Anime: Eureka Seven AO 4n446b

The original Eureka Seven was a very good show. It brought mecha action, lots of drama, bits of psychological play, and threw all this in a weird setting that was very unique and colorful. It lost itself during Renton and Eureka's crisis for around 10 to 15 episodes, but that wasn't enough to bring the whole thing down. It ended nicely and deserved the praises it got when released. It's not always that we see an Evangelion-inspired show that manages to do things right.

So, the logical thinking to the people behind Eureka Seven was probably something like this: The people loved it and we should release a sequel, but let's strip down all the serious complexity to gather a wider audience and throw in some cute gals. And so was born Eureka Seven Ao (E7Ao henceforth). What we have here is once again an attempt to mimic Evangelion, but this time they were more agressive in their copying machine and lacked attention to create the details. The result is an absurd mess of a plot, full of cameo appearances, unexplained parts, things that make no sense, a terrible pace, and a show that leaves most of the important events out of screen.

Art & Animation
Bones made quite a show with Eureka Seven, motion was fluid and the characters were expressive, though we had many inconsistent scenes with Nirvash and the monsters. E7Ao is basically more of the same, the quality remains good, but the years make it not that awesome anymore. Comparing to other recent shows we certainly have only a slightly above-average visual experience. Characters remain very expressive and keep the style created for the franchise, which is a huge plus, the mechas also got a bump in their designs, but otherwise didn't got much attention to movement. Most combats are composed by drastic changes in Nirvash's position, rarely making something really fluid, but it's still good enough. The backgrounds, however, are fairly simple and not varied. Expect lots of combats to happen in the blue sky and sea, and they're not that awesomely artistic as in Hoshi No Koe or similar shows.

Sound
E7Ao lost the touch of the original. Eureka's soundtrack was very unique and remarkable, and we could instantly recognize the show when hearing it. Here in E7Ao the uniqueness was removed. Although we still have glimpse's of the old style, most musics became more similar to the standard of recent shows. The background music, besides losing the touch as well, is clearly overused, and after six episodes hearing the same dramatic theme in all combats you may be very annoyed by it. In fact, the show doesn't have that many background themes to play, so the repetition is fated to be a huge problem in the long run. Voice-acting is a bit more annoying than in Eureka Seven. We got Renton's yelling out, but instead got Ao's even more terrible yelling. He always complains, always yells, argue, and his voice has a terrible pitch, so in a few moments you'll grow to hate him more than Renton. The remaining cast also suffer from a few lolis with terrible pitch in their voices, but we also have a few more mature voice-acting to balance things out.

Story
E7Ao has one of the most convoluted and unexplained plot that I have knowledge of. It tells the story of Ao, Eureka's son, after being left in a village with the old doctor Toshio. He lived as a normal 13-year boy until a strange coral-structure appeared in the beach. Events unfold and he is forced to pilot a mecha to destroy a monster that came after the coral.

Wait... I will try to summarize Evangelion's plot here:

Shinji Ikari is the son of Gendou, a normal 14-year old boy living a normal life until surprisingly recalled by his father who lives in Tokyo. He reaches there, a huge creature appears (attracted by the stuff inside the Geofront), and events unfold and Shinji finds himself piloting a mecha to destroy the monster.

1. 
   Evangelion again? Yes, and this time 100% copied
   Yeah. People compared Eureka Seven to Evangelion and they had their reasons, the shows were similar, based on similar elements, but their developments were substantially different from each other. We had a similar start, but the Coral, Eureka, the Gecko crew, many elements had at least some difference from Evangelion's Nerv, the Angels, Geofront, etc. It looks like the authors decided that it was time to clearly copy Evangelion this time: meaning they wouldn't even bother to change stuff! And the start is just the beginning!
   
   - The protagonist and two girls as pilots. Somehow the mechas can only be piloted by kids whatever the reason. Check!
   - An older woman is reponsible for the pilot kids. Check!
   - The secret organization is hiding something in its base, something the creatures are coming for but no one knows. Check!
   - The protagonist has serious mental problems and will break constantly. Check!
   - The protagonist has issues with his father and mother. Check!
   - The protagonist is the only one who can pilot the super robot because it's linked with his mother. Check!
   - The enemies are in fact trying to cleanse the world of the human problems. Check!
   - The robots are built upon remains of the enemies. Check!
   - Lots of things happens out of screen. Check!
   - An humanoid enemy appear and has a liking/rivalry to the protagonist. Check!
   - Secret organization. Enemies immune to conventional weapons. Doomsday. Check! Check! Check!
   
   Is this a sequel? A prequel? A parallel world?
   Okay, so they decided to copy Evangelion without restraints. This means the plot is complex but good, full of secrets, small details, lots of eastern eggs, real life references, ncie development, etc, right? No. E7Ao just makes us absurdly confused from start to finish. It starts with Eureka's son, who is basically Eureka but called "he" instead of "she". This makes us think he's Renton's son. So the plot would take someplace after the original Eureka Seven. But wait. The setting is exactly right? Japan? Real world? Where is the trapar energy? Where are the robots and stuff? Pirate like organizations? Okay, a Coral appeared... it was in that moment that I realized that I didn't the events of the previous shows that well. I couldn't think how Japan fit the show, or how the Coral appeared. Then some enemy called "Secret" pops and goes after the Coral. They start refering to Coral appearances in the early 19th Century and other similar historical events. Did all this happened in Eureka Seven? If it did, then my mind went completely numb from all that Renton and Eureka's bullshit.
   
   When it's not enough to make you wonder if this is a prequel, sequel, or whatever, Eureka pops from a void and in a younger version of herself! Nuts! They throw time travel, doomsday, multiple existences, the airship from Eureka Seven, Renton, two Nirvashs, and mix all that with a whole new concept for the Coral, like some hidden origin never revealed in the past show. Hell, what are they thinking? So this IS a prequel that is in fact a sequel? But has alternative characters from a possible sequel of the original merged with another sequel? Wha..?
   
   And yes, I wasn't numb when I thought I forgot events from the previous show. They really didn't happen, this is all new stuff, using Eureka and Renton as fanservice and helping to make the plot a complete mess of utter nonsense.
   
   Development
   Okay, the plot is crude. But is there development? Eureka Seven was very character-driven and had some awesome action moments, what about that in this sequel/prequel? Not much. The show mostly randoms moves forward, changing from one scene to the next like a flash and making Ao appear completely determined one time just to break in despair in the next. Fights, which were supposed to be big brawls with huge monsters, just end in a few seconds or don't even happen at all. The two girls just stand there as Ao destroys everything in a single blow. He suffer a few defeats later on, but his behavior is so erratic that is hard to determine if he was truly affected by his loss or if it's just another random change the author wanted just to make him crush the opponents later.
   
   So overall, the plot is just one big pile of issues and unexplained stuff. You just have to imagine things. Not only that, but the only thing that moves the plot forward are the cameo appearances from Eureka and Renton. This is a terrible prequel/sequel/whatever, and once again it proves that mixing time-traveling and/or parallel universes without much care is simply stupid. Even when you take into consideration that this is a Bones work, which means the plot is a mess at the end by default, E7Ao manages to surprise us for being a mess since the very beginning.
   

Character
Ao is Eureka's male version. He not only looks the same, but act as a mix of her annoying fear and Renton's terrible lack of will. He fits a 13-year old boy role, but I can't see that type of boy being the savior of mankind anytime soon. His random surges of courage and sudden lack of motivation make his personality a complete joke. He's annoying as hell and can't create any kind of bond with the expectator by simply being a kid that never learns.

The cast has the same problems. We have two useless girls that were supposed to mimic some sort of Asuka/Rei duet, but they both never really get enough spotlight to develop. They are always useless in combat, useless as romantic pairs, etc. Hell, one of the girls even has a helmet with cat ears and otaku stuff! WHY? to these two the other crew composed by three girls, one of which is the token obligatory loli to all recent shows, and we could have a harem show if Ao had a better chick-magnet attached to him. The older characters don't act as truly mature men and women. They treat the kids as kids at least, but they don't develop enough and also hardly get enough spotlight to make their stances. Even the stupid AI is a comical relief character.... But overall the cast is not exactly THAT bad, they just lack a good presentation and a lots of consistency, especially when compared to Eureka Seven and Evangelion.

1. Cameo Apperances
   E7Ao suffers drastically from being a sequel that tries to build a new cast. This is basically what happened in Gundam Seed Destiny as well. The new cast is so stupid and undeveloped that when the old cast (basically Eureka and Renton) make their appearance, they completely rob the scene. And that's not because they have intricate stories here, this is just because they already developed quite a lot in the past show. However, unlike Gundam Seed Destiny, where the show puts the new cast to the sidelines and completely changes its focus to the old cast, Eureka Seven reserves Eureka and Renton solely as cameos, making stylish returns and vanishing, so you mostly see the plot from Ao's and his friends, and as a consequence you don't get a bump in quality at all.
   

Value
A show that clearly copies another deserves no praise. A show that fails to do anything with quality WHILE copying another deserves to be forgotten. E7Ao's case is the later, and like Last Exile 2, it only serves to deal a huge blow into a very powerful franchise. It brought down Eureka's intricate plot and left only a big mess of weird events, Evangelion rip-offs, and lack of decent conclusion. It has some decent production values, but even there the show lost fuel and identity when compared to the previous work. They had a base to build upon, they had an awesome show to start, but they simply forgot it and created one of my biggest disappointments in the season. I already had low expectations after watching failure after failure in this year, but Eureka Seven Ao managed to destroy my expectations even more than Last Exile 2 because, unlike the later, it tried to be serious instead of just accepting that it is only a childish copy that tries to fake complexity with trash.

Enjoyment
The start was a blast. Nice to see Eureka Seven again. However, after just a few episodes the shine was lost. None of what appeared made any sense, I spent more than ten episodes trying to understand where this all fit in Eureka Seven's plot. And in the last part the nonsense and fanservice of cameos just took over everything. Enduring a Shinji-wannabe that never learns and always magically defeats invincible opponents is a harsh thing to do. I wouldn't recommend Eureka Seven Ao to anyone, but perhaps those who never watched the original Eureka Seven and are looking for some mecha action may be a bit pleased with this despite losing the attractive power of the cameos.

Comments
Another terrible sequel. Damn you Bones. I already cursed Gonzo for taking one of their best works and destroying it in a kiddy show full of carefree girls and mindless setting, and now Bones do the same, but increases my hate tenfold for making such absurd stupidly unexplained plot. I like complex plots, intrigues, secrets, etc, but this E7Ao is just a bunch of garbage merged together trying to fake its complexity. In essence this is the most clear Evangelion rip-off ever made, but it never even tried to make his own story convincing.

Yet another terrible show for the season. This makes me why I skipped most shows of the last two seasons. I could endure this only because it had Eureka Seven in the name, otherwise I would probably toss it to garbage after episode 5 or so. Anyway, as a person who enjoyed Eureka Seven, this is an insult. But at least is a beauftul show with better mecha designs... if that is anything that matters.

The first series (E7 henceforth) is considered to be one of the most lovable mecha/adventure/action/romances of the previous decade and is part of thousands of top lists. I personally never liked it too much, as many episodes felt too slow, or were fillers, while many aspects of the story were confusing, unfocused, and eventually unexplained. It was otherwise much better than your average mecha or adventure, plus it had the privilege to end in a solid way with no reason to expect a sequel. But alas, AO is here…

As soon as the promotional videos and the character designs were out, me and many others had a really bad feeling about this. It screamed like the whole thing would turn into a harem with THAT sort of protagonist and THOSE types of uniforms.
I see a pussy boy and two sluts; what do you think the show will be like?
And guess what happened as soon as the first episode came out. We were of course right. Here is why.

1. It is not inspirational
Allow me to describe my first impressions of each series.

E7: The hero is the son of a famous man and has a dull normal life. He hopes to do something important one day. Suddenly a huge robot with a beautiful girl drops in his life. He immediately decides to follow that girl in a life of adventure, with hopes to be as great as his father, as well as winning her heart.

AO: The hero is the son of a despised woman and has a simple normal life with no real goals and even a secured childhood friend / platonic girlfriend. Suddenly a weird robot attacks his village and he is running away scared until he is dragged around by some snoopy friends of his to go have a closer look. All accidentally he drops inside a mecha and without having the slightest clue of what he is doing, he beats the evil robot. Then some cute girl appears and tries to befriend him, while trying to explain what happened. He gets angry and walks away since he doesn’t care to find out. Even later when he decides to the crew, he does so with the only motivation being to find his lost mother by randomly piloting the robot everybody is after. For that reason he dumps his girlfriend and takes part in missions battling monsters he really doesn’t care about with hopes for some clues regarding the whereabouts of his mother to drop out of the sky. Hardly what I call interesting.

So basically, the first season had a very dynamic and positive beginning, while the second begins in a dark and depressing way. Although being darker usually means better, in this case they really messed it up in a bad way because it doesn’t try to make you interested in the story. He wants to find his mommy??? Seriously???

2. The new characters are completely dull
You would gradually fall in love with the E7 crew but this one in AO feels generic, distant, and moody. It just doesn’t give you any good reason to care for them.

- The lead boy, Ao, is always angry and runs away. As much as a pussy Renton, the first hero was, he had to begin from scratch and slowly build his fame and importance to the rest of the crew. Ao on the other hand begins as someone born to be special and awesome, and everybody is after his genetic powers that enable him to pilot the robot. This felt as a very cheap attempt at giving importance to a character who otherwise doesn’t want to do anything. And am I supposed to believe he is more interested in randomly piloting a robot that may or may not lead him to his mother and dumps back at the island the girl that is so crazy over him? What is this sick Oedipus complex? He also has the done-to-death protection syndrome of shounen leads and looks like a girl with green hair. I want to strangle him and those high heels we wears. Faggot!

- The other main pilots are not any better. First of all they are all airhead little girls, something that feels retarded next to E7 where you had pilots of all ages. They don’t even take their roles seriously and prefer to surf the net or do karaoke than fight the bad robots. All you basically get is a bunch of stupid lolis and a gay-looking hero; what is this again, a military organization or an ecchi harem? Not only that, but the animators don’t miss the chance to turn them all into underage whores on every step of the way, as you get a whole lot of fan service where they are naked and rubbing it on that faggot of a protagonist. You would respect and cherish the women in the original. All you do with these ones is masturbating twice an episode.

- The characters are all shallow and uninteresting. Why are they in this show anyway? So many teams with so many agendas and none get the basic focus they deserve to become likable to us. They all feel like cardboards.

- Even the enemies are faceless robots without personality that hardly have anything to care about next to the human opponents of E7. Not only that but the coral monsters of E7 had a style and identity of their own but these ones in AO look like rip-offs from Neon Genesis. (henceforth NGE).

3. Actually, if you think about it the whole show stinks of a NGE rehash.
Angry insecure teenage boy with mommy issues, along with other sexy underage girls, protect the world from huge monsters with shady objectives by piloting huge robots. But surely, this is hardly as exciting, not only because the concept is copied a lot by later shows but also because we are not made to care about the characters. I mean I can appreciate how they didn’t go for a rehash of the first season. It is not an adventure, like E7 was, where they randomly travel the world and meet all sorts of challenges along the way. It is a lot more military-based, where they wait in their fancy headquarters for a monster to attack … and then just head there. Boring.

4. Late in the story it also becomes a Steins;Gate rip-off.
Ok, not S;G in particular but any show with time resets in general. It is a terrible trope that exists to magically undo anything the scriptwriter doesn’t want, and offer an easy way out of every problem without any responsibility or purpose to anything that is happening in the plot. In this case, the whole plot ends up being deleted entirely, so it’s like you are watching a full season worth of crap that never really happened. How rewarding…

5. There is no investment to story and characters
how simple both E7 and NGE were in their early episodes? They were slowly adding more people and themes to the story, building up along the way as they flesh out new characters and developments, one thing at a time. Now what is all this mess in AO? We are thrown a hundred characters at our face, all at once, military organizations, some weird independence movement, rebel bases, yakuza, shape shifting aliens, none of which have much to do or say. Seriously, saving the whole world and altering reality on a daily basis in AO feels boring next to the random minor missions of E7. Why? Because it doesn’t focus on its characters! Stuff happen, shit blow up, tears drop and you wonder WHY IS ALL THAT IMPORTANT? When huge cataclysmic events take place, and are thrown to the side in a few minutes like they don’t matter at all, all you can do is reacting with apathy. Everything feels so cynical and rushed, without emotion or motivation, so how are you supposed to sympathize with whatever the hell is going on in here?

6. And trust me, you will have a hard time to even understand the plot.
Up to the first half you will have no idea what is going on with the politics, no idea when this takes place next to E7, and even no idea what is everybody’s motive. The scenes change almost chaotically from one place to another, you get a hundred people in a dozen places doing world-shaking, yet unimportant plot-wise things, and you almost never have a clear picture of why is everything happening. This is not new to the company who made the show by the way. In case you don’t know the studio BONES style, they always make anime with amazing production values, very good story ideas, very good early episodes … and a shitty storyboard. Seriously, they don’t have a single show that doesn’t fall apart towards the end. They all become cryptic and confusing before ending in a rushed and messy way leaving you mostly disappointed and hollow inside.

Yet AO is somewhat of an exception, since it didn’t even wait to get to the second half of the show in order to be like that; it has a very messy storyboard from the very beginning. What’s the matter you guys, up to now you were at least giving us likable characters before you screw up the story, and now you just don’t bother doing not even that? I mean, seriously, what is going on with the weird way you tell the story? You jump from one place to another, mention a hundred things without elaborating on anything, present the plot in a non-linear fashion, throw in dream sequences, and yet you don’t manage to make a single worthy scene? If you are trying to keep your stories mysterious, you are doing a shitty job.

7. The villain is OP
And seriously, after decades of experience you go and make a villain who is so overpowered he can do ANYTHING he likes? An overpowered villain is a lame villain because whatever he does leaves the heroes completely incapable to control anything in the plot. They feel like they are useless and ive, peons working for whatever plans he has in store for them instead of feeling dynamic and inspiring. Seriously, if such a powerful villain ever gets defeated it will only feel like a lame asspull since there is absolutely no way to excuse his defeat.

8. Too bent on nostalgia
What is even worse is how up to the first part of the story we had nothing to talk about it, other than how it compares to the first season. We just wondered if it’s a sequel or a prequel, or which characters are the descendants of the first crew. We had absolutely nothing to say about the new cast or story because there is NOTHING in it. And even when they later on revealed its relation, it just felt like a pile of BS as it had to do with multiple time travels and alternative realities and a bunch of other horseshit nobody cared about. WHO CARES ABOUT ALL THAT? You threw all those stuff in our face and then expect us to like them without first making us care about the characters. Did you really expect this to work?

Of course and they did. Do you know what their major lure from the very first episode was? The characters from the first show! We were literally watching this just for them to appear again and didn’t give a damn about the newer cast. Can you imagine how lame it feels to have a show that can’t stand on its own feet and needs to reuse characters from an earlier show instead of trying to establish newer ones? This is Gundam SEED Destiny all over again. The protagonists of E7 are just cast in AO yet feel a hundred times cooler exactly because they were likable in the first place. This is so cheap! They just keep everything mysterious in a lame attempt to keep us interested in seeing all this horseshit.

9. Lame action
And goddammit, if you so much want to have robot action in this show, at least try to make it interesting instead of doing this crap. The battles are rushed and boring next to the fluent motions of E7. They just stay frozen on midair and throw lasers at each other before that hax Truth snaps his fingers and shit happens any way he likes. That’s not fun at all! And it’s always about Ao having absolutely no experience in battle yet manages to best the rest of the elite pilots. He meets and beats all the monster robots on his own and always in the same episode they appear in. And what’s with the shapes these Secrets have? They are terrible compared to the Scrubs. It is all too fast and stupid; make it exciting damn you!

10. But nooo; that was apparently too hard to do so they went for retarded fan service instead.
Why is there a pink haired loli with a rabbit helmet in this show? Is it supposed to make her cute? SHE IS A DRONE! I want to molest her; not feel sympathy for her. For the same reason, why are there only underage girl pilots in this show? THERE IS NO EXCUSE OTHER THAN OTAKU BAIT! These bitches even cosplay at one point as promotion for a manga that will be based on them. And guess what, their boobs are drawn there ten times bigger than they already are. There are telling straight at your face that this show is for deviant otakus!

11. What’s with those god-ugly mascots?
That stupid animal with the huge hands and the dumb face is not cute or funny. And neither is that AI program that is supposed to be informing them. Is that circle with a huge nose supposed to be interesting? It is so annoying! Even the characters in this show it it is. I hate it! I hate everything in this show and it’s not just me; pretty much all the fans of the first share my feelings! And it’s all your fault BONES.

12. Fancy visuals mean jack shit
So could you at least be enjoying the show for its very good production values? Not for me, since I was never such a shallow viewer; I care a lot more about good directing and interesting characters, something this show lacks completely. Furthermore, good production values don’t mean much for most viewers anymore. They were a good eye-catcher up until five years ago when the Blu Ray was still new and the DVD quality was still at its peak. But today that doesn’t mean much after so many well made shows came out. Plus who cares who many polygons you get per second if story and characters are shit?

13. Improvements my arse
Do you know what is even lamer than all that? I am reading how the developers took pointers from lots of things the fans didn't like in the first show as advises for improving the sequel. This is why they went for faster pace, more action, and more fan service. These were literally supposed to make AO better! Better my ass; how are they improvements if they trashed the character appeal? Furthermore nobody was watching E7 just for action or fan service. But no, just like all sequels do, it tried to be flashier and ended up being hollower. Ever heard how less is more? Moral message of the day kids: Don't let the fans tell you how to write a script or you get this mess. The fans are idiots! If you listen to them you will make fanfics full of plot holes and fan catering but never a good sequel. And I know they did the same in Code Geass r2 but even there most of us it it was just a funny no-brainer and it trashed its interesting themes. So no, bad move there.

This show is a complete failure. Stop making sequels to titles that never needed them. You only manage to ruin the good memories.