Eureka Seven

You might want to spoiler that. I'm still rewatching, slowly (next up is WORLD'S END GARDEN or whatever, the one with that Baxter guy), but if someone who hasn't comes across that...

But yeah, it's a really pretty series. Never actually seen someone use the word "viewtiful" like you just did!

I say, it is a shame that most people here haven't watched it, yet you can discuss the minutiae of Geass or Lagann and no-one will even be startled!

Note: the Voderach High Priest. He is priceless. I never thought I'd see an actual instance of comfarting in actual published media... but he pulls it off nicely.

edited 27th Sep '11 4:18:58 PM by PacificState

Oh hey, this thread is actually alive!

I watched this show earlier this year, and I loved it. Definitely one of my favorite anime series. I'm not sure why, exactly, but it was just awesome.

Also: YES. He's awesome and hilarious.

And by the way, Frog753, you mentioned Rah Xephon. Is it good? Looking at this site's page for it kind of caught my interest.

edited 27th Sep '11 5:12:07 PM by SapphireBlue

Norb is awesome. When introduced the first time around...he wasn't what I expected the character to be like. In the best possible way.

Rah Xephon is pretty excellent. It's sort of like a gentler Evangelion with an ending that actually makes sense. I will repeat, as super robot shows go it's pretty relaxed and quiet and such. But it's got an intriguing (if sometimes slightly vague) plot, great characters, good animation for something that's about a decade old (it's probably the earliest Studio Bones work I've seen), and a good dub if that's how you want to watch it.

It's streaming on The Anime Channel website, but you need a membership to see it. A month's membership is pretty cheap and should give you enough time to watch it. (I accidentally did a yearlong membership, but that's ok because I was watching both Rah Xephon and Xamd.)

OH MY GOD WHAT A CROWNING MOMENT OF FUNNY THIS IS: "RENTON, WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU?" Eureka, you've been Completely Missing The Point all along...

Finished it.

Teared up, but didn't quite cry.

Incredibly, wonderfully cheesy. Did not make any sense at all. Was beautiful as hell. EVANGELION should have ended like this. In fact, I suspect Rebuild took its Rei/Shinji relationship from Renton/Eureka, which, given that Eureka is already a Rei Clone of sorts... (she's a lot more developed, but she's had twice the episodes and thrice the screentime-per-episode!). Also, the old man from the Gekko... now I know who old Cocojii from Gurren Lagann came from. Unless there's a tradition of this sort of inconspicuous old guy in anime.

Yeah, I've always thought that Eureka seems like Rei (i.e. mysterious girl with strange origins) but with a happy ending. Whereas Rei became less human as NGE progressed, Eureka becomes more human. So effectively Eureka starts like Rei but goes in the opposite direction.

The events of the final two episodes don't quite make sense, but I think that they just had a bit of trouble writing the actual plot while prioritizing the emotional content of the story, which I think is more important anyway.

I have a love-hate relationship with this show. One one hand - great animation, pleasing character & mecha designs (I simply adore BONES 'organic technology' look), and some incredibly fun characters. On the other - bizarre plotting, confusing villain motives and pseudo-deep subplots up the yin-yang kind of hinder it for me.

We're just supposed to swallow the cold open which tells us that giant robots exist, they surf on Phlebotinum light beams somehow, and that the landscape is somehow affects how the phlebotinum light works? All in the middle of introducing us to the plights of Our Heroes, before we even know who Our Heroes are besides whiny kid and rebel-ish surfers? I've barely met Renton, and I just find him another callow kid hero waiting for a coming-of-age story down on him. I don't even know about or care about Gekko State aside from the fact that Renton thinks they're cool. And now these Ponderous Old People and Commander White Haired Prettyboy are talking about nebulous things that make no sense to me. First five episodes, people- slow the hell down!

Also, Dewey's motives and methods were vague. So he wants to kill the skub coral? Or is it conquer the world and rule as he wishes it? Or is he just an Omnicidal Maniac?

Why is that, again? Because Dewey's father disowned the kids? Because the Ritual of the King somehow influenced him to go bad? Because kicking puppies is fun? The mechanics of this world (and how Dewey subverts them) are still lost on me.

Dammit, this annoyed me. There's a geat big impressive world here, and a story someone thought was worth telling. Hell, the truest-of-true loves between Renton & Eureka, while occasionally annoying to me, ultimately charmed me in the end. (I don't care if they are teenagers, having the spotlight and wangsting about you feelings because of an influx of hormones and misunderstandings isn't my idea of grade A entertainment.) Dominic & Anemone won me over BIG time, and while I wished they had more screen time, they weren't the center stage. (Anemone being played to psychotic, winsome perfection by Kari Wahlgren and Peter Doyle gave Dominic an intelligent, determined edge with balanced the character's naivete) I just would have loved to have seen if the writers had an idea of how the Voderac mystics played into Dewey's plans, and what the USB drives of Glowy Magic had to do with anything and why having such a USB Drive in a person's chest made that someone a Chosen One.

I still think Rah Xephon did the whole 'coming of age story using a mecha' much better, but that's just my humble >opinion.

edited 28th Sep '11 9:38:49 PM by Sneeb

Well actually their romance was what sold the show to me. I just couldn't help but want to hug them throughout. Especially the misunderstandings, which weren't born out of malice or lies or cowardice, but out of simply them being different people with severe self-esteem and identity issues, and it all felt very organic and realistic to me. You know one thing that made me pull a huge smile? The first time Eureka blushed on-screen. I honestly thought she was physically incapable of it!

Agreed. With just about everything. Though I personally didn't have much of a problem with Dewey's goals and plans because I write him off as The Sociopath.

edited 29th Sep '11 10:04:51 AM by ManwiththePlan

Thirded.

I think the "external" plot is pretty much secondary to the coming-of-age and romance themes, and while I agree that the setting needs clarification as to how it works and how the villain is trying to screw it over, these issues didn't prevent me from very much enjoying (and tearing up multiple times) over the main foci of the series.

I do wish Dominic and Anemone had more screentime though. The story could have set them up nicely as a foil to Renton and Eureka.

edited 29th Sep '11 1:05:33 PM by GlennMagusHarvey

Because Necroing is fun and this show is great.

Agreed. They easily became my two favorites, but maybe it's exactly because we didn't have as much of a focus on them as Renton and Eureka. If we did, we could have easily had the same things that annoyed us about them. I do wish Anenome didn't suffer so much from the Worf Effect though. She got so little screentime to begin with and I don't remember her winning a single fight.

Did anyone else think the ending was sort of an Inferred Holocaust? Some of the setting details could have been clarified, but it seemed as if the Coralians decimated quite a number of populous cities, and we're supposed to let that go because Dewey's gone and Renton and Eureka disappeared into the moon together or something?

It's implied in the ending that Renton and Eureka end up living with Axel and the three kids.

As for Anemone, I'm pretty sure it's shown that she's torn through vast numbers of mooks before.

Edit: Sorry about the spoilers!

edited 8th Nov '11 5:03:08 PM by GlennMagusHarvey

Mooks that disappear in pink clouds... except when they don't...

Woah, spoilers much? Anyway, if the implication's there, it's not very strong. I sort of saw it that way, but the Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence overtones were much stronger.

What mooks are you talking about? Gekkostate didn't have any, and I don't remember any other LF Os fighting Dewey's government (though it has been a few months since I've watched). If Anenome had to lose to Renton and Eureka, fine. But they could have at least made her tear up the 606 or one of Gekkostate's other less important LF Os, you know?

edited 8th Nov '11 4:57:14 PM by DeviousRecital

I do wish Dominic and Anemone had more screentime though. The story could have set them up nicely as a foil to Renton and Eureka.

It DID set them up as a foil for Renton and Eureka ever since Anemone was first introduced. But then they just sort of forgot about that until the end of the series.

They easily became my two favorites, but maybe it's exactly because we didn't have as much of a focus on them as Renton and Eureka. If we did, we could have easily had the same things that annoyed us about them.

They were just great characters, either together or on their own, so I think that while they deserved more screentime then they got, they still had to be used sparringly as reacurring characters rather than regulars.

I do wish Anenome didn't suffer so much from the Worf Effect though. She got so little screentime to begin with and I don't remember her winning a single fight.

She nearly killed Holland once, didn't she? Heck, I remember people saying it was an Ass Pull that Holland even survived that encounter with her.

I sure wasn't expecting Holland to survive that.

Hmm. I don't really remember that, but I can see it. Even still, that would be the only thing that Anenome remotely succeeded at in terms of battle, which is sad seeing as she's the story's resident Dark Action Girl. The other adaptations weren't any better in that department either.

On the previous subject of Eureka being a Rei clone... she is. Both grew more human over the course of their respective series. Only thing is, Rei is, herself, nothing more than a vessel for transplanted memories, so when she dies 3/4 of the way into Evangelion, her cloned replacement lost a few emotions in translation. Even after that, the new Rei does become more human like the old one, and this ultimately leads to her taking control of Instrumentality from Gendo and giving it to Shinji. Yeah, I didn't get all of that the first time around either.

Last post was Nov 8th? Well, unless I want to start a new thread for the new series, here's some new information:

The first two chapters of the Eureka Seven Ao manga are translated. I must say... that is one way to start a new sequel-series. Certainly hits a number Shonen Backstory and Origin tropes right on the head.

Oh, we already have a page for it? Nice.

edited 26th Feb '12 6:37:32 AM by Belian

Well... was not expecting this to get a sequel (and an anime planned for it, no less). Thanks for the post, else I never would have known about it.

So yeah, the story's nothing new yet, and the hint droppping is really pointless for those who've seen the original, but I do find it interesting that they actually have a "Japan" now. That and the research team seems promising, and the Coralians now look like Angels for some reason. This might turn out well.

edited 26th Feb '12 12:20:38 PM by DeviousRecital

The series already had parallels to Evangelion.

So: do you all think the new Ao series will do justice to the original?

With these types of series, it's really best if you come in with low or no expectations. Hyping one's self too much might cause Guilty Crown levels of disappointment (in some ways).

Edit: Never mind.

I'm not too optimistic about the new anime. I'm not worried about it, per say, but I'm not getting my hopes us.

edited 26th Feb '12 7:36:12 PM by SilentColossus