Story - 8: There is a great philosophy behind this anime. Not only "Don't beg for things, do it yourself, or else you won't get anything." There is also the philosophy that your idols can actually be very different from what you expect outside of their publicity. Those two ideas can make you much comfortable about the world if you choose to follow them.
The power in Eureka seVeN's story is showing these two lessons with Renton who constantly finds himself in a world where he is pushed around. You can feel just how uncomfortable it would be to change your life in his situation, but we learn that being held back for a long time makes us more eager to let go and chase what you really want. Because of that fact, the adults around Renton have less of a drive to push forward and do something amazing that would save the world.
The Gecko is the 'terrorist' organization that Renton is an idol of. Everything involving them is symbolic with the disappointments of being controlled by the system of politics and such things, despite them being freedom fighters of a sort. The team is stuck within rigid guidelines, but they put their own flair on each day with very impressive teamwork which allows them to pull off impossible stunts time and time again.
The reason to detract points is that these subliminal elements are hard to recognize for a lot of people. Not only that, but the plot often loses a sense of why everything is happening. The plot is subtle and rather empty because there are a lot of loose ends that did not feel like they gave you enough to speculate with.
Art - 8: The art of Eureka seVeN is the most lush and gorgeous in color and lighting you will ever see in an anime. The often simple character designs are great canvases for the bright colors and it would have been disappointing if the character designs were more complex. When ever you see the refboards in action, it is really a treat. Unfortunately, the humanoid robot designs are really too bland and the car transformations are far from bad, but only the Nirvash looks memorable. However, the neat thing about these robots is that they are half organic and they bleed. It makes for effective gritty art and I feel like it adds to the character of Anemone later on. There are also the 'antibodies' near the end, which look very nice and fearsome at the same time due to their very good animation.
Speaking about animation, it is unfortunately very sub-par for the most part. You can tell when something has good animation when the motion in a certain scene almost feels like you are doing it yourself. This never happens and the animation often feels like it fell short of its intended expression.
The openings and endings are almost perfect in their art style. Really emotional and rousing with all of the openings and each of the endings are truly touching mainly due to the art.
Sound - 9: The soundtrack is varied. You might enjoy having a CD of all the techno, trance and EDM types of music. These songs were not composed by the anime's composer, but hired, standalone professionals, so they are pretty great quality. The composer (Sato Naoki) makes a small set of incredibly beautiful music which is just as pure and colorful as the art style. The music was generally able to extract all of the beauty in each rousing, spiritual, calming, pensive or grievous moment.
As for the sound effects. One very unique sound in the first episode or so, but you often hear the same crashing noise all of the time and nothing else noteworthy. Sound effects are rarely that important outside of video games, so I would not lower the score more than one point based on them.
One of the songs is from the opening of the PlayStation game Ergheiz.
My favorites songs off the top of my head are "Eureka" and "To Wish Upon A Star". You will definitely be drawn in by a few of these songs.
As for the Opening and Ending themes, you should fall in love with all of them. The best opening theme is probably for the third season and the first ending is probably the best, but I used to feel unimaginably strong about the second ending theme when I was a kid.
Character - 9: There are many static characters with the Gecko State, but there are some exceptions. The kids are really fun and great because they are 100% just as hyper-active and annoying and mean to each other as any children you have met. It was nice to see such young children develop as characters and go through many scary situations.
Renton's self-conscious nature moves the early parts of the story along in a very relatable way and that makes his character a huge plus. Eureka is the perfect character to fall in love with and she never fits poorly within the story. You really feel like you are dating her, too.
Rei and Charles are considered to be the highlight of the series because they really go all out with their scene in the story. They are one of those fiercely devoted couples, but they give a direct mother and father relationship with Renton, who has never felt such feelings before. In this part of the story, Renton is faced with many highly diverse ideas. The twists with Rei and Charles are very amazing and probably the most easy to get emotional about.
There is a very under-noted character in the same area of the story. He is a blind farmer who does not harm even the grass. He secretly shows us an ideal lifestyle that could heal much of humanity because he is probably based on Masanobu Fukuoka (the first publicized "Natural" farmer). Seeing this scene, it just seems like a beautiful fairy tale, imaginary land, but places like that really can exist in the world.
With Holland, I suppose that he is very reserved. Honestly, he is a true representation of what a free-spirited entrepreneur acts like, and it is exactly what he is. But (still true to that archetype) he is very cautious about breaking the system because there are already so many things that could go wrong for him. What makes him unique is that he gets really emotional with assuming the role of Renton's father and can be pretty scary.
Talho is a Faye (Cowboy Bebop) style comedic character, but she is loyal to her man and would not run away and do whatever she wanted. She also takes on a distant mother role for Renton.
There is a photographer guy who is supposedly a deep philosopher, but never seemed to say anything deep except in the first episode and a scarce few others.
Gidget is simply an innocent character and nothing else, but she has a cool design.
Oh, I suppose that this is not supposed to be a summary of every character, but I will just say that the characters have very realistic personas that show different angles on love, but they do not have much time to show what they are made of. The story focuses on Renton, but that is almost necessary for the story to proceed.
The only downside is the highly unexplored villains. You never know what is happening with the bad guys. Dewey is a character who seems to be really intriguing at the end, but they tried to make us care long before that time.
Enjoyment - 7: This show is not too entertaining. However, you will be drawn in by the beauty of the colors and atmosphere or one of the two most beautiful, ethereal songs on the soundtrack. From there on, you will probably rewatch the anime some time and you will see the deeper lessons if you have gone through more of your life. It feels really rewarding, but it is far from a universal experience, so there was no way that I could offer up a 10 in this category.
Overall - 8: Watch it and you will discover if you can really feel the one-of-a-kind magick within this show.
