Anime: Eureka Seven AO aka: Eureka Seven Astral Ocean
Eureka Seven AO is an anime and manga series that is a Sequel to Eureka Seven. The animated series began airing in April 2012. The manga was released on January 2012 and is still ongoing.The series takes place twenty years after the events of the original anime. It follows a boy named Ao living on the island of Okinawa, which has recently declared independence from Japan. Ao is the orphaned son of a foreigner who moved to the island, which causes him to be subjected to less than Fantastic Racism. Despite this he's still close friends with Naru, a girl who comes from an influential family on the island.Recently, there has been a rash of attacks from the G-Monsters, which seem to be attracted to Scub Coral (a strange material that appears in relation to catastrophic meltdowns of Earth's antigravity technology). When one of these beasts attacks Okinawa, not only does Ao find himself Falling into the Cockpit, he also learns of his strange lineage related to the main characters of the previous series. Saving the island also pulls him into the middle of many political issues, including Okinawa's struggle for independence.The series has been licensed by Funimation. Subtitled episodes are released weekly on their website, one episode behind the current episode in Japan.Official Japanese website
Tropes:
Airborne Aircraft Carrier: The second G-Monster is a massive floating carrier which launches swarms of smaller G-Monsters that resemble the first one (albeit scaled down to fighter size).
Génération Bleu's assault landers like the Triton are much smaller versions, being able to carry up to three IFOs.
Alien Geometries: The G-Monsters come in various shapes and sizes. The weirdest one is in episode 6, being essentially a giant, weaponized swing carousel.
Aliens in Cardiff: Génération Bleu's main base is in the tall and scenic, but otherwise pretty unremarkable Mt. Eiger in the Swiss Alps, above the town of Grindelwald in the canton of Bern. Well, if you discount an enormous Scub-related structure the base is built in, which sticks out of the mountain's northern face like a dragon's neck.
Alternate Universe: It's fairly clear this isn't the same universe Eureka came from, even if they haven't come out and said it yet. The Scub is also implied to come from the original Eureka Seven universe, as evidenced by the fact that random objects are found inside it. Among said objects are pile bunkers (used to suppress the Scub in the previous series) and humanoid limbs.
Amplified Animal Aptitude: In episode 3, Noah tries to untie Ao while the adults aren't paying attention.
Arc Words: "Welcome Home", for the first two episodes, at least. The message changes to "Welcome, Ao." in the third episode.
Arm Cannon: The Nirvash gets one of the Kryie's spare cannons to replace its missing arm in episode 4.
Armor-Piercing Question: In episode 5, Fleur asks Ao, "Why are you here [at Generation Bleu]?" He doesn't get it the first time, but when she repeats it with more emphasis, he finally understands.
Balkanize Me: The island of Okinawa has declared itself independent from the rest of Japan. There are still tensions between the two, hence the Okinawans' mistrust of foreigners (which includes people from Japan).
Big Damn Heroes: Gazelle rescues Ao when the men of the island have kidnapped him.
Bring Him to Me: Both the Japanese government and those vying for Okinawa's independence resolve to bring Ao into their custody after word gets out that he has blue hair and managed to make the Nirvash work. The former because they could never get the titular Humongous Mecha to work, the latter to sell him to the former in exchange for independence. The Americans are also after him, evidently to test their mettle against the Nirvash and the boy piloting it.
Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Rebecka is the only member of Team Pied Piper that isn't eccentric in some way. This is to be expected of the children, of course, but even Ivica has his moments of daffiness.
The last scene of the first opening of AO is exactly the same as the one of the first opening of Eureka Seven.
The opening sequences that include Eureka show her wearing the exact same flower hairpin Renton gave her in the final episode of the first series.
Ao also appears to use the Cut-Back Drop Turn in combat in the second episode.
There's a picture with shot by shot comparisons of scenes and symbols from the original series to Ao, seen here◊.
The logo behind the singer during the protest rally looks identical to the Gekkostate logo, and even has "GS" written on it.
Calling the Old Man Out: Gazelle calls his father out on treating Ao like crap, and by extension teaching the next generation to do the same.
Cheese Eating Surrender Monkeys: Pippo makes a joke about the Nirvash "giving up easily" when Gazelle mentions that it was built using parts from France, among other nations. He's equal in his mockery, though, tagging it with stereotypes to fit the other donor nations, too.
Children Are Innocent: It's being shown that the next generation of children are finally subverting the "blame everything on the blue-haired people" trend, with Naru's little sister and a young boy (in the manga) who ignored his mother's warnings to stay away from Ao.
Child Soldiers: Generation Bleu's IFOs can only be run by children, and the Nirvash responds to Ao alone. Averted by the American IFOs, which are flown by adults.
Dream Sequence: Subtlely hinted at in episode 7 with regards to Ao. His scenes on Iwato Jima feature slight color desaturation, while all the island scenes before that point are colored normally.
Dreaming of Things to Come/Dreaming of Times Gone By: Something like this was occurring, given that Truth really did take Naru, but did so at the plant coral facility, presumably at the exact moment Ao showed up in the dream.
Distressed Dude: Ao is briefly abducted by some of the men of the island because they hope to offer him to the Japanese military in exchange for their independence.
Or Chinese, because Okinawa apparently seceded with Chinese assistance and is now their dependency or protectorate. Or whoever, really — it's pretty clear that for the most part they did it simply because they just fucking hate the guy.
Dull Surprise: Ao certainly wasn't given the bestSeiyuu (especially apparent when he does his "battle cry").
Dye or Die: Eureka has brown hair in some flashbacks, and is seen dying it in one of them.
Dynamic Entry: The above-mentioned Big Damn Heroes is accomplished by Gazelle and his friends driving their FP through the wall of his father's house.
Elaborate Underground Base: Génération Bleu's HQ is built within an excavated structure in the Scub Coral which looks suspiciously similar to the Tower Cities from the first series.
Epic Fail: When Ao launches the Nirvash for the second time, he disengages two pistols built into its side. Since he's missing an arm, one predictably falls into the sea.
Everything's Better with Spinning: The swing carousel G-Monster in episode 6 spins, as befitting the carnival ride it is based on. This allows it to attack with its flails (the cars on the ride) and kicks up seawater into a hurricane that shields it from attacks.
Episode 2: Ao's hair color is brown in the opening (it doesn't change until Ao starts the Nirvash later on in the episode). It's blue-green in subsequent episodes to reflect current events.
Episode 3: There's an added shot of Eureka in the opening, facing away from the camera, when Ao is chasing the bracelet.
Episode 4: Eureka turns to face the camera in this episode, revealing the jewel on her forehead which she had in the final episode of the previous series (up until this point, every flashback shot of Eureka takes care to obscure her forehead, either by having her bangs block it or using camera angles to avoid it). Following episodes use the same shot.
Episode 5: The Nirvash gets repainted in this episode, which is reflected in the ending credits. The opening isn't changed.
Episode 6: The opening credits use the Nirvash's new color scheme, as with the ending credits in the previous episode.
Ao has the purple-with-red-ring eyes of a Coralian. Unlike the previous series, this is actually explored beyond simply marking him as part-alien. The design of his eyes allows him to perceive wavelengths beyond the visual spectrum.
Truth has irises which form a line straight through his pupils.
Expy: Naru has a few similarities to Anemone, including an illness and a Gulliver-esque pet. They also physically resemble each other to some extent.
Falling into the Cockpit: Literally; Ao is launched from Gazelle's FP and lands on the Nirvash. Ao does at least rationalize that the controls are similar to a normal FP, but he didn't know the Nirvash was an IFO at the time. It's lampshaded later on, when Ao can't figure out any of the subsystems and comments that it's not as easy as it looks in anime.
Fantastic Racism: Ao and Eureka get a lot of flak for being foreigners. The fact that they seem to attract monsters certainly doesn't help. The worst part is that Gazelle's dad pretty much outright admits that Ao had no control over the circumstances that lead the adults to hate him, but he won't forgive him anyway.
Finger Gun: In episode 6, Truth does this at Generation Bleu's entrance checkpoint, complete with "BANG!" The checkpoint explodes.
Flying Car: Trapar allows modified cars, called FPs ("Flying Platform"), to hover off the ground. Okinawa has the largest concentration, but trapar mining allows them to be used in other places.
Frickin' Laser Beams: Preferred weapon of the G-Monsters. The humans are shown to use them in a limited capacity, too.
Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: No one knows what the G-Monsters are, just that they show up when the Scub does and attempt to destroy it.
Gratuitous English: All over the place, though it's pretty good English most of the time. Episode 6 has a notable instance of an entire report written in English, and not very well at that.
Grievous Harm with a Body: Ao beats the first G-Monster by impaling it with the Nirvash's severed arm.
Groin Attack: Gazelle learns the hard way that Rebecka is not to be trifled with when he rolls out of the rear compartment of the Triton and right onto her chest.
He Knows Too Much: Rebecka is prepared to eliminate Gazelle and his friends after they learn the secret of how Génération Bleu neutralizes the Scub Bursts. Fortunately for them, Christophe Blanc decides to give them a job instead.
Homage: The series is clearly inspired by Neon Genesis Evangelion; parallels can be drawn between the characters of both series, and Generation Bleu is even guarding something buried beneath their base (see No MacGuffin, No Winner on this page). One of the characters even deliberately quotes Evangelion — see Shout Out below.
Gazelle's dad, whose half-assed apology to Ao for behavior he acknowledges but refuses to change only makes him that much worse.
The sister of the guy who helps out Ao in episode 4. The guy took Ao by her shop so he could get something to eat, and she wastes no time ratting Ao out to the Allied forces because she thought she'd get a good finder's fee.
Kick the Dog: The adults living on Okinawa encouraged their children to practice Fantastic Racism against Ao and Eureka and to harass them, simply because they blamed Eureka for the first Scub Burst.
Burning down Fukai's house, even though the culprit is never shown. This is after they covered the fences in graffiti and broke all the windows with rocks.
Kinetic Weapons Are Just Better: In contrast with the previous series, where beam weapons were fairly common, humans seem to primarily use conventional firearms in this setting.
Legacy Character: The Nirvash isn't the original, but rather one built by the Japanese using parts from various nations. Curiously, several characters recognize it and remember it with the original paint job.
Male Gaze: Ao is treated to a nice view of Fleur's ass when she bends over his console in episode 4. The best he can manage is to shrink back in his chair without commenting on it.
Ao is a Japanese word meaning blue or green. Ao's hair eventually becomes blue-green.
Ao and Naru's full names are "Fukai Ao" (Deep Blue) and "Arata Naru" (Arata means "New", while Naru has multiple meanings).
Team Pied Piper tries to lure the G-Monsters away from the Scub Coral, like the actual Piper leads kids from their homes.
The G-Monsters are also called "Secrets". Episode 6 introduces a character that calls himself "Truth".
Mind Screw: Episode 7. Truth attacks Generation Bleu HQ and transforms into a monster to fight the Nirvash. Then the scene suddenly cuts to Iwato Jima, where Truth takes Naru despite Ao's attempt to stop him. (The fact that the colors for this part are desaturated hints that it's a dream.) Except, Ao's actually been in bed the entire time, Truth having beaten the Nirvash in his monster form. But then, it turns out he totally did take Naru with him.
Eureka quite literally dropped out of the sky one day, gave birth to Ao not long after, then was taken by the Americans during a Scub Burst when Ao was three. Given how the previous series ended, one has to wonder what the hell happened to Eureka and Renton that would result in such a situation, not to mention several other characters.
The blurry yet unmistakable form of Anemone's TheEND from the previous series is apparently being held by Generation Bleu. Weirder still is the fact that said LFO was reduced to a scrap metal torso, but the one seen here is completely intact. It even has its white color scheme, which happened minutes before the aforementioned scraping.
New Age Retro Hippie: While the independence protesters in episode 4 are a fairly diverse crowd, several of those featured in prominent shots fit this trope.
No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: In the manga, Ao simply beats the first G-Monster to death (with one fist since it shot off the other arm).
No MacGuffin, No Winner: In the event that the HQ is compromised and the item in the basement can potentially be stolen, Stanley, Generation Bleu's overseer, is ready to destroy the entire HQ and the item with it.
Not so Different: When the Japanese carrier is sunk in the second episode, the Okinawan navy moves in to rescue the survivors, with one of the captains yelling that they all have Japanese blood in them.
Oh Crap: Everybody starts crapping their pants when the Nirvash, which hasn't been operational for over 10 years, suddenly starts moving again.
Painfully Slow Projectile: In episode 2, Gazelle's FP is fired upon by what is very clearly a Phalanx CIWS. Even though it's supposed by be a warning shot, and thus it's understandable that they weren't hit, the rate of fire is ridiculously slow, like it's just a regular machine gun. Here is what the Phalanx being fired actually looks like.
Paper-Thin Disguise: After being Locked into Strangeness, Ao tries to hide his turquoise hair with a cap. It doesn't really work. He gets a hooded sweatshirt later which does a somewhat better job, but he had to pull the hood down eventually.
Plot Armor: Truth slaughters Red Shirts by the dozens, but leaves the named characters conveniently alive. Particularly noticeable with Rebecka, who ends up knocked out by the same attack that was instant death to everyone else.
Power Trio: Génération Bleu rapid response teams seem to operate on this principle. Pied Piper was short one prior to Ao joining.
They're more of a United Nations Is A Superpower, in that they aren't completely on their own, though they offer their services for a price.
Ramming Always Works: The G-Monster fighters in episode four simply smash through their targets to attack.
Refusal of The Call: Ao tries to give up piloting the Nirvash after the first incident because of all the trouble it brought him. Unfortunately, The Call Knows Where He Lives, and burns his house down.
Ridiculously Cute Critter: Noah the sloth. He barely ever moves, which somehow makes him that much cuter.
The Scottish Trope: The mysterious thing at the bottom of Generation Bleu HQ is referred to only as "that". A blurry image of it at the end of episode 7 shows that it bears a remarkable resemblance to Nirvash type theEND, with the white color scheme it gained at the end of the original series.
Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right: When the military tries to kick Génération Bleu out, Rebecka orders Elena and Fleur to deploy anyway, so when the military inevitably finds themselves out of their depth, Génération Bleu can swoop in and save them from their own ignorance.
The trapar-mining facility seen in episode 4 looks suspiciously like a Mako reactor.
The move Ao uses to defeat the G-Monster in episode 6 is very similar to the Buster Collider. At one point, they call the objects that slide down the G-Monster's wires Options.
Shown Their Work: Trapar density is measured in millimoles, which is an actual measurement standard used in the real world.
Also, during his first battle, Ao briefly blacks out from the severe G-forces he's experiencing. The Génération Bleu pilots wear uniforms with helmet straps to prevent whiplash from the same source.
Sky Surfing: The IFOs do it, though we've yet to see if humans do like they did in Eureka Seven.
Soft Water: In a flashback, Eureka drops out of the sky from a significant height, hitting the water head-first. She was already unconscious on arrival, and nearly drowning seems to be the only concern when she's pulled out.
Spell My Name with an S: More in pronunciation, though. Ivica's name is pronounced with a "ch" in the series, while in real South Slavic languages that use Latin script, such as Croatian and some dialects of Serbian, it's actually pronounced as "ts". Zigzagged in that in his surname, Tanovic, the same letter is pronounced as "ch".
Justified, because in Serbian Cyrillic that's two different letters. Actually, in Croatian Latin, too, as that properly should be Tanović. Ironically, on the official site his name is spelled exactly that way, but the authors apparently didn't get that a one small accent means a completely different sound in this case.
Spin Offspring: It's pretty obvious who Ao's parents are even before the show comes out and says it (for his mother, anyway). Confirmed by Word Of God; Ao is the son of Eureka and Renton. Given the setting, any relations to other characters from the previous series are unlikely.
The opening spoils the fact that Ao will join Team Pied Piper, which doesn't happen until episode 4. His hair color change wasn't spoiled, oddly enough, even though every other bit of media gladly gives that away.
To a lesser extent, there's Team Goldilocks. The girls appear in the opening, but their leader does not, foreshadowing that he doesn't walk away from their first appearance.
Team Pet: Noah becomes this to Génération Bleu after he takes a liking to Ivica.
Génération Bleu rapid response teams are named after fairy tale characters, including "Pied Piper" and "Goldilocks."
Similarly, all of the IFOs (besides Nirvash) seemed to be named after Orthodox and Catholic hymns: there's Kyrie(os), Allelujah, Credo, Requiem, and Gloria.
Traditionally for the franchise, each episode is named after various songs. In the prequel they used electronic music, but this time they've switched for the rock.
Time Skip: Happens sometime after Eureka Seven but either long enough for those events to have been forgotten and nations to return, or something weirder is going on. A minimum of 13 years plus Eureka getting pregnant with Renton's child.
Too Dumb to Live: The Okinawan government tries to kick Génération Blue out of the country after the first G-Monster is defeated, reasoning that they can handle the Scub and refusing to believe it's still active even though Génération Bleu are the experts on such things (and possess the only weapons capable of harming it). Predictably, they end up needing help when things fall apart.
The entire population of the island the action takes place, really. After the first episodes they, with a few notable exceptions, come off as dumb, greedy, inefficient racist bullies who just vented their frustration on Eureka and Ao and tried to exploit them however they can, instead of figuring them out and, maybe, finding a solution. And then they wonder why they get their asses whupped by G-monsters. One high-ranking member of the Okinawa military at least had the good sense to apologize to Génération Bleu when it becomes clear that their arrogance created another window for a G-Monster to appear.
Génération Bleu also expresses frustration at how they constantly have to remind their clients that conventional weapons are ineffective against G-Monsters.
Try Not To Die: Toshio Fukai has Ivica pass this message on to Ao.
Wave Motion Gun: The Triton (and presumably others of its class) has two.
The Worf Effect: Team Goldilocks is deployed and quickly defeated in episode 5, which means Team Pied Piper is called in as backup.
You Can't Go Home Again: After defeating the first G-Monster, all the various factions (of ambiguous motives and morality) are trying to find Ao and the Nirvash, forcing him to go into hiding. Then his home actually burns down. This convinces him to join Génération Bleu and leave the island entirely (well, this and the fact that doing so might allow him to find his mother).
, one episode behind the current episode in Japan.Official Japanese website
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