Forum - View topicREVIEW: Eureka Seven AO BD+DVD
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dtm42
Posts: 14084 Location: currently stalking my waifu |
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More Tomoki Kyoda means more disappointment. But hey, at least he's milking the Eureka Seven franchise for all its worth.
I wonder which series was more pointless: BONES' Eureka Seven AO or Gonzo's Last Exile: Fam, The Silver Wing? |
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Cyclone1993
 Posts: 947 |
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Being a huge fan of Eureka Seven, I was incredibly pumped to watch this series as it aired. Also, I may be one of the few people of the fanbase who enjoyed it. It's a great series as long as you don't go in expecting another series like the original Eureka Seven.
The story of Eureka and Renton is pretty much over, and it focuses on their son who has his own story to tell, from what I understand, a lot of people couldn't differentiate that. By no means is it a perfect series, its a very complex, and complicated plot, and Truth really serves no purpose in the series. But, its still very enjoyable. Also, I agree that the pacing in the second part of the series was a little wonky, the changing alliances and the like would have had more of an impact if they had had more episodes to expand upon them. The way I think about it, AO is another one of those series that simply tries to bite off more than it can chew and as a result doesn't become as good as it could have been. I'm not saying it needed 50 episodes or anything, (It would have been nice though!) but more episodes developing the characters and their issues would have been appreciated. One theme that the series had that did fit in perfectly with the original series was the power of love. Eureka Seven has always been a story about love, and that doesn't change in AO. But, unlike the original series, the love in AO is not of a romantic type, it is instead the love parents have for their children. I think it could have been portrayed a little better, but its still a touching theme that certainly helps the series shine in a world filled with careless, or clueless parents, its nice to see some who honestly care for their children, and try to help them out as best they can. |
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TsunaReborn!
 Posts: 4713 Location: Cheltenham UK |
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This review has reminded me that I still need to pick up the second half of the series. After reading most of the review (avoided certain parts as I haven't actually watch it yet) I still want to sit down and watch. From what I have read I think I will enjoy the series and seeing Eureka and Renton again will be more than enough to make my pay up. I really enjoyed the E7 film and I'm normally keen on film "spin-offs" from series. Hopefully I haven't set myself up for a disappointment.
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GVman
 Posts: 730 |
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I kinda liked the show when I finished watching the last two episodes; however, the more I think about it, the more I hate it. It craps all over the ending of the original series, most of the characters are bland cardboard cut-outs, there's too much otaku bait, a lot of the plot points are silly and vapid when they think they're making a smart statement, and PLOT GUN happens. I feel like the reviewer, Carl Kimlinger, is a lot like me; I feel like he's forcing himself to enjoy this show. Whatever enjoyment he got will probably fade with time.
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Kyogissun
 Posts: 676 |
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I enjoyed the show entirely until that ending. Not because it was GOD AWFUL but because it felt like SO much happened in that last third of the show's run, like the series needed another full 26 episodes to get its story out. I was expecting that at the halfway point we'd be seeing Ao spoiler[use the Quartz Gun to travel back to the present and attempt to act as another mediator between the human/coralian coexistence AND assist humanity in readjusting to its life with earth properly restored and living amongst more humanoid coralians which would have made for INCREDIBLY compelling material... but no, plot gun fixes everything and Ao is erased from reality,] resulting in one of the most unsatisfying endings ever.
That PLOT GUN should have caused the series to go out with a HUGE BANG but it didn't, instead we got an 'Oh shit, we need to wrap this up, better do that in two episodes' and that was that... So, rather than be disappointed in what could have been, I've taken up the other mindset some people share on this show... that due to the PLOT GUN being used in the way it was, it's like spoiler[events of the show never even happened.] |
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drdr48
Posts: 360 |
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B-?!
B-?!?!?!?!? This show is pure crap. PURE CRAP. |
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pachy_boy
Posts: 1341 |
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I don't believe Fam, The Silver Wing was pointless at all, but AO definitely felt like it after its final cosmic reset. spoiler[It just really did away with everything Ao went through with all the people he met and the friends that he made, like nothing about the story ever happened which took away the story having any kind of point to begin with. And it actually bothered me that Naru's character and her relationship with Ao went absolutely nowhere.] An example of the polar opposite of that kind of ending is Steins:Gate, where they accomplished having a cosmic reset that didn't betray the characters' journey. Last edited by pachy_boy on Thu Dec 12, 2013 8:57 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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KENZICHI
 Posts: 1118 |
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I haven't watched this show since I tried the first 2 episodes when they first came out. I've sort of been waiting for an English dub so that I can just watch with no effort. I actually didn't even finish the second episode. Pretty much bored me so I hope I can keep at it this time around because I really want to see Renton and Eureka again.
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dtm42
Posts: 14084 Location: currently stalking my waifu |
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@pachy_boy:
I understand what you're getting at, but I was talking about pointlessness in a meta context. In my view, neither story (Eureka Seven AO and Last Exile: Fam, The Silver Wing) needed to be told, Fam especially. They both came across as blatant money grabs that traded on the names of established series, not artistically worthy stories that were demanding to be told. |
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Top Gun
 Posts: 4807 |
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I consider the original E7 series to be a nigh-masterpiece, and one of my all-time personal favorites, but I've generally been warned by people whose opinions I trust to avoid AO. (Not as strongly as I've been warned against seeing the movie, but still.) As a friend of mine noted, every single piece of E7 media without the involvement of Dai Sato--that is to say, everything except the original series--is a mess at best and godawful at worst. I'm sure that's no coincidence.
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pachy_boy
Posts: 1341 |
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Speaking for myself, I liked both Fam's story and its characters. Yet maybe there's no "need" for it, except for its confirmation that Dio was still alive. If that had been Dio's demise at the end of the first series, it was utterly pointless, and in Fam we find out that not only does he still live and regain his sanity, but he also matured a little. At least for that much, Fam's existence should be appreciated. That's more than I can say for AO. |
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wandering-dreamer
 Posts: 1733 |
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While I liked parts of AO (some of the setting, the characters, the designs) I felt like by the end it took all of the themes that had been so important to the original show and just stomped all over them which really felt just wrong to me.
Totally agreed, spoiler[heck beyond that it even changes the ending of the original show. It went from a hopeful ending about two races finding a connection and not destroying the universe to their world being destroyed anyway and the characters being pushed to the brink that, IIRC, they'd help sort of destroy another world as well. Well, Eureka and Renton anyway (omg, whose idea was it to give Renton Holland's voice? I hadn't seen the original in years but still picked up on that immediately and it creeped me out), was really sad they didn't have anyone else cameo but that's just a minor quibble] |
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bahamut623
 Posts: 1463 |
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B- is about right for this show. It wasn't amazing, but nowhere near as bad as it's made out to be. If one of it's worst sins is not being as good as Eureka Seven then...I'll lump it together with 95% of the mountains of anime I've seen (Eureka Seven is one of my favorites).
While it's definitely not as good as the original, it's a fun mecha/sci-fi series on its own. A lot of people seemed to be bugged by the loopier sci-fi stuff but I really liked all of that. I actually enjoyed the concept of the quartz gun, too, and I didn't feel like it spoiler[negated the whole series. Ao does remember after all, so his journey, and especially his sacrifice, haven't been erased. ]. And as the review said, for all the time loop-de-loops, the ending actually made sense. And darn it, that episode where Ao and Eureka meet is as sweet as anything from the original series (and art-wise, it resembled the look of the original more than any other episode). Thumbs up to all the Itano Circuses throughout the series, too. There were just several characters and plot points, that needed more time to breathe (like when spoiler[Ao joined the allies for one episode...then when Elena did the same a bit later]). X'amd is exactly what this show reminded me of. It had the right ingredients and gorgeous presentation, but both just needed a bit more focus. In both cases I thought being longer would've helped, too. The one really big thing that bothered me about the show, and didn't really dawn on me until I was almost done with it: Why does the spoiler[Spec 2 exist? At the same time as Spec3, which used to be the Spec 2. They're one and the same. Maybe in all the time/dimension hopping they happened upon another Spec 2?] For some reason, this bugs me more than anything else in the show. That aside, it was a flawed, but fun show with the burden of being in the shadow of a far better show. |
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Banken
Posts: 1281 |
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As a fan of the original E7 (everything besides the TV series is awful though), AO could have been so much more. I waited for years in hope of a sequel. But with none of the talent that made the original what it was, and the hack writing that not only failed to capitalize on the original but ruins everything about the it, especially the overall message, it is so bad that I pretend it never happened.
First, it should have only been 13 episodes (if you go by the number of half-decent AO episodes), and it should have only been about him growing up, finding Eureka, returning her to her world, meeting the father he never knew. It also should have tied up the loose ends of E7. What happened to the Gekkostate crew, Talho's kid, how has the world fared with humans and corralians living together with the original earth regained? Going from production values and visuals alone, and ignoring it's nigh-criminal mismanaging of the IP, I'd give it at B- at best. It's a well-animated but derivative monster-of-the-week show with a handful of likeable characters, but a few (cough, Naru and Truth) unforgivably bad ones. As part of the E7 series.... Hmm, what was I talking about? |
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Echo_City
Posts: 1236 |
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This has video commentaries? That could be worthwhile IMO, though I tried to watch this and I thought it was terribly lame. The main character trying to rationalize that the bracelet that he stole was somehow "his" irked me in principle: just because the guys he stole it from were jerk-ish doesn't make the crime go away. Also, the protagonist was-once again-a whiny punk who was forced into the adventure against his will. Why can't we have protagonists who want to partake in their sagas, and/or protagonists who actually start their own sagas? Japan has a ridiculous fascination with the "Luke Skywalker" types of heroes: they dream of adventure, but don't act to live it, and when adventure comes for them they balk and have to be harangued into going with it. |
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