sidelines. Go ahead, let her die, just don’t be too cruel to the point of making a series that put her there but would’ve been better off without her [which BONES already did with AO].
-1. Sadly, Naru didn’t really matter. She didn’t matter at all that all I could give this series for her defense was a pricky minus one point. This is just wrong.
OVERALL: 7/10
Bad enough to give you sleepless nights but good enough to ask you for a continuing season to redeem itself with.
All is not lost. If only the writer would go beyond the Great Wall and finally find what he’s looking for because seriously he’s one lost dude. And so save us from this wretched season of E7.
Forgive me, people. I love Renton and Eureka. I love them so much their mere presence alone made me give this trainwreck a 7/10. But likewise it also pains me to have watched it end like this.
No. It can’t end like this.
That’s the reason for this lengthy commentary. I hope people would put pressure into forcing them to push through with a third season. To fix all this. If it still fails, only then will I be able to pick up a Quartz Gun and blast this wretched series to kingdom come.
Ao, our beloved Eureka and Renton’s only son deserves a better ending, not to mention a better journey to make than this crap. So does the rest of the characters. I hope BONES should finish what they’ve started. I’m a big fan of most of their works. And a hater of some. I’m not particularly hopeful, but hopeful nonetheless. I just wanna see hearts etched on Moons and beautiful girls with butterfly wings again, so badly I wrote one heck of a commentary!
Oh when will the day come when Ao would say,
“DON’T BEG. EARN IT. AND IT WILL BE YOURS.”
#fingerscrossed >_<
I recently watched Eureka 7, the entire series again because I loved it so much and decided to see if they finally had a sequel. To my surprise it did and I was excited. Well I watched it and it SUCKED!!!!!! I HATE IT!
I wanted so bad to see Ao’s brothers and sisters(Renton’s and Eureka’s other kids) I wanted to see Holland’s kid and know what all of them were too and how they would work together to help what the parents started.
This went soooo far from the original plot that it can not be called a sequel! Watching I asked my self what does this have to do with Eureka 7, where is everyone, and why can’t Ao talk to Nirvash?
All this stupid show said that Renton and Eureka’s love was doomed =( SOMETHING i WILL NEVER EVER BELIEVE!!!!
Oh when will the day come when Ao would say,
“DON’T BEG FOR IT,DO IT YOURSELF OR ELSE YOU WON’T GET ANYTHING”
I watched both series. I like what they did. They took a perfect ending (E7), and showed the imperfection and how badly Renton screwed up when he saved Eureka. This being with the secrets killing the scubs for traveling through to other time periods/universes.
When Renton saw Eureka in her hologram form, he seemed to have already knew she’d be like that, and probably broke down before hand. He tried to kill Eureka and the scubs because only the scubs (including Eureka) would be erased, in order for his son to be protected. But Ao risked losing his entire existence in order to save his Mom & Dad.
My main problem (although very dark, which is fitting with Ao) was that Ao’s sister died due to Trapar not allowing human and scub DNA to mix. But Anemone had Human and scub DNA mixed in her forcefully and Artificially, whilst Ao and sister had it happen Naturally. Man-made lives while nature made dies. seriously, WTF.
Although I’d like another season or 2 to better explain the ending, I am still (for the most part) satisfied with the fact that I GOT a sequel, instead of complaining that it wasn’t what i wanted, even with the ending (pointing fingers at the ones who do, if thats not you, i apologize).
I’d give it a 9/10 for the fact that I liked it that much.
This anime relinquishes some of its own logic by the end by making Eureka stranded like Renton’s dad. It fails at the end but the failure happens to the Rush I would prefer seeing Ao’s older sister in a new series because now that timelines are rerouted and quartz phenomenon might actually be replicated thus the series philosophy might need work unlike the first Eureka 7 I think I need Ameneme legacy on and about too 🙂
This makes no sence this takes place 1000 years in the past the original series took place in year 3000 so 2025 makes no sence.
In my opinion i would have to say AO fails. i cannot in good conscious agree to giving it an 8.7/10 this falls more into 5.5, 6 at the most out of 10. A continuation is fine i got no problem with it. but the concept of time being messed around with was a bad gamble. Ao and the other characters didn’t really get a chance to grow like the original cast did. it was all very rushed and fast paced compared to the original. not many things were explained. if i had to direct it i would completely remove the concept of time travel and started exactly where the original left off. carefully plan for most of the original cast to make appearances before Ao. it’s obvious who ended with who in the original so it would’ve been a good selling point for Ao to have a drive to surpass Renton.
I suppose two ways to do it would be Renton and Eureka trying to make a co-exitence happen between coralians and humans and somewhere along with the pregnancy of Ao more and more Humanoid Coralians are appearing but the process of overcoming fear and hate between the races is still rough at best. Ao would be one of the first of 2 who are part human and part coralian. obviously Dominique and Anemone would have their family with similar backgrounds to Ao. As for the secrets involvement. well even if i did agree to use them i think it would be too similar to Gurren Lagan’s battle with the anti-spirals.
Naru and Truth would be an interesting pair of antagonists but as we saw it had a falling in a lot of ways. in the concept of keeping romance a factor like wit the original i believe Ao going through his young teenage life could be a little more complicated compared to renton just to keep fans and pairing wars flamed and see how ans react at possible canon pairings in which i case i say between fleur, naru, and a daughter of Anemone and Dominique so Ao can have his own personal as well as humourous trouble with girls.
Mechs. A copy of Nirvash but still treating it like it’s the original is a no go in my book especially since the original became an enemy which is a no go since if i recall Nirvash became the new core cluster. but i can accept the idea of new arche types appearing with abilities that can at least surpass the original and at least give them new names so it wouldn’t feel like Ao is trying to hard to ride a mech similar and equal to the original nirvash. one idea is that the arche types have decided to have animal based modes along with their human modes as a way to represent the gap between humans and coralians still having trouble finding a coexistence. and i guess if it’s up for a debate Ao’s mech can eventual combine with a animal archeytpe that has no faith in the coexistence of humans and coralians so Ao at about episode twenty gets 2 partner mechs. but that’s a maybe.
Returning cast. this would be a great selling point. see how old characters/heroes have lived their lives. Renton could be something of an enigma since his job to maintain the peace keeps him busy along with eureka but i think her making a full time appearance can be doable at about episode 16 or 17 and that’s where after an absence she reveals to Ao that she expecting another child to give Ao a push into growing since the sister thing can a usuable part of the plot for Ao’s growth. on the subject of siblings. the three kids who obviously grown up by this point have their lives except i think Mater being Ao’s big sister spends her time taking care of Ao while handline her own part time job while Renton and Eureka work for long periods of time while the other two boys have started their own air lifting team that goes around the world competing in competitons. yall see where i am going with this anyway so i’ll stop here.
Renton. Ao fighting Renton would been more interesting point if the the AO season had more episodes and the plot and story were’t so…confusing, rushed, and contradicting.
anyway i can continue on like this all night with a 30 page essay on it but i think i have made my point on the subject. AO was a failed project that was too rushed and had too many plot holes.
Personally I enjoyed this sequel despite the many potholes, but I do want to agree with some other comments about only involving Renten and Eureka in the sequel. I think if there was an integration of some of the old main characters from Eureka Seven, the story might have been more thrilling to watch with their partnership with the other Ao characters, this would’ve also helped with the potholes of Ao’s sudden character growth mid-episode.