(L) Eureka Seven: Astral Ocean

[Kanon]

That was a fantastic episode. The ending left me speechless. I'm happy to see Eureka again, even if it may not be THE Eureka. I can't wait to see Ao interact with his (soon to be) Mom. What if this Eureka stuck around and gave birth to another Ao? That would be pretty pretty pretty pretty weird.

[AMon10A]

Consequences to the plot aside, that was a full on fanboy meltdown moment when the Gekko-go emerged from the Scub coral.

[Myssa Rei]

Spoiler for Just a minor detail:

Anyone notice how this Gekko-gou has the same (ventral) damage/hole where Renton burst out from it at the end of the TV series?

[ookamigirl]

Truth & Naru. They make an interesting pair.
Ao & crew in space. That was kinda cool to see.
That Truth sure can be really unique in his behavior.
So far, he is the most interesting character.
Scub Coral in space?! Now that's something new.
Some more interesting facts about Ao & his origin.
Awesome episode!!

[Flawfinder]

Great episode, even before Eureka came back. Sort of wonder how the Gekko got to this world and what Eureka has been doing all this time (if that's really her), but all in all, things are looking up. And yeah, this anime is still going to be using that goofy tone, even with the introductory episodes done.

[miketyson]

Thanks ReddyRedWolf and duckroll for bringing me back up to speed on how Ao's vision works.

[hai_san]

Twist over twist, finally it is getting interestings in E7 Ao.

[duckroll]

Upcoming episode credits:

Episode 13 - She's a Rainbow
Script: Shou Aikawa
Episode Director: Hisatoshi Shimizu
Storyboard: Shinpei Ezaki, Takeshi Yoshioka, Tomoki Kyoda
Character Animation Directors: Shigeru Fujita, Tomokatsu Nagasaku, Takahiro Komori
Mecha Animation Director: Takeshi Yoshioka


Episode 14 - Starfire
Script: Shou Aikawa
Episode Director: Satomi Nakamura
Storyboard: Namimi Sanjo (Hitoshi Nanba), Soichi Masui, Tomoki Kyoda
Character Animation Directors: Toshihiro Kawamoto, Eiko Saito, Koichi Horikawa
Mecha Animation Directors: Nobuaki Nagano, Nekomataya


Episode 15 - TBA
Script: Shinichi Inotsume, Shou Aikawa
Episode Director: TBA
Storyboard: TBA
Animation Director: TBA


Episode 16 - TBA
Script: Shou Aikawa
Episode Director: TBA
Storyboard: TBA
Animation Director: TBA

[ReddyRedWolf]

I find it funny that Mama thought Secret could be Ao's own kind.

Not any any Coralian we know. He's more related to Humans and Scub. But they don't know that.

Originally Posted by duckroll

Because that might not even be what is happening here. It's all conjecture. I believe that the world in AO is a simulated/constructed reality based on memories, information, and ideas of human civilization up until humanity left Earth. That explains why the setting is closer to modern day, rather than far in the future. When humanity left, communication and information sharing with the Scub ceased. Hence most of what it knows about human civilization on Earth is based on everything up until around this time in our history.

AO isn't about people slipping into a random alternate dimension imo, but rather a specific reality created based past knowledge of our world. That's why there are deliberate details which are incorrect or different, and it is why people Truth can manipulate reality effortlessly. It's not really real. It is just a constructed reality to house a collective consciousness away from the real world, while the Scub continues to try to understand how humanity and coralians can live together. There is no time travel.

This has been something I've speculated on since the series started. If I'm wrong, then I'm wrong, but when I'm right, remember that I said it first!

Mind you I was the one who came up with the Matrix explanation.

This universe I may say is likely manufactured by the Secrets. The Scub to them are intruders.

The Secrets act like antibodies. They are like the Matrix's version of Agents.

But then we learn that the Secrets themselves are Slider like the Scub.

What is their relation to the Scub that they are antagonistic to? Like the Scub they produce Trapar waves thus the ZOA and they manipulate the laws of physics.

It has been speculated that Truth is a human form Secret. If he was a Coralian he'd have purple eyes. Instead he has yellow compounded eyes.

Only that Truth seems to be fighting against Secrets. His disregard for human life he treats them nothing more than game characters.

Whatever the case he deluded himself that Eureka has all the answers and Nirvash belongs to him.

[duckroll]

Originally Posted by ReddyRedWolf

Mind you I was the one who came up with the Matrix explanation.

This universe I may say is likely manufactured by the Secrets. The Scub to them are intruders.

The Secrets act like antibodies. They are like the Matrix's version of Agents.

But then we learn that the Secrets themselves are Slider like the Scub.

What is their relation to the Scub that they are antagonistic to? Like the Scub they produce Trapar waves thus the ZOA and they manipulate the laws of physics.

It has been speculated that Truth is a human form Secret. If he was a Coralian he'd have purple eyes. Instead he has purple compounded eyes.

Only that Truth seems to be fighting against Secrets. His disregard for human life he treats them nothing more than game characters.

Whatever the case he deluded himself that Eureka has all the answers and Nirvash belongs to him.

Please don't monopolize all theories as if you're the only one who can come up with anything and that everyone is copying you or something. If you want to speculate about time travel or alternate dimensions, then do so. If you want to speculate about a simulated existence, by all means do so as well. But if you want to present every possible theory you can think of just to cover all bases, then it is just random guessing trying to hit every possible plot point anyone could think of.

I don't think that the Secrets are any form of antibodies or anything at all. My theory is simply that the world as it is in AO is a faulty recreation of what a normal human world might be, most probably by the Scub Coral. The Secrets are errors in the system which could be made out of damaged memories or data in the system. The Secrets don't seem to have any sentience at all, instead they're act on impulse like some sort of lingering memory. I don't think Truth is a "human Secret" either, but rather someone who understands enough of the nature of the world to be able to manipulate it, but not enough to break out of it.

In the end, I doubt the explanation for everything in the show will be strictly scientific. Similar to E7 itself, there will probably be a heavy spiritual/meta-physical side to it. So the "simulated world" might not be a computer system in a scientific sense, but rather a sort of shared spiritual dream that Coralians and humans are linked to. We'll see I guess.

[miketyson]

Given how much apparent banksian/culture influence that's gone into it I'd be surprised if we do get a matrix-esque scenario (regardless of who'd be the ones making the matrix in AO). If the influences go beyond the surface I'd be 90% sure that the world we're seeing is a real world, but probably just one of many.

The forms the secrets have been taking seem like they're meant to be projected thought-forms, perhaps partially for communicative purposes, with combat use something of an afterthought. Picture something like the equivalent of the way the LFO bodies were something the coral created for communicative purposes but wound up being used as combat platforms (good going, humanity, on that front!).

Whatever happened with that black-hole looking "great wall" by the end of the original? I know some magic was used to pass through it that one time, but wasn't the wall still there after all that? Wasn't it some kind of contained rip in the space-time fabric the coral made on accident? If I'm remembering all that right it seems like "tried to seal it, messed up" might be part of how we wind up in the Ao-verse.

[Burgerz]

Originally Posted by duckroll

The Secrets are errors in the system which could be made out of damaged memories or data in the system. The Secrets don't seem to have any sentience at all, instead they're act on impulse like some sort of lingering memory. .

A lingering version of Dewey's virus perhaps?

[SQA]

Originally Posted by miketyson

Given how much apparent banksian/culture influence that's gone into it I'd be surprised if we do get a matrix-esque scenario (regardless of who'd be the ones making the matrix in AO). If the influences go beyond the surface I'd be 90% sure that the world we're seeing is a real world, but probably just one of many.

The forms the secrets have been taking seem like they're meant to be projected thought-forms, perhaps partially for communicative purposes, with combat use something of an afterthought. Picture something like the equivalent of the way the LFO bodies were something the coral created for communicative purposes but wound up being used as combat platforms (good going, humanity, on that front!).

Whatever happened with that black-hole looking "great wall" by the end of the original? I know some magic was used to pass through it that one time, but wasn't the wall still there after all that? Wasn't it some kind of contained rip in the space-time fabric the coral made on accident? If I'm remembering all that right it seems like "tried to seal it, messed up" might be part of how we wind up in the Ao-verse.

The "Great Wall" was the damage done when the Scub Coral first achieved too much consciousness. Basically, too much Trapar Energy. That's why they're all "asleep" in the E7 TV world and the crux of how Dewey was going to destroy them. (He knew they'd prevent themselves from waking up, which is how he was going to implant the Virus). When Renton, Eureka & the kids get through the Great Wall, it's with the help of Sakuya & Norb to breach the Trapar wall that was built up.

Also important to the Great Wall is when that happened, the Coralians also saw another dimension. Which, by theory, is the world we're seeing now. (It should be noted in ep 50, Gonzy specifically said 1/2 of them were going to that other world)

What is still to be explained (of which I imagine a lot in ep 13) is what version of Eureka(s) we're interacting with. The Nirvash & TheEND are both in their ep 50 versions, same with the Gekko-go. But, the Nirvash was in its "pre-final battle" form and Eureka has her gem but no wings. So, this fits in with what I laid out 3 months ago: it's at least an alternate world (could be Matrix-type world, we don't know yet), which suggests the sequel is actually for the Scub Coral. Eureka's version is the huge question. We'll find out much more next week, but we could also be terribly confused as well.

Oh, and monster geek out moment when the Gekko-go showed up.

[duckroll]

Originally Posted by miketyson

Given how much apparent banksian/culture influence that's gone into it I'd be surprised if we do get a matrix-esque scenario (regardless of who'd be the ones making the matrix in AO). If the influences go beyond the surface I'd be 90% sure that the world we're seeing is a real world, but probably just one of many.

Well, I don't completely agree here. I think that the series has actually dropped quite a number of hints throughout that supports the theory that this world is an artificial one as opposed to just one of many equally real alternate dimensions. If we're looking at a pure parallel world sort of scifi narrative, it would be approached differently imo.

We have a character who calls himself "Truth," who has the unique power to disappear and reappear at will, change his appearance into any other person he has known regardless of size/gender/personality, destroy objects and vehicles at will, and create grand illusions not limited by distance or scope at all. This same character goes around the world telling people that this world is "wrong" and that he can show them the "truth" of the world. Now we find out that his adoptive father was a famous scientist who was driven to suicide because of what he discovered about the "truth" of the world.

If you ask me, those are all very strong narrative cues pointing to the fact that there is something artificial about the entire world, and that there is a character who operates outside of the rules of the world because he knows how to tap into the outer boundary of the world's reality. That's not the sort of thing you have in a traditional parallel world story. There's also a very subtle hint I picked up when the OP sequence first aired - at the end of the OP instead of just cutting away or fading to black, the sequence dissolves into TV noise. While it could just be a visual gimmick, in a series as deliberately planned as E7AO, even to the point of the OP sequence having minor changes to reflect the progress of the story as it goes along, that definitely suggests that the creators are hinting to us that it is not all as it seems, and that there is a world "outside" watching in.

[miketyson]

All good points and plenty of stuff I missed like the tv static. The sci-fi counterargument is that there are certain sci-fi books from which the original E7 borrowed very extensively (Blood Music being huge here), to the point that the easiest way to figure out what happened in E7 is probably to read what it borrows from and use that to figure out what happened in E7. I'm not trying to knock the series, just saying that it did lift a few of its major ideas from other sources and it's a lot easier to get (and would've been easier to predict) if you catch that.

Likewise here, once Truth came on the scene it started feeling like AO was borrowing a lot of ideas from "Use of Weapons" and especially "Consider Phlebas", though at least in the past episode it's started going in an interesting direction that away from those influences, which is certainly welcome. But, that said, if it does wind up borrowing from those sources as much as E7 borrowed from its sources it probably won't be a proper matrix scenario, just parallel worlds (with perhaps the scub having sent a world off-course).

Additionally, thanks to what I remember of E7, the way the coral works means that Truth (and now Naru) may just be equivalents of Norb (no embedded compac drive a la Norb, but still directly or indirectly fused with some chunk of coral thereby getting direct access to coral-warping powers). Everyone with wild-colored hair has some sort of coralian connection, Truth had it even in that picture as a kid flashback...so how long before Naru gets a hair color change, ? What colors are left? Deep blue? Deep orange? And iirc the way the movie went it had parallel worlds but a similar belief by the main characters that they were somehow in the "wrong" world of the two, but I could be misremembering it.

You're definitely right though, that there's a lot of setup here for a matrix-style twist and not much for a vanilla parallel/alternate world scenario. That point about the TV static is a very good catch.

[ttdestroy]

I can't believe I ever doubted this series. I thought last week was good then they go and double down on everything this week. Masterful.

[duckroll]

Originally Posted by miketyson

All good points and plenty of stuff I missed like the tv static. The sci-fi counterargument is that there are certain sci-fi books from which the original E7 borrowed very extensively (Blood Music being huge here), to the point that the easiest way to figure out what happened in E7 is probably to read what it borrows from and use that to figure out what happened in E7. I'm not trying to knock the series, just saying that it did lift a few of its major ideas from other sources and it's a lot easier to get (and would've been easier to predict) if you catch that.

Likewise here, once Truth came on the scene it started feeling like AO was borrowing a lot of ideas from "Use of Weapons" and especially "Consider Phlebas", though at least in the past episode it's started going in an interesting direction that away from those influences, which is certainly welcome. But, that said, if it does wind up borrowing from those sources as much as E7 borrowed from its sources it probably won't be a proper matrix scenario, just parallel worlds (with perhaps the scub having sent a world off-course).

Well, I totally agree about the inspirations for the original E7's scifi roots. But I think that in many ways Kyoda is trying to somewhat distance AO from E7 in terms of inspirations and roots, but not in a negative way. Instead AO is a proper sequel to E7 which isn't trying to be a predictable or safe sequel. Instead it wants the audience to wonder a little about it, and I think there's a deliberate attempt to make it "feel" off when compared directly to E7 in several ways.

There's quite a bit of contrast between E7 and AO, some obviously intentional, while some might be coincidental or just a sign of shifts in market forces. E7 definitely played more into a super robot feel, while AO deliberately goes for a more real robot feel in the mechanics. This is something which they intentionally went for to create a more militaristic direction to fit the political modern world setting of the series.

Another contrast would be that while Gekkostate was a terrorist organization on the run from the world, Generation Bleu is a sanctioned international organization with actual bases and established networks. The environment at Generation Bleu is a much more stable one, and is more reminiscent of shows like Evangelion (NERV) and Rahxephon (TERRA).

In trying to create a different sort of tone in the new series, I think there is also an intentional awareness that they need to draw inspiration from different scifi roots. Although, I'll freely admit that it could also be misdirection, with the actual goal of the show still shrouded in relative mystery. We'll probably have a much better idea a few weeks from now.

Additionally, thanks to what I remember of E7, the way the coral works means that Truth (and now Naru) may just be equivalents of Norb (no embedded compac drive a la Norb, but still directly or indirectly fused with some chunk of coral thereby getting direct access to coral-warping powers). Everyone with wild-colored hair has some sort of coralian connection, Truth had it even in that picture as a kid flashback...so how long before Naru gets a hair color change, ? What colors are left? Deep blue? Deep orange? And iirc the way the movie went it had parallel worlds but a similar belief by the main characters that they were somehow in the "wrong" world of the two, but I could be misremembering it.

That's a very good point. Norb was indeed a sort of "superhuman" in the original series as well. There are also similarities to Truth's relationship with Naru - like how he teaches her that she can "fly" and so on. She is developing abilities inside of herself which bend the laws of physics in the world. If this was all that there is, I'll definitely agree that they could be going for that sort of thing. But Truth's powers seem a bit too extreme for that so we'll have to see where that goes.

As far as the hair colors go, I've definitely noticed that as well. I wonder if the new OP will have new characters who fit into the weird-hair profile which seems to identify coralians. :P

[Bombo]

OMG Gekko & Eureka chan!!!!!! Yeeeees
ost when gekko appeared <3

[kk2extreme]

Ao is looking more and more like Trunks to me now

[ReddyRedWolf]

Originally Posted by duckroll

Another contrast would be that while Gekkostate was a terrorist organization on the run from the world, Generation Bleu is a sanctioned international organization with actual bases and established networks. The environment at Generation Bleu is a much more stable one, and is more reminiscent of shows like Evangelion (NERV) and Rahxephon (TERRA).

It has been commented that Pied Piper and other squads are Ageha Squad-light.

Dewey Novak used kids as an anti-Coralian squad.

Difference is Dewey is a manipulative sociopath.

Generation Bleu at least they have an understanding with the children. Yes they know putting kids in danger is wrong. They regret doing it. They can't help it as the best chance of stopping Secrets nuking a place every so often is having kids pilot IFOs.

The children knows that deal. In exchange Gen Bleu gives them food, shelter and something that resembles a family.