(L) Eureka Seven: Astral Ocean

[Daniel Lind]

I have to ask. Were Aquarion Evol and AO written by the same person?

No. Though for me AO really served to underline the shoddy, unedited, ridiculous scriptwriting that's, let's be honest, pretty normal for anime and Japanese video games. Maybe it's a Japanese thing where logic and conventions and satisfaction do not really matter. Anime stories are often baffling, outlandish for the sake of being outlandish and completely unrelatable. Truth be told, even E7 itself just barely hinges on the edge of plunging into nonsense, stepping just a step away from falling apart. But that's a lot more than I can say about most of the stuff I wasted my time on.

[Narzia]

So, their children are kind of doomed to die, one is dead, the other lost forever in a world where no one might even know him. The whole show was kind of pointless and Eureka and Renton are arguably off worse than before. There is no satisfying conclusion, no happy family end, Ao doesn't end up with anyone, Naru did not get bitch slapped and Truth pulled a Karma Houdini.

Mmmmh, wonderful. I got Boned again.
And to think I actually loved the first three episodes or so.

Such high hopes I had for this awful show.

[Raincollie]

I'll just say Ao looks hot with long hair.

And I honestly want to hear Dai Sato's opinions about this show. Does anybody know of such an interview?

[Marower]

I think I need a hug after having seen this ending.

[hai_san]

Really a confusing disappointing ending for E7 AO... seems these kind of sequels doesnt boost the franchise but the opposite they are much worse than their predecessors, e.g. last Exile and now E7 AO and I loved the originals...

[Kakkou]

Originally Posted by orpheus2

Looks like another sequel that destroyed the reputation of the original.

*looks at Aquarion Evol*

I have to ask. Were Aquarion Evol and AO written by the same person?

Personally I thought Eureka Seven AO as a whole ended up making me appreciate Aquarion EVOL more! I mean, at least EVOL was an entertaining mess that had a good last episode that the second of half of the series sadly could not live up to (or properly build up to for that matter ), but this show. This show just kept going from promising to a mess.

So uh... I liked the new version of Niji (now fittingly credited under LAMA), the way Naru was removed from anymore involvement in the story, the Thurston family's scene (but for fuck's sake, Renton and Eureka suffered enough already, must you really do all that shit to them?) and Ao's new hair at the end. He looked really good.

...Time to move on.

[Raincollie]

Since Truth fired the gun on himself and history has changed, does that mean old guy Blanc might be alive? They did mention Truth didn't exist there. Also, Truth was the archetype of the Mark I, and communicated with Ao just like George would. How can Gen Bleu not be aware to Truth as an AI?
Another thing- we can see that the Secret head is still on that stage, meaning they never boarded it on Kyrie. There are so many details like these, which really make me wonder what else has actually changed there. Opinions, anybody?

Originally Posted by Kakkou

...Time to move on.

The picture in your signature seems nice. What series is that? I'd like to move on just like you said.

[Kaioshin Sama]

What is happening to TV mecha anime lately oh my god?! This really isn't as hard as everyone is making it look lately, just make a story that makes sense and isn't all over the place and hard to follow.

[Kakkou]

Originally Posted by Raincollie

Since Truth fired the gun on himself and history has changed, does that mean old guy Blanc might be alive? They did mention Truth didn't exist there. Also, Truth was the archetype of the Mark I, and communicated with Ao just like George would. How can Gen Bleu not be aware to Truth as an AI?

I'm pretty sure they are, no one mentions him because well, he's always been there in that world as Ao's AI and not the crazy antagonist he was in the last. As for Blanc, they're sure as hell not answering that for us, so we can just assume he's either alive or the new world found it's own way of killing him in place of Truth blowing up.

Originally Posted by Raincollie

The picture in your signature seems nice. What series is that? I'd like to move on just like you said.

Magi - The labyrinth of magic.

[Raincollie]

Originally Posted by Kakkou

Magi - The labyrinth of magic.

Sankyuu.

[lightbringer]

There's no denying that this ending was all over the place, but I can't decide if I hate it simply because it was a goddamn mess that was not worth waiting for, or because I did not get to see any closure or epilogue for any of the characters (and with the timeline completely fubar'd, who knows who is even still alive and/or remembers Ao).

[Xagzan]

Wait, I don't understand, I just finished it, and I don't get if Renton and Eureka's kids will still die in their world, or if Ao fixed that with all his quartz gunning?

[Kanon]

And thus, AO joins the ranks for these sequels I wish had never been made. It's a shame, the first three episodes were incredibly promising but the rest completely failed to live up to them.

The final two episodes were so bad. You'd think Eureka and Renton would have earned their happy ending in the original show, but nope. AO shat all over that. Finding out their daughter died horribly and that they'll never be able to have other children was heart-wrenching. Having them reunite with Ao and live happily ever after with him could have made up for that, but that was denied to them as well.

Truth wins the award of the worst villain of the year (and he even pulled a karma houdini! That bastard). Naru wins the award of worst childhood friend of the year.

The only redeeming feature of the finale was the sakuga. Some good missile circus porn in there.

Two questions:

- How did Truth end up as Nirvash Neo's archetype? That Nirvash was supposed to be entirely mechanical and I don't see what could have changed that.

- If Nirvash V3 was the original one, then what was the Nirvash spec 2 that Eureka and then later Naru piloted?

Originally Posted by Xagzan

Wait, I don't understand,

Spoiler:

I just finished it, and I don't get if Renton and Eureka's kids will still die in their world, or if Ao fixed that with all his quartz gunning?

Ao's world is a parallel world. What he did to it should not have affected Renton and Eureka's world.

[Daniel Lind]

Having watched better quality video, I'm a bit softened on some of the issues that seemed to be plotholes to me.
Oh don't get me wrong, it still doesn't make any sense, but it motivated me to do some research.

As some of you might know, the concept of Scub Coral in E7 is largely based on a novel by the sci-fi writer Greg Bear, "Blood Music". We can confirm this from the fact that one of the characters in E7 is actually named after the guy. The novel dealt with the idea that the reality is a function of its observers, an idea which develops from the so-called anthropic principle, a real metaphysical concept that says observations of the physical Universe must be compatible with the conscious life that observes it. In other words, we percieve the Universe as it is because only in such Universe an observer such as us could exist.

In "Blood Music", an inventor creates self-concsious microorganisms that percieve the reality in a radically different way from ours. They multiply and occupy a large part of our planet, but the density of their consciousness doesn't allow them to exist in a purely physical realm, so along with some humans they assimilated along the way they escape into a different reality of pure consciousness, not bound to physical.

This setup should sound familiar to those who paid enough attention to the original Eureka Seven. That's exactly what the idea of Scub Coral and the Limitation of Life (kudan no genkai) was based upon. So what's the problem? Well it seems to me more and more that Kyoda didn't exactly understand what the writers have made up for the story. In AO, we learn that large chunks of Scub Coral physically escaped into AO's world (let's call it World 2) which is also physical and in fact is compeltely compatible with World 1. Unfortunately this is what we can conclude from visuals in episode 50 in E7 as well. I consider this to be a mistake on the part of the director because it doesn't tie together with the rest of the story that we learn from E7, especially when put under a looking glass of "Blood Music". Such solution merely delays the Limitation of Life and introduces an obvious plothole - if Scub could always escape into any point in space, time and alternative universes, well why didn't it do so earlier?

But Kyoda apparently remembered that they had some something about anthropic principle going on back in 2005 and so here we have Renton, explaining to us that anthropic principle is "reality changes according to how observer sees it" which seems to me like a bastardization of both the real-life concept and the ideas that are built into original E7 setting. Basically it's a tremendous plothole that allowed them to use the Quartz Gun as an impromptu deus ex machina to eliminate the conflict we followed throughout AO.

That's not all though. Kyoda introduces another drama generator. Turns out human and human coralian children turn to rocks when exposed to high density of trapar and die! I suppose Kyoda as the author is allowed to introduce such concept, but it puts a big slash across the message of E7. When Eureka was told she could have human kids, it was kind of a big deal and seemed like it would be important to the whole "co-existence" deal. So this concept doesn't go against logic, but it goes against the narrative. And even then there are inconsistencies. There are places of low-trapar density in World 1. If we are to take Scub Coral's dimensional piligrimage as a fact, then half of it is gone and there should be even LESS trapar in World 1. Moreover, Ao used to hang around Scub Plants all the damn time and it didn't affect him at all. I think in Episode 24 Ao even remotely points that out in passing but the issue is quickly ignored. So what, was this introduced just so that Eureka and Renton could be fucked over some more? It's evident this didn't exist back in 2005, just look at the last DVD cover art.

Dewey was right! Scub is just one big problem and coexisting with it is a joke! Good job Gekkostate, you assholes broke everything!

I need booze, this doesn't even touch on how the only other thing that was dealt with was Okinawa's independence thing like it's some important propaganda or something.

[ookamigirl]

#23

It's certainly been a while since the previous episodes.
Ao, Fleur and Elena fighting the Truth.
It sure was an intense fight.
Naru is still delusional about the new wold.
Only two options available Scub or Secrets.
Ao didn't like fighting Naru one bit.
Eureka, Ao & Renton reunion was nice ^^

#24 Final

Ao's dad finally made an appearance.
So Scub are the invaders and Secrets are the protectors of the planet.
Finally some answers are given.
Truth the archetype, that was an interesting turn of events.
Guess every world has something different in it.
The past, present and future really are all messed up when it comes to Quartz.
All is well that ends well and this time Ao made it well.

[Xagzan]

Originally Posted by Kanon

And thus, AO joins the ranks for these sequels I wish had never been made. It's a shame, the first three episodes were incredibly promising but the rest completely failed to live up to them.

The final two episodes were so bad. You'd think Eureka and Renton would have earned their happy ending in the original show, but nope. AO shat all over that. Finding out their daughter died horribly and that they'll never be able to have other children was heart-wrenching. Having them reunite with Ao and live happily ever after with him could have made up for that, but that was denied to them as well.

Oh, well then fuck all that

What an abject insult to the original, nullifying pretty much the entire happy ending and the themes that built up to it. For god's sake, it doesn't take a genius to realize you do not mess with that if you're doing a sequel. You don't give the viewers a delicious celebration feast at the end of the first series, then mix a bit of rat poison in there with the second. Well, I'm grateful at least that this series was such a mess. If it had actually been a competently told, engaging story, one that got me really invested in it, it would be much harder to just relegate it to the recycle bin of my mind. As it is now, I don't have to worry about that, and can still enjoy E7 without this affront looming over it like a shadow

Originally Posted by Daniel Lind

That's not all though. Kyoda introduces another drama generator. Turns out human and human coralian children turn to rocks when exposed to high density of trapar and die! I suppose Kyoda as the author is allowed to introduce such concept, but it puts a big slash across the message of E7. When Eureka was told she could have human kids, it was kind of a big deal and seemed like it would be important to the whole "co-existence" deal. So this concept doesn't go against logic, but it goes against the narrative. And even then there are inconsistencies. There are places of low-trapar density in World 1. If we are to take Scub Coral's dimensional piligrimage as a fact, then half of it is gone and there should be even LESS trapar in World 1. Moreover, Ao used to hang around Scub Plants all the damn time and it didn't affect him at all. I think in Episode 24 Ao even remotely points that out in passing but the issue is quickly ignored. So what, was this introduced just so that Eureka and Renton could be fucked over some more? It's evident this didn't exist back in 2005, just look at the last DVD cover art.

Seriously, what a ridiculously arbitrary and unwanted concept. Everything in E7, the themes of co-existence, the dialogue, gave no doubt that Eureka and Renton having children was natural and would not be an issue. And it should've remained that way here.

[Daniel Lind]

Seriously, what a ridiculously arbitrary and unwanted concept. Everything in E7, the themes of co-existence, the dialogue, gave no doubt that Eureka and Renton having children was natural and would not be an issue. And it should've remained that way here.

Well...

Spoiler for It's like poetry, so that they rhyme:

[Xagzan]

I suppose...though I always took that to have been just a freak occurrence resulting from such a significant event as a Seventh Swell. Plus, since neither of those two were actually Corallians, I don't think their situation reflects on this new concept of "it's specifically the children of Corallians and humans who are at risk because their cells reject each other," or something.

It may be poetic, but the end rhyme is a vulgarity.

[Trajan]

Well, that was . . . . something. Paradoxes and nonsensical plot aside, the thing that offends me the most is Ao's decision to fire the quartz gun in order to give his parents a happy ending.

Until the final moments of the last episode, Ao has refused to fire the quartz gun because it alters timelines and potentially erase his friends and loved ones from existence. In episode 23, he essentially argues that there is no "true" timeline and therefore the current timeline has as equal a right to existence as the "true" timeline. In episode 24, he tells Renton that "erasing something wrong doesn't make it right." So what does he do 5 minutes later? HE ERASES HIS TIMELINE BECAUSE IT IS "WRONG". C'mon man, really? Niwa Nagahide awards this ending zero points.

Some random thoughts:

1. So after being told by Renton that his sister died due to high concentrations of trapar, Ao dropped pregnant Eureka off on top of a scub coral without warning her of the dangers of trapar. Way to murder your sister Ao!

2. If Elena is alive, she's 56.

2. It's obvious that Ao is Gonzy. Think about it. Doesn't make any sense, you say? Then it's a perfect fit for this series.

[Obelisk ze Tormentor]

Three mecha series of pure disaster.

Aquarion EVOL
Gundam AGE
Eureka Seven AO

Can you see the similarities between them? They have all-capitalized last-word in their titles (I'm not sure about Evol)? Could this be a curse of the recent mecha series?