[Arabesque]

Having watched and enjoyed this show for nine weeks straight, I can say that I think what Reckoner said strikes me as being perfectly reasonable, even though I disagree on the specifies of the points he brings up.

For myself, I was sold on the show from the introductory episodes. It managed to hit all the right notes with me, not just as a stand alone series but as what I felt was a spiritual successor to E7. The animation was excellent, the fights were fun to watch, the characters and their VA were likable and matched well IMO, the music was good etc. but more than that, I felt that I was watching E7. It managed to capture the same feeling the first series had, and even now I can still sense the same vibe from the older show in the backdrop of this one. Maybe it's the hints we had been getting, but when it comes to those I'm having more fun trying to casually figure out what is going on (only to have it all be revealed near the end and for me to be mostly wrong ), so I'd like to think that there is a quality that is distinctly E7 included in this anime.

Of course, none of this is tangible. These are all feelings, hints and general aesthetics that sell me on the show and for me at least, enough to place my faith that I'm going to get something good out of AO by the end of the 24th episode. Which is exactly why I can empathize with Reckoner here. He is simply asking ''what exactly am I looking at?''. He wants to understand and know exactly what is this show going to do, and how does it relate to the older anime that he loved. I get that since again, this is a time investment into an anime that may or may not turn out to be related to the older E7 in a concrete way. I get the core of his position, and to be honest, I think that had I not been loving this show so much right now, I would be agreeing with him mostly.

Of course, I had accepted that no answers will be given at this time. It's like the older show where the answers were presented only at the finale. Or at least, That's what I think it going to happen here, since again, I have no way of actually knowing how will the series will unfold. I can only place my faith in that it does so in a satisfying manner.

Originally Posted by Reckoner

The cast

Needless to say I really loved the cast of E7. Eureka herself was a very charming character and Renton was a very easy to empathize main character. But even more than that it was the supporting cast that really made this show shine. Characters like Holland and Tahlo. And you know? They were all adults, and adults who got full out character arcs and development.

Eureka 7 Ao has a few adults, much of whom have barely got any notable development so far ( This is a 2 cour show and they definitely have less time to do it). The main focus on the show is on Ao who is actually pretty decent, though perhaps getting a bit static lately. The thing is Ao barely interacts with anyone save perhaps Fleur in a meaningful manner (Which isn't all that great itself, but it's OK). All the other pilots are female children, which sort of trivializes the drama at play. All in all there's basically of little interest to me here besides Ao and maybe Naru who has been barely on screen since the beginning.

To me the stark different in cast quality is just seen in comparing these two images.

Spoiler for For Space:

I skipped over the setting section since I felt it would come down to personal preference (I honestly feel the politics in this anime had been very well handled and I'm very interested in learning more about this world, so ...) so I came to this one here.

I do agree that compared to the older anime, AO lacks the same amount of diverse cast members, however I don't think that is a bad thing when the show has less time compared to the older anime, so I would think that having a lesser amount would be better to help focus on the more core characters.

Also, I don't really think it matters much if the cast is made out of adults or out of children, I mean look at a show like Dennou Coil. What was impressive about Holland and Tahlo was their past history and inner demons, motivations for what they did and do in the series, the development they received and how much they changed and grow (yes, grow) to be better people thanks to it (the scene where Holland starts to cry gets me every time), and most importantly, they had their moments where they had shown exactly how great they were. Being adults, I think, doesn't really factor much into it other than it helps with making them have a history together.

So far with AO I've felt that the stories presented were pretty good, but I don't think it's fair to compare them to the older anime when this show didn't get around to showing us exactly how will these plot lines will conclude. Ao's and Fleur's stories so far are the ones I'm most involved in, but I can't really compare them when they had just started.

Originally Posted by Reckoner

The raw emotion

Eureka 7 was awesome at conveying raw emotion. You could really get into the characters and what they were feeling. Again this may be related to the cast itself but it also has to do with certain little touches. I thought one reason Renton was really easy to get into was because so many of the episodes at the beginning and end included personal narration of his character. You always got queued into what exactly he was feeling, what he was doing things for, what his thought process was. These sorts of touches really helped. Beyond this was just some really solid character building episodes.

Eureka 7 Ao doesn't have this kind of personalization, and the plot moves so quickly so far that you can't really slow down to absorb the characters on any level. Of course it also doesn't have that personal narration I was talking about so Ao is not quite as likable as Renton to me, and it's actually kind of hard to be able to tell what he's really feeling in general. I feel emotionally detached from these characters, and the show hardly has the sort of raw emotion that I appreciated in the original. There were glimpses of it, particularly in the first 3 episodes, but since then I haven't really seen it.

You might be one of the few people out there who liked Renton's personal narration form the get go

For me, I find Ao a lot more likable than Renton, and I generally liked Renton. I never got the feeling like he was hard to understand, on the contrary, I think that he wears his emotions on his sleeve and is easy to figure out (and see that he is a good kid). I don't know, but I've always felt the raw emotion in this anime, and even now I can still feel it.

Originally Posted by Reckoner

The soundtrack

Eureka 7 Ao's sound track isn't bad, might even be pretty decent, but Eureka 7 had an AMAZING sound track in my opinion. The main reason is that it had several defining tracks, perhaps most notable of them all being Storywriter. Eureka 7 Ao lacks something like this. The audio portion definitely isn't as impressive as a result, and ot me great audio can really help enhance a series. Perhaps Eureak 7 Ao had too tough an act to follow, but I hope it wasn't too much to expect to get something like another Storywriter.

Well, I will say that I think this is overall the 4th best OST of the season right now, but I can conceded that the original is better by virtue of being so excellent. I just think that this one has a really tough act to follow.

Originally Posted by Reckoner

The Conflict

Eureka 7 was just a great big adventure. A very fun one as well. Gekkostate always had a goal, but Renton didn't learn about them in detail until later and was really just along for the ride. But what was always there was a sense of adventure as they explore places, until of course shit starts to hit the fan in the series and it became more than just an adventure, but a fullout conflict with the people on the planet who waged war against the colarians. The way the conflict was built up was quite excellent.

Eureka 7 Ao is just a monster of the week, and this isn't inherently bad (My favorite anime is NGE...), but the execution of it is quite lacking and it's also a bit of a jarring transition from the spirit of E7. This no longer feels like a big adventure, but more so a battle against some primitive life form that look pretty damn bland. They also aren't very horrifying and always seem like easy fodder for Generation Bleu, so there's hardly any tension or sense of impending doom in this series. Unlike NGE as well this series isn't very introspective and concerned with the ideas of existentialism or depression or things like the hedge hog's dilemma among other things, so on that front the show cannot hope to keep a compelling conflict. It all draws back to these monsters and the truth (Who feels like a joke at this point), which don't really give me any sense of tension they should.

To be perfectly honest, everything you just said about AO and the MoTW problem can be attributed to the original and then some. We may have learnt that the seemingly filler episodes actually had a goal later on, but that didn't make them on first viewing a very, very strange and confusing experience for a lot of people. Yes, they were fun, and they did help add a lot for the cast (as I would argue these first nine episode did for AO) but even then, a lot of the time you started to wonder if the show actually had a clear goal if you had been watching the show without any prior knowledge. It honestly felt like a random collection of short stories than anything.

With AO, while the MoTW formula is starting to wear a bit thin, I always get that there is a clear goal to be accomplished, a clear enemy to be defeated etc. I get the impression that the show is still on track, the conflict is still on going, the story is still moving on. I don't feel like there is a ''filler'' in there.

Most importantly, I get the feeling that with each week, I'm learning something new about the world and/or it's cast, and slowly the mystery is starting to be revealed. For me I can say that's a huge plus over some of the episodes in the old E7 IMO.