(L) Eureka Seven: Astral Ocean

[MeisterBabylon]

Originally Posted by Chaos2Frozen

Full version of Stereopony's "Stand by Me" is out- Best Ending theme for Spring

I intend to agree. Also, Escape Lightning Guitar version is foshizzle!

So far, I'm loving the machine designs. They seem more gritty compared to the originals, but still has some elegance retained.

Now to catch up with everyone else. Episode 4!

[duckroll]

Episode 9

That was honestly pretty good. I'm still not a fan of the political "plot" because it generally feels kinda forced and just there to make some vague point about the worldview, but it's not annoying or anything. On the other hand, I wish that Truth would do more than just float around and blow shit up after saying generic ominous stuff. Hopefully he gets to do more cool stuff in the near future.

The plot developments continue to suggest that there's definitely something really off about the world as it is. More and more support is given to the "false world" or "parallel reality" theory. It's like our world, but it's not. Things don't line up, and it's definitely influenced by elements of the original E7. It'll be interesting to see how they eventually reveal the "truth" about this.

Action was pretty good this week, with a cool Secret design. Some pretty nice visuals too. The next episode looks interesting as well, but we'll have to watch two weeks for it, since there's no episode next week due to Euro 2012 football matches.

[ReddyRedWolf]

Well that is interesting Alternate History... After the war instead of becoming open due to an robust economy Japan became more isolationist. Military hawks still remaining but the current generation is live and let live except that colonel and some others who are the current gen haws.

Instead of a US ally it became more of a Cuba.

Basically due to politics Japan was abandoned and embargoed of Trapar technology but the Ryukyu islands/Okinawa was still under the US. China nipping at territorial waters causing problems for the Okinawan fishing industry.

[DragoonKain3]

Plot? What plot? All episode long my mind was on Fleur with her swimsuit. Good thing Ao wasn't paying attention even when Fleur's butt was presssed against his cockpit.

[Kanon]

That was a pretty good episode. I'm getting a little bored with Truth already, but he hasn't crossed over to annoying territory yet so it's still fine.

I'm happy to see Fleur and Elena treat Ao like a comrade -a friend even- now, even if Fleur is still a little tsundere about it (and I wouldn't have it any other way).

[duckroll]

Originally Posted by DragoonKain3

Plot? What plot? All episode long my mind was on Fleur with her swimsuit. Good thing Ao wasn't paying attention even when Fleur's butt was presssed against his cockpit.

Pervert! :P

[Daniel Lind]

I had enormous Magma Diver vibes from this episode.
Gratuitous fanservice keeps grinding on my nerves and Truth is still a terrible villain but this ep on its own wasn't too bad.

[MeisterBabylon]

Caught up! And I must say... swimsuit episode so soon? I was expecting something only 2 episodes later!

[Kaioshin Sama]

Eh, overall decent albeit hit or miss episode for me. I think the most interesting point this week is seeing Tokyo or at least where it was and hearing about how Japan never really lost WWII, but just had it end through the Scub Burst thus creating this alternate world. Is that the sort of thing the Truth means when he talks about the world being a fallacy or just he just have really cliche dialogue. I still don't know with our Final Fantasy villain because he's just such a strange character. If they're trying to make him seem menacing and ominous it just doesn't work with him because he frankly he just looks ridiculous and does things that are equally so. I'm not kidding when I say he really just reminds me of a Final Fantasy villain. In any case I think he turn out to be some sort of rogue Correalian that has no desire to coexist with humanity or something. If that's the case would Dewey operation Orange actions have something to do with that. It's hard to tell just how far removed this Eureka Seven world is from the one in the original series.

Also since Japan never lost the war we also have our warhawk upstart trying to engineer a new military era for Japan which leads to our monster of the week scenario with the main trio (why am I not in the slightest bit surprised that bloody Elena would have something like cat ears and a tail on her swimsuit ) and the trio continuiing to feel more like a genuine one rather than one the one that was thrust together a few episodes ago. Speaking of characters that were just thrust together, if the Truth is out being his FF villain stuff where the heck was Naru. For a character listed as a main she's barely been around this entire series. Fleur feels more like a female lead than she does. Hell the Okinawan trio feel more like major forces than her. Maybe they're saving her story arcs more for the second half, but still it's extremely odd and it's not like they have as many episodes as the original where characters could just disappear for episodes at a time and it'd still be fine cause we could catch up later and still have time to spare with their development.

Originally Posted by MeisterBabylon

Caught up! And I must say... swimsuit episode so soon? I was expecting something only 2 episodes later!

This wasn't really a "swimsuit episode" so much as an episode that have swimsuits in it, which is good cause I think this show needs to keep up the pace.

[ookamigirl]

Ao sure can be a party pooper..
That Truth guy made an appearance again.
He's still as mysterious as ever.
Illegall underwater gathering point for damaged quartz was interesting.
The underwater fight was pretty cool.

[tsunade666]

Ao is either gay or ... gay -_- I can't even call it iron will. My sanity will be lost by 2 girls sitting atop my cockpit and those 2 are in swimsuit -_- while Elena has a nekomimi on >_>

boring episode. We get to see greedy military officer that wants to have more fire power but ended up blowing it outside proportion but he got recruited on the screw team of Truth.

[ReddyRedWolf]

Originally Posted by Kaioshin Sama

~snip

Redo your math. The year in AO is 2025. 70 years before would be 1955.

Spoiler for Japan non-recovery:

The US occupation of Japan ended in April 1952.

Seems like the politics changed as Tokyo, the capital of Japan, was leveled by a Scub burst. Secret blowing it up too. The US doesn't have bases in the main Japanese islands but the Ryukyu islands which includes Okinawa do.

The Ryukyu kingdom was an independent country till Japan annexed it.

Relations between Japan and the US aren't friendly compared to our world.

Though much like our world the Japanese military is rendered as Self Defense only.

Japan here is probably like North Korea which is unfriendly to its neighbors. Hence the Trapar embargo.

[Kaioshin Sama]

Originally Posted by ReddyRedWolf

Redo your math. The year in AO is 2025. 70 years before would be 1955.

Spoiler for Japan non-recovery:

The US occupation of Japan ended in April 1952.

Seems like the politics changed as Tokyo, the capital of Japan, was leveled by a Scub burst. Secret blowing it up too. The US doesn't have bases in the main Japanese islands but the Ryukyu islands which includes Okinawa do.

The Ryukyu kingdom was an independent country till Japan annexed it.

Relations between Japan and the US aren't friendly compared to our world.

Though much like our world the Japanese military is rendered as Self Defense only.

Japan here is probably like North Korea which is unfriendly to its neighbors. Hence the Trapar embargo.

I honestly didn't even know the year in this show, I'm kind of having enough trouble following events and references that take place in it as it is and usually I'm pretty good at keeping track of those sorts of things. What I wouldn't give for this show to have just a little more of a free flowing narrative and to give me a little more reason to be invested and pay closer attention. gg's usual wonky translation isn't helping much, but I admit that my attention sometimes tends to wander a little when it comes to watching this show of late.

Nevertheless thank you for clearing this up.

[Xagzan]

I just wish they'd stop doing monster of the week battles with Secret after Secret. They only have 14 episodes left, they should have left that format by now.

[Daniel Lind]

I just wish they'd stop doing monster of the week battles with Secret after Secret.

It wants desperately to be the next Evangelion for some reason so nope, gotta have motw.

[ChocoBar9]

People still complaining about Truth eh?

Originally Posted by Xagzan

I just wish they'd stop doing monster of the week battles with Secret after Secret. They only have 14 episodes left, they should have left that format by now.

Originally Posted by Daniel Lind

It wants desperately to be the next Evangelion for some reason so nope, gotta have motw.

It never ceases to amaze me how people have no ability to infer what is shown to the audience plot-wise from an episode.

[hai_san]

Originally Posted by Daniel Lind

I had enormous Magma Diver vibes from this episode.

Originally Posted by Daniel Lind

It wants desperately to be the next Evangelion for some reason so nope, gotta have motw.

Really there was a very strong reminisce to EVA in ep 9.

[Kazu-kun]

Originally Posted by ChocoBar9

It never ceases to amaze me how people have no ability to infer what is shown to the audience plot-wise from an episode.

I think it's pretty clear that's not the issue. Most people just don't like the monster of the week format. I don't like it either. In most cases it disconnects the flow of the plot from the main characters (I see this problem in this series) which makes for quite the boring experiences IMO. Evangelion knew how to make it work because the characters on the "plot side" of the story were interesting enough to hold the audience attention (eg: Gendo) . It's not the same in the series

[ChocoBar9]

Originally Posted by Kazu-kun

I think it's pretty clear that's not the issue. Most people just don't like the monster of the week format. I don't like it either. In most cases it disconnects the flow of the plot from the main characters (I see this problem in this series) which makes for quite the boring experiences IMO. Evangelion knew how to make it work because the characters on the "plot side" of the story were interesting enough to hold the audience attention (eg: Gendo) . It's not the same in the series

I don't see how it disconnects the flow of the plot since it's the very basis of it. Also using Evangelion as an example undermines the fact that the characterization told toll over the MotW format which was an afterthought at a certain point. You guys are acting as if nothing is happening beyond the format which we've clearly been seen that's not the case with this episode. Anything beyond that is really up to opinion but don't fault the show for something you just don't like ingeneral

[Guardian Enzo]

To expand on the above post, what's really happening with these episodes is the world-building of the political side of the plot and slow reveal of the connections to E7 canon. Every one of these so-called MotW episodes is illuminating the situation that exists in this world, whatever that world turns out to be - an alternate universe, timeline, whatever. If you don't care about the politics that's going to be a real problem, because it's the very basis of the series. It's about generational betrayal and generational warfare, though I suspect that will segue into the E7 canon just as Ao's personal drama on Okinawa segued into the generational conflict driving the story now.

If all this weren't clear enough, the title of next week's episode ("Pied Piper of Hamelin") should refute any doubts. It's not as if they were being all that subtle about it anyway...