Forum - View topicREVIEW: Eureka Seven AO BD+DVD
|
Goto page Previous 1, 2 Note: this is the discussion thread for this article |
| Author | Message | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
nargun
Posts: 925 |
|
|||
Based on the structure of the story as-presented, I think it's pretty clear that a lot of the originally-planned story was discarded at extremely short notice, and that new story had to be hurridly crafted to fit. Probably twice: noone would write something like episode 19 [heroic sacrifice! but the bad guy survives because of stuff-we-haven't-mentioned-before!!] unless they're desperate, certainly, but there seems to be another discontinuity in the early parts of the series, around ep... 5? The way "family", and family relationships, plays such a big part in Ao, Fleur, Elena and even Naru's background strongly suggests that they were planning to do something centred around that [the way that the original was themed around "[sexual/romantic] love"], but... |
||||
|
||||
Mawdryn
 Posts: 240 Location: St. Louis, MO. U.S.A. |
|
|||
|
I went into Eureka Seven: AO with someone warning me that if I liked the original series, I wouldn't like the sequel, and it really didn't become clear to me until towards the end. Having said all that, I still liked E7:AO--it may definitely ruin the "they lived happily ever after" ending of the original E7 for a lot of people, but I do think it still ultimately ended on a fairly positive note, even if it isn't an ideal one, IMO (the message of this series could be that not everything in life works out perfectly).
I do think the older Renton was cool and somewhat bad-ass, though... 
|
||||
|
||||
|
Banken
Posts: 1280 |
|
|||
|
AO goes way beyond ruining the "happier ever after" ending. It ruined the basic message: alien species can get along, and love conquers all. Sorry, nope, it turns out the scub (actually "scab") coral were bad all along! And humans and humanoid coralians can't breed successfully in The Promised Land despite the cover of the final volume clearly showing human/coralian hybrid children on it. And despite the canon describing viable pregnancies (which in scientific terms makes them humans and coralians basically identical so there is no reason they would petrify).
The time-reset ending wasn't that big of an issue to me, it was the overall bad storytelling and how they failed to capitalize on the intellectual property, which makes me wonder why they bothered in the first place. Truth being an all-powerful invincible villain for no justified reason dropped the IQ of the series by double digits. He COULD have been an interesting character if he had been written better. But the Secrets as a bad guy were just terrible to begin with. It's like they were TRYING to create the most generic bad guys they could think of. Remember the bad guys from E7? Yeah, they were human. Humans are MUCH more interesting. The antibody coralians weren't villains, they were simply a force of nature. |
||||
|
||||
CrowLia
 Posts: 5505 Location: Mexico |
|
|||
|
My thoughts are very similar to Banken's. I wasn't really bothered by the time warp ending, but by how the universe of the original series was so poorly handled, for all the reasons Banken explained (change the premise from Humans and Coralians can live together to Coralians are bad and give you cancer). The whole thing with Naru never went anywhere and Truth was such a generic villain he wasn't remotely interesting to watch.
Plus other things that have been mentioned, like the absolute lack of any reference to the guys at the Gekkostate. When the first trailers popped up for this one, I had expected Naru to be Talho's and Holland's kid or maybe Dominique's and Anemone's; I was severely disappointed when not a single comment was made acknowledging the existance of either of them, since we never got a proper epilogue for those couples. I don't even love E7 as much as many people do, but I still felt AO didn't make it any sort of justice. It was just completely boring and uninteresting, the characters were mostly impossible to like and the setting felt like a complete betrayal to the message the original had. |
||||
|
||||
|
Mawdryn
Posts: 240 Location: St. Louis, MO. U.S.A. |
|
|||
Not really, when you think about it. Renton fought very hard, crossing multiple realities and time zones to get Eureka back. They experienced tragedy and hardships along the way--as we all do when we become adults--but it still was a case of "alien species getting along and love conquering all" between those two. It just showed that not all things end up the way we want, but you can still strive for something better. |
||||
|
||||
|
Banken
Posts: 1280 |
|
|||
|
I was talking about the message if E7. AO has no message because it was poorly written and has a cop out ending that didn't make any sense.
|
||||
|
||||
|
ryanvamp
Posts: 416 |
|
|||
|
I've seen several episodes of AO until I couldn't stand it anymore. I'm not even a fan of the original E7, but I can understand why it's a classic. What I can't understand is how anyone who liked it can ejoy this trainwreck.
And while I'm very happy to hear I'm not crazy and Truth was an incredibly annoying character to more people as well, I'm kinda surprised no one mentions Naru and how NTR the whole issue around her felt. I didn't know it had an ending that ruined the meaning of the original one either, guess I'm lucky I knew when to stop watching. I guess I did like the mechanical designs. |
||||
|
||||
|
Mawdryn
Posts: 240 Location: St. Louis, MO. U.S.A. |
|
|||
I'd have to disagree that E7:AO didn't have a message. In fact, it seemed to have several, including one of self-sacrifice (first Eureka, then later AO) and the aforementioned not every story has a fairy tale ending. I don't think the series was perfect (perhaps a few too many alternate realities), but I don't think it was a bad series. And the ending made more sense than a lot of other anime that dabble in metaphysical stuff.
|
||||
|
||||
|
Banken
Posts: 1280 |
|
|||
|
Yeah, but he spoiler[jumped out of the Nirvash with a ref board that only works in the presence of trapar in a world that no longer has trapar... I forgot exactly what happened but the ending also doesn't state whether Eureka ever came to the alternate past, or whether Ao was born in the E7 world (she was already pregnant after all), or whether the petrifaction issue or the collapsing universes was solved... ]
It had a bunch if seemingly contradictory messages... Children shouldn't fight, but make them pilot mecha anyway. Sacrifice Is important! But sacrifice is useless because the villian has plot armor. And then, of course, "find you place in the world, but erase it with a time gun!" |
||||
|
||||
Cyclone1993
 Posts: 947 |
|
|||
spoiler[The ending does state what happens with Eureka. Ao saved her, like he did in episode 14, and took her back to her world so that she could be with Renton again. Ao wasn't born into the E7 world. Eureka still went back in time and gave birth to him, and then went back to her world with Renton. It closed off all of the timeline loop holes for the most part, with the exception of the two Nirvash.] |
||||
|
||||
|
Banken
Posts: 1280 |
|
|||
|
Oh, right. I can't remember if that fixed the collapsing universes thing, or whether the corals were still capable of connecting to other universes, though, which was essentially the problem to begin with.
But the weird thing is, how was he born if he was never born? Because he erased the event of his own birth in that universe (except from his own point of view). And would she remember him? And are Renton and Eureka doomed to effective sterility forever? And how shitty will life for Ao be with none of the people he cares about recognizing him (and no papers for that matter...he'll end up getting deported). If they had spent half of the monster of the week episodes on the primary storyline (at least from the viewpoint of an E7 fan) it could have been a decent show. |
||||
|
||||
jr240483
 Posts: 4382 Location: New York City,New York,USA |
|
|||
well that is why they call those voice commentaries extras. also the series is actually decent enough,its that the ending unfortunately leaves something to be desired. so was the casting. though it was definitely wise for Funi to have both Seph and Bosch to reprise their roles as renton and eureka respectfully, it probably would have been better if Funi had used the same studio that did the original. |
||||
|
||||
Joe Carpenter
 Posts: 503 |
|
|||
|
E7 AO is not a terrible series, but it is a huge missed opportunity and a big disappointment
for one thing, the three elements that made the original unique, the world it was set in, the "1960's hippie culture" vibe of the Gekko State and the "extreme sports" angle with the sky surfing are all missing from AO, which makes the overall thing feel a lot more generic and average and man that plot is a mess, to be fair the original series' plot gets pretty hectic too, as many anime do, near the end, but it still made a lot more sense than AO's, I really can't make heads or tales of what exactly was supposed to be going on, in fact I have a theory that AO did not start out as a E7 sequel but was simply retro-fitted as one, at least that's how it feels and finally, Truth is a terrible villain, especially compared to that God amongst men Dewey Novak! a villain so awesome you couldn't help but root for him a bit the easiest way to sum it all up is E7 was an exceptional series while AO is merely passable at the end of the day anime sequels are so rare that I feel like we're lucky to get any sort of follow-up to E7 at all, but it's just a shame that it had to be nowhere near as good as the original |
||||
|
||||
 |
All times are GMT - 5 Hours |
|
|
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group