Anime Discussion Thread - Page 2025

On December 23 2011 15:30 Gao Xi wrote:

With the announcement of an Eureka Seven sequel (Eureka Seven: Astral Ocean) to air April 2012, I need to talk about E7 a bit. Eureka Seven was an anime that aired in 2005-06 by Studio Bones and when I was watching it at the time, it was very entertaining and a decently good anime. I will be going over some of the reasons why Eureka Seven was a excellent anime and one of my favourites. Eureka Seven touches on many themes and topics throughout the anime including love, religion, war, and family. The main character, Renton, is forced to deal with the aspects of adulthood all triggered by unforeseen circumstances at home. Renton’s journey throughout the duration of Eureka Seven was his transition from childhood to adulthood, a loss of innocence. Not only was the story entertaining, the music as well as the visuals were also very good, which added to the overall experience to make it very enjoyable.

Renton is shown as an underachiever who hates his life and wants change. He, however, never had the balls to do so, and escapes facing reality by “lifting“. His excuse for not willing to make change was that he was too young, too inexperienced to do so. Escaping into that “world” by adoring the sweet stories of Gekkostate and admiring them, for in his eyes, they are the embodiment of the change and life he wants to have. After Nirvash crashes into his room, he meets Eureka. For him, it was love at first sight, this represents his childishness and naivety because he likes her superficially. He finally decides he wants change after being faced with a choice to abandon all in his current life, to pursue (what he thinks is) a vastly more enjoyable life with his idols in Gekkostate and to follow the love of his life, Eureka. He unknowingly accepts many hardships to come that will shape him into a better person. “Don’t beg for it, Earn it. Then it will be granted to you.” with those words in mind he charges headfirst into the world.

After arriving on the Gekko, he is shown that the life in Gekkostate wasn’t as glamorous as shown in the magazine. However, Gekkostate accepts him as part of his family (initially at least), and gives him a sense of family, after never really having one when he lived with his grandfather. This is followed by series of events that would slowly force Renton to take a step back away from the rose-colored glasses (primarily dealing with shit the kids do). He learns about different world perspectives but doesn’t fully comprehend them especially when it came to religion. He didn’t really have an opinion. After getting to know some of the Vodarac and then learning that they were anti-government labelled as terrorists and killed for their religion, he is torn by contending loyalties. The dark past of Gekkostate also shatters his preconceived view. When he starts having problems with Eureka, it was a test of his love. Though it was initially built on superficial ideals, he has grown strong enough for Renton to handle Eureka after her incident. Once he realizes he brutally murders an entire squad of KLFs and he is isolated from Gekkostate (but most importantly Eureka) He is forced to leave them, as he feels he is know longer feels like he is with them. This takes a lot balls to leave familiar surroundings and jump into the harsh world with nothing more than a backpack and a board. Now living a life of homelessness in an unknown city after being robbed of everything except his board, he finds the will to continue on.

He finds a new “family” with Ray and Charles. This new family is a stark contrast to the “family” of Gekkostate. In Gekkostate, he was a punching bag for Holland, and he wasn’t really close enough with anyone other than Eureka. However with this new family, he is treated with respect, loved and appreciated. This speeds up the process of Renton getting close to Ray and Charles, as they were acting as the parent figures that he never had. Although he still does some of his dumb naïve shit, he was not scolded by Ray and Charles as they understand his perspective (there would be tremendously different actions if he was still with Gekkostate). Shortly after learning Ray and Charles’ real mission is to take back Nirvash and Eureka (and kill Gekkostate) he is again, torn by contending loyalties, his new family and his love for Eureka. This proves that his love for Eureka is real, and strong enough for him to chose a much harder life in order to be with her show signs that Renton is no longer that naïve little kid who escapes into his own world. As it goes on, it becomes clearer and clearer that Renton has become an adult. By the end of it, when you take a step back, it should feel like as if you raised him, watching his good days and bad days. Renton is obnoxious, annoying and extremely naive initially because it help contrasts the "beginning Renton" with the "end Renton". Renton is not the only person that has character development, throughout the series you could see everyone grow, individually and collectively as a group. Character development among other things are some of the reasons why I think it was really enjoyable.

The music used throughout Eureka Seven is amazing. The OPs and EDs are all amazing, and the fact that they used some of the OPs as insert songs for certain moments really creates a very upbeat and optimistic atmosphere while at the same time highlighting what has or is happening, they also did a good job with this using the reoccurring insert song “Storywriter”. The OST of Eureka Seven is mostly orchestra which felt like a good choice when looking at it as a whole in the anime. You could feel the music but it wasn’t overpowering the moment. The animation for the battle scenes were also well done. They use of high and low angles helped drive the point home, without overdoing it. In terms of characters, they were decent. The kids though, oh god I hated the kids. However, seeing as Renton had to deal with that shit throughout most of the anime until the end, I have to respect him for that. For the best character of all, Anemone. For being a badass crazy bitch.
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Eureka Seven also won multiple awards including “Best Television Series of 2006”, “Best Character Designs” “Best Female Character” and so on.

And with that, hopefully you look forward to Eureka Seven: Ao as much as I do, and hopefully Bones does and epically good job like it did with Psalms of Planets Eureka seveN