Eureka Seven AO: One More Time - Lord Don't Slow Me Down

THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS from the second paragraph on.

This Mini ONA Series adds up to the running time of a regular TV episode. It's a remake of the last 2 minutes of the Eureka Seven TV series. Titulated as the Final episode it's literally that and docks onto the last TV episode quite seamlessly. It heavily refers to the prequel TV show so be warned that watching it as a standalone will in all likelihood not make much sense at all. It was created as a promotion to an Eureka Seven AO pachinko game, but that has nothing to do with the episode contents at ... all.

This remake deals with Ao's fate after he shot the Quartz Gun the third time thus saving his mother the fate of wandering around aimlessly in Space-Time, but ends up having to do the same himself instead. The Tv Version only showed how it started and when the journey ended. This ONA explores what he went through on that lonely journey with only Truth for company and nobody remembering him in this new timeline even when he has the chance to see people he knew alive. As he drops around in time, he takes the chance to change a couple of things in the history of his former comrades. Which in turn forges some new connections to them, who -also at the behest of Eureka- set out to free him from the journey. As in the TV Version it ends again with Ao and Truth going seperate ways and Ao flying back down to earth.

Visually this ONA is pretty outstanding and in no way worse than the TV show. It does a really good job in depicting Ao's character under the circumstances, from boredom, mild frustration, depression and borderline despair in it's first segments to the huge relief and emotional salvation in the last segment's final scene. Ao does get a genuine happy ending this time. Despite this being mostly a character episode for Ao in his loneliness, it's regularly spiced up with some humourous scenes inbetween. The other characters from his days in Pied Piper and Naru all get more or less screentime and there is some pretty good looking mecha action as well. Nirvash Neo/Truth even gets a dedicated new revamped design facelift for this ONA.

Despite maintaining the basic happenings, there are some changed details to the original TV shows's last two minutes, which makes this ONA a slightly retconned remake.