First Impressions – Eureka Seven AO

Scenery porn count goes through the roof.

…I totally meant to marathon the original Eureka Seven before this came out, but I never got around to it. So uh, yeah, it’s been a while, but let’s see if this new series helps my memory a bit.

It’s finally here!~ *grabs popcorn and soda* I’m all prepared for the sequel of one of my favorite long-running series, please don’t let us down Kyoda/Bones! (Who am I kidding, Bones never lets me down.)

Wooooo hoooo! Eureka Seven AO has finally arrived! For those who are not familiar with the original series I highly recommend you check it out, but you might be a little confused or maybe it will spark your interest? Either way I am so freaking excited to watch this series! Hopefully it can become something amazing. Plot follows our two main characters Ao and Naru deal with a sudden G monster attack on their island.

EPIC SCENERY PORN! Wait a minute is this Florida in 2020?

Starting things off with this premier episode, we follow our main character Ao a thirteen year old boy living in Japan’s Okinawa Prefecture on the island of Iwdojima with his grandpa, but his real father and mother are missing. Dun dun duuunnn… Yes, Ao has the typical background for every male lead in almost every other anime, a case of missing parents! However, he does have one childhood friend named Naru and possible love interest later on? What else can I say about her? Other than that she has several medical issues to deal with. Anyway after that introduction our two lead characters meet up on night to search for Naru’s pet sloth Noah. Yes, she has an adorable pet sloth; seriously best looking anime animal…

Ao-“Sooo, how do those shorts come in small or extra small?” Naru-“Sorry, butt, I can’t give away my secrets.”

Moe moe sloth pet hanging around for his picture.

While Ao and Naru search for the missing pet, we follow a trio of guys up to no good as in selling technology to the Japanese military; just what are they selling anyway? It appears to be a set of controls to power up a giant mecha aka the Nirvash, a machine that has not moved in over ten years. However, before they can sell anything, Gazelle “the leader” messes with his power source for his flying car as it starts to shoot smoke forcing him to land. Sadly his landing quickly turns into a crash, because he almost hits Ao in the process who was just wandering on the beach.

Drugs are bad m’kay…? As long as you are willing to share then we are cool.

Ao-“Dude, where did you learn to drive?” Gazelle-“Your Mo…er I mean…YOUR FACE IS STUPID.”

Gazelle-“Damn, maybe I shouldn’t make fun of a kid without parents…” Ao-“Uh, you think? What a jackass…”

After nearly getting killed, Gazelle falls out of his car and has a few words with Ao and Gazelle’s friends arrive to help, but they end up losing the “key” to reactivate the sleeping Nirvash. While the guys search for the missing part, Ao finds a bracelet and Gazelle’s car starts to spaz out causing an explosion that releases a massive glowing rainbow called a Scub Burst, which gets detected by the HQ of GENERATION BLUE in Switzerland… They also have a ship called The Pied Piper that deals with these so called G-monsters that attack Ao’s island shortly afterwards.

Old anime characters really love science and sexy redheads.

Gazelle-“DUDE! Quick! Turn around, I want to smoke those giant alien ‘shrooms.”

Ao manages to escape unharmed and rushes off to find Naru, who is of course freaking out. Hell I think most of us would react the same way, right?! After calming her down, they flee the area and both of them return to their homes. Ao arrives home just in time to see his grandpa leave due to the sudden explosions rocking the island because he is also a doctor. I am starting to see a bit of Xam’d: Lost Memories with this episode. The following morning Ao and Naru prepare to start school; however, thanks to the Scub Bursts it quickly throws those plans away as the island starts to get practically ripped apart by a random G-monster.

Rainbows coming from the ground is totally normal in the Eureka Seven universe…I think…

Ao-“I am going to need a lot of syrup…”

While the island is getting blown up, the local military pretty much stands by watching the chaos and Gazelle searches for Ao because he promised the Japanese army, he would recover the missing key, but Ao in the meantime is looking for Naru while avoiding the crazy explosions. Shortly afterwards, Gazelle arrives and he attempts to steal the glowing bracelet from Ao, but our hero fights back by biting his arm and the episode ends with him glaring at the screen.

Eureka is that you? If it is, can I have your autograph?

Gazelle-“This is my plot device not yours!” Ao-“Noooooo! I am the main character, you idiot!”

Extra fantastic fun

Ao-“Hmmm, I have a flying car yet I have to wait in for the light to change?”

Naru-“No you can not have my cute sloth pet.” Fosh-“BUT I WANT TO HUG IT!!”

Naru imitates her moe sloth pet, while talking on the phone.

Plot holes? No way more like deeper plots.

Pink hair, pink flight suit and she is a pilot? All of these points make for a triple threat of awesome.

Ao-“Even in the future cellphones suck?”

End thoughts

Nope. This did not help my memory whatsoever. That aside, DAMN, Bones does great animation. Those backgrounds were really nice and as was everything else. The effects were also nice… Really, I saw nothing wrong with this episode whatsoever (provided that I was confused half the time, but that’s my own fault). The characters were introduced, the setting was introduced (and then subsequently destroyed (poor, poor Okinawa)) and it even tied in with the original series so we weren’t completely confused as to how this was a sequel. It even seems to continue some of the themes from the original (racism is the big one I remember).

Let me just say this now, I absolutely LOVE Ao’s eye colour. He’s also already managed to surpass Renton on my scale of protagonists in their first episode (not that it was hard to do so in the first place). Sure, he has a lot of room to grow and I can see him having those episodes of hesitation, but the important part is that he’s not just sulking about. He wanted revenge against the G-monster (were those in the original…?), which is great in my books. Naru seems like a pretty good female protagonist as well so far. Her power to foresee the future or whatever she does sounds intriguing and her health issues add to her character. I wonder if they character are going to join some air crew like Geckostate…? Well, I have absolutely no idea where this is headed, but it has a ton of potential from what I can see.

So wait, is Ao Eureka’s child? (I did think he kind of looked like Renton from his hair and I noticed that his eyes were the same colour as Eureka’s, but still.) When did that happen? Did it even happen? When does this even take place if Ao is 13? Didn’t the original end with Eureka disappearing and something with the moon? Wtf is even going on here? …I’m going to have to rematch the original before I move on with this series. I just don’t remember enough of the plot to follow what’s going on here. I didn’t even remember what Scubs were until I looked it up and they were a MAJOR plot point… And yet I somehow retained that there was racism in the original without them. Selective memory sucks. Hell, what I remember the most is Renton getting picked on every other episode and something about flying surfboards. Anyways, yeah. I’ll definitely come back to this when I’m done my marathon.

Unlike a certain other disappointing long-awaited sequel (*cough* Last Exile), Eureka Seven AO’s opening episode was very impressive! It would be hard to top the amazingly diverse cast of characters from the original, but so far AO has done a nice job introducing us to some fresh faces who are just as likable as their predecessors. Ao for instance is way more suitable as a protagonist then Renton ever was in my opinion, probably because he took a lot of the better traits of his parents, and Naru also is an entertaining and mysterious character. (The fact that she has a pet sloth only makes her 10x cooler of course!) My only complaint is that Ao doesn’t have green hair like he does in the promotional artwork … not that it really matters. It’s nice to see that the hero/heroine are both being voiced by relatively new seiyuu, which I only learned after spending almost the entire episode trying to put faces to their voices! I’d love to hear more of them in the future because they’re talented, especially Kanako Miyamoto! I can’t really describe it, but her voice comes off as both childish and mature at the same time … if that makes any sense. ><

This episode was mainly to set up the plot, which seems pretty intense so far with the destruction brought on by the “G-Monster”. I’m looking forward to Ao’s inevitable piloting of a LFO, because that’ll definitely drive up the entertainment value for mecha fans. Hopefully the concept of lifting won’t be abandoned in the process, because that was one of my favorite aspects of the original series. Lifting as a sport will probably be non-existent (since there’s no Gekkostate or anything like it so far), but I always thought it was a unique part of the battles because of the strategies revolving around the trapar currents. What I’m most curious about though is if Ao will be taking a more independent adventure in the story, or like his father did, eventually “join up” with a group. Pied Piper seems like a possibility … My only concern is that they might not even develop the story into an adventure at all and keep it all on the island instead, since it was implied Ao is starting a new year of school. Hopefully that’s not a sign. -_-

I feel as if I’ve been thrown into the Eureka Seven universe all over again and I’m excited to see where it takes us this time! A strong cast, great animation (it is Bones after all!), and lots of potential, AO has everything it needs to be an entertaining sequel! (Even though it’ll never be the same without Holland, or Anemone! XD) I have no idea how many episodes are planned, but a multi-cour series would be nice, 50 episodes would be even better … I haven’t read the manga, so it’s possible that it’s better suited for less.

Holy crap what an amazing first episode of Eureka Seven AO; it really is hard to believe it has been a total of seven years since Eureka Seven aired in 2005. Right off the bat Bones comes out swinging with their usual batch of amazing animation in both character designs and background work aka all that lovely scenery porn. I have to say there were plenty of fantastic looking shots of the Island including the beach, jungle and buildings and no use of CGI on those cars! Well, they could have been cell-shaded I suppose…either way Bones did a good job in the artwork department. Next up the music! There is sooooo much great music with a mixture of classical with violins during the dramatic moments and random techno for a few action scenes aka EXPLOSIONS and stuff.

Besides all that jazz, we have some wonderful main characters with Ao and Naru. And sure I know Ao has a typical shounen background with the whole missing parents theme, but I guess they need to have some mystery behind him. Naru on the other hand appears to be quick to flipping out during stressful moments; however they are only children so I already expected them to panic during the chaotic scenes. And then we have Gazelle, who looks a lot like Holland from the original Eureka series, but he seems to be all about the money and less about saving the world. Then again he could turn around and become a good guy…and what about the cutest animal ever as in Noah the sloth?

Just to put you up to speed, Ao’s mother went missing ten years ago and the Nirvash quit working around the same time, right? And we can’t forget about Ao’s flashback of that random girl with short green hair. Now part of me doesn’t want to admit that it might actually be Eureka and the other half is really excited that it could in fact be Eureka. Either way I wouldn’t mind seeing what happened between Renton and Eureka after the series ended and personally I do not count that horrible movie as canon! Because it sucked hardcore… Anyway, what do you think? Is Eureka Ao’s mother or is that just super cheesy?

Preview

Nirvash-“Are you ready to kick ass next week? I sure am!”

Ao awakens the Nirvash and kicks some G-Monster ass!

About Tag Team

We live, laugh, enjoy and strictly believe on "more the merrier". When together, we usually come up with very chatty, conversation-based episodics and interesting posts.