I watched the original Eureka Seven only a few months ago. The series was long and almost incomprehensible, but still charming. It's convoluted plot and deeply emotional characters are nice metaphors for what life is generally like in the minds of teenagers: “adults are out to ruin my life and nothing makes sense anymore, but so long as I live life to the fullest and find someone to love, the journey is worth it.” Eureka Seven AO isn't exactly successful in adapting this same endearing philosophy, but I wouldn't dismiss AO just yet.
Thirteen years ago Eureka dropped out of the sky with Nirvash, an Intelligent Flying Object (IFO) that soars on the invisible Trapar currents that occupy the atmosphere; three years after her arrival, she mysteriously vanishes. We find ourselves concerned with the son she leaves behind, a brown (eventually blue) haired, purple eyed youth named Ao, Okinawa's resident weirdo. One day, a sleazy gang secretly transporting goods to the Japanese Navy bumps into Ao on a beach (where he secretly steals a bracelet from them), and they happen to witness a Scub Coral emerging. Scub Coral appearances are always accompanied by G-Monsters, who destroy anything in their path. Generation Bleu is an organization that uses IFOs, modeled after Nirvash, in order to take down G-Monsters. The smuggler punks take Ao to the navy and he eventually pilots the Nirvash using the bracelet, a feat no one else has ever been able to accomplish. Upon seeing Ao's ability to pilot an IFO and defeat G-Monsters, Generation Bleu recruits him.
Yes, it's another coming-of-age story with robots and alien chicks, and as always, only kids have the power to change the world. FLCL, Gurren Lagann and the original Eureka Seven have all demonstrated that even though there's nothing particularly innovative about the genre, there's always room to tweak those elements enough to create a special je ne sais quoi that leaves viewers satisfied. BONES has done it at least twice; Xam'd was obviously a spiritual successor to the Eureka Seven formula. Seeing as how AO is slowly revealing itself to be a sequel to Eureka Seven anyway, the only surprise here will be whether or not AO has enough ambition to make a name for itself and become a unique contribution to the genre, or just an addendum to an already established mythos.
AO's universe operates under the same principles Eureka Seven did. LFO mechs are now called IFOs, and they still need trapar in order to fly or sky surf. Unfortunately, the guys at BONES failed to recognize that most people need a crash course in “Eureka Seven 101” in order to comprehend the jargon that's thrown around, and this especially applies to people who are new to the franchise. But for the new fans there are some genuinely fresh aspects to AO, like the G-Monsters, so fans old and new can be equally confused. The designs for these creatures is hilarious, mostly because they don't make any sense. One G-Monster is a giant jack-in-the-box, while another is a colossal version of the Chair-O-Planes one finds at amusement parks. Destroying these monsters involves taking suicidal risks, like Ao allowing the jack-in-the-box to swallow him, or getting close enough to the Chair-O-Plains to climb up the chains and mount the G-Monster.
The jargon issue mentioned in the previous paragraph, however, is but one example of BONES' tendency to introduce new plot elements when older ones are still enigmatic. As they did in Eureka Seven and Xam'd, AO's story feels like there's too much to explain but not enough time to explain it. Considering the fact that anime production isn't cheap, I would hope BONES can muster enough patience to read their own scripts and make sense of them before starting production. Eureka Seven AO wants us to follow Ao's growth as a Generation Bleu pilot, which makes sense. We also must follow his friend Naru's mysterious abduction by the blue haired villain, Truth. We don't know what Truth is planning to do, but we know it involves making the... truth known to the world? I guess that's pretty obvious. Ao's teammate Elena suddenly has an elusive past and possibly works as an American spy; that plot point seemed to randomly appear out of nowhere. There's too much going on, and to hope for a spectacular second half of the series that neatly wraps everything up almost seems like a naïve wish.
Will Eureka Seven AO be as epic as its predecessor? AO at least retains the undeniably beautiful animation and musically oriented feel the previous series had. But nostalgia is a strong emotion, and it's not easy to forget the impression the original Eureka Seven leaves behind, whether one believes it was good anime or flat out terrible. If AO is wise, it won't compete with Eureka Seven, but instead both compliment and stand apart from it.
- Elijah Lee
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