This review is an ontake to explaining why I think it is, despite understandably falling flat for so many prequel fans as it does.
THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS.
Specific spoilers start from in the second half of the characters section onwards. I generally mostly focused on some punctual highlightings of aspects/scenes.
In a nutshell I'd say, whether this show is enjoyable or not depends, to a very vast degree on just how much of what you liked the original Eureka 7 prequel and the expectations come out based on that.
This is where this show's major misfortune lies in: This season is a direct sequel. And it is made as such. Even though half the show doesn't look outright like it, it is and any entry about the anime will mark it as such. It also expects you to have watched the prequel, because it doesn't waste time on reiterating what happened there. But AO's tone, themes and purpose are only about as similiar as Eureka 7 and Bone's other show Rahxephon are.
Eureka 7 is the story of Renton, a 14 year naive childish idealist, a somewhat rebellious brat in puberty admiring the cool and seeking adventures. Somebody who knows nothing of the world, but would like to be taken for a grown up man, would like to not stand in the shadow of the glory of his heroic father. He is all together rather devoid of proper worries and thus falls head over heels at first fight rather innocently. Through the course of the show he learns about the complexity of the world of not just the humans but beyond it. The story follows him on his way to maturity, triggered by his romance to Eureka - who starts at about the right opposite of his character. It's a love story, a pretty classical hero's journey and gets a Sci-Fi war setting poured over it while preaching the universal values of peace, mutual understanding and coexistance.
Eureka 7 Ao is the story of Ao, a barely 13 year old boy, grown up as a scapegoat of political and superstitious discrimination, with no knowledge of his father, with a mother branded as evil and who vanished every since he was three years old. Ao has just about only two people dear to him, that care for him, two who have to suffer collateral damage due to him. He has any reason for scorn against this world that treats him badly out of no reason that he had a play with. He already knows and realizes a lot of what is going wrong in the world and the heaviness of not being able to do anything about it. Nonetheless he stands upright to the values taught to him by his old foster doctor grandfather, even if nobody would thank him and already makes responsible decisions right at the beginning and works his best to cope with the burdens that come with that. All the while a lot of it is quite heavy on him as he is still the child of 13 years old. Ao's story is that of a lonely boy trying to regain and protect the little that is dear to him by using what means he has and clinging to a vague hope of finding his mother again. It's about him finding a place where he truly can be at home despite his complicated mixed heritage. And, even if there are some slight romantic inklings - This is not a love story. It's also not a hero's journey.
Does that sound any much similiar to you?
If you start AO expecting a second E7, AO is pretty much doomed to fail. And unfortunately most will just do that, simply because it's the direct sequel show. The chances of somebody who didn't watch E7 to watch AO are probably very low. And the chances of someone did not like E7 starting AO is probably not much higher either. (How many would bother to sit through 50 episodes of it's prequel just for a sequel you mostly only hear about how most fans jolt it out into the trash bin?)
Unless you are perhaps like me starting the season out of some questionable reason like really just wanting to know whether or not they cleaned up the horrible moon graffiti.
Yes, you inferred that right. I disliked the original E7. It has good production values, a very good illustrious soundtrack and a really great and interesting complex setting, which however felt completely wasted onto the cast. I found most of the cast (and especially Renton) absolutely obnoxious. They grew to be a bit less so later on, but not quite enough to me. And seeing those I'm not even cheering for being presented as the righteous "winners" who proved their ideals and love, felt rather unsatisfying.
This is were the second major punch of this sequel towards original E7 lovers comes in: AO invalidates the pathos of E7.
The crux of the show is basically, Renton and Eureka did what they did in E7 and it looked all happy, peaceful and optimistic. Happy ending, whatever comes, they'd be just fine, right? But it turns out, they actually messed up. Despite all the best intentions, whatever they fought for turns out to be probably not really the best and to some degree an outright bad decision after all. And that is the cause of anything that happens in AO.
Whoever thought that invalidating a happy ending was a good idea - it definitely is daring. Some will find it pointless to downright outrageous. But personally I find that almost pretty genius and lacking in precedence. Of course I enjoy that fact all the more because I loathed the TV ending of E7. Which appearantly wasn't even supposed to be as obnoxiously corny of a happy ending, given the Last Order or the Manga adaption's alternate ending.
--- Setting ---
E7 was a far in the future world, making it an own world of unique fantastical flair. AO is set in a near future world of ours, year 2025, only 13 years away from when the show aired. It doesn't have so much fantastical illustrious novel landscapes but is pretty down to earth. As such it dabbles a good deal in real life (money) politics.
I think this is worth mentioning, since most people probably don't seem to pick onto this. It's really a lot more enjoyable, if you can pick up on some background on some of those conflicts. Given though it's mostly focused on politics with Japan in the mix, so references of political conflics of the US vs. some moslem state may feel superficial for Western audiences, while that's probably really just about as much as Japanese on their remote island would realistically care over happenings on the other side of the globe.
Okinawa is an island group in Japan. Naru's garb's pattern is that of a native traditional clothing from there. Okinawa is part of Japan, but there is an independent movement going on for a while already and in that political issue Americans and Chinese play a hand. It's not pulled out and utterly explained to death, but it does give the location a very clear sign of territory. I haven't seen that particular setting in any other anime.
The Okinawian setting is also where Ao's "anma" for calling his mother comes from. Since it reccurs it also serves as a further charactarization for Ao, who was born there, is also a child of the island and does once state, he loved the island, even if it never really offered a place for him to be there.
I think the the whole island setting is quite beautifully written with all sorts of little subtle things. Other territories also show up, the world is pretty global which gives quite a nice variety of locations.
What is a bit shorthanded through - as in most anime - is a complete lack of actually spoken dialects. The Okinawa folks speak normal Japanese as do all the obvious non-Japanese characters in the show. There is also a rather clear avoidance of any shown language barriers, but these also don't appear too abnormal either, since Ao or the other children don't really interact much outside of their social circle and those who do, are all adults with negotiation responsibilities who ought to have no such language barriers. I vastly prefer this workaround over massively hilariously failing Engrish (or doitsu/furansu) insertions.
--- Visuals ---
The show is animated well above average for a TV Show. Every episode does offer enough material to really draw out a lot of chances to make it shine. There is always some action of some sort happening in every episode, but there are also calmer moments in which subtle character interactions and gestures shine. Beautiful landscapes and various locations around the world give way for beautiful backgrounds. There are a number of mystery scenes which give way for colour plays and directing choices. There are even some dementia-ish episodes with a completely diffrent directing. While they may feel like monster of the week so some or very much disjointed (despite the contents relating to character themes), they were a visual feast to look at. There is also not all that much gory/bloody shock effect shown. Ao realizes the meaning of life and death even without a close up on some ripped off human arm rubbed into his face.
The colours are also more vibrant than E7. It also seems to fuller use the whole spectrum of the palette much more than E7 TV did.
--- Audio ---
The soundtrack is beautiful. It's however definitely not a Sato Naoki score anymore. His E7 scores are mostly dramatically suspenseful or depicting some fantastical landscape with a sense of majestic epic grandness, which sure fit E7's Scub lanscapes and its pathos nicely. Koji Nakamura's score feels more grounded and subtle, a sense of subtle mystery, playfulness, "reality with a tint of fantasy" and complexity which fits this show really well. It's also still quite E7, given that the E7 score also features tracks that he had created. One old E7 track also makes a short comeback, when Renton enters the show again creating a nice contrast between old and new. All of the tracks have been really well used with their scenes, but even listening to them on their own they feel like telling a story.
The voice acting does a very good job, too. All the children do sound some 5 years older than their actual age, but they are also in more responsible positions. Eureka does feel a bit off, since she sounds like she does in E7 and that felt to me a bit too young to downright juvenile, than the age she now should have. A bit of a chuckle comes from Renton now having the voice of Holland.
--- English dub ---
The voices have been pretty well choosen and their tone colours fit their japanese counterparts very nicely. Being able to understand Japanese, I can't say it sounded all that less natural or stiff than the Japanese version already did simply by being Anime. Some nuances get lost, like Ao's Okinawian Anma, which has been dubbed as simply mother. (But still appears just like that in the subs.) The dub script generally looks pretty good. There is just one thing that jumped at me. There is a scene in which some hold the enemy and urge Ao to shoot. He says he can't just shoot them all ("minna") with the enemy, it gets translated to that he can't shoot his "friends". Which is just wrong, especially given that he never had any real interaction with those people that he would call them his friends. (He doesn't even call the ones in his team like that.)
Aside that I had an impression that the music/sound track vs. dialogue track in the dub was louder than in the Japanese dub. Sometimes (especially with black Georgs computer voice coming in with some static noise) it felt like the dialogue was drowning in background sounds somewhat.
--- Characters ---
I think it's pretty important to note that AO has a far diffrent characterization approach than E7. E7's character handling was far more explicitly extroverted (to overdramatized) and took it on to force the other character (and the viewer) into feeling something. Which has a point, since communication on some equal footing was the goal of the Scubs and a rather robotic and alien Coralian Eureka had to learn about emotions on the journey to become humanlike. She didn't get it, unless it was extroverted and clear, so immature Renton knowing almost no behaviour restraint was the perfect fit for it. It was one of the core themes around which everything in E7 was built. AO doesn't have this as a main theme at all. AO's plot is driven by human relationship contellations and politics. If in E7 Holland is a jerk to Renton, angry you should get at him. Anemone is a tragic victim, so pity you should feel for her and disdain for her tormetors. AO doesn't force it up as much. Nobody is outright blatantly evil. No action is all that bad from all angles. They just mostly all putting themselved before others, even if they know it's probably not the best and right thing to do. But everybody does that and there is no real reason not to, so they continue to do that. That makes the show more serious and realistic befitting the more real-world-like setting. The show also makes this really clear from the beginning, when the sister of one of Gazelle's group tries to sell off Ao to the Americans for a lot of money and weakly justifies herself in an empty room.
That is not to say though that communicating and expressing ones wishes and feelings isn't still there, but it's it's pretty subdued. Everbody puts up some front, but everybody also has reasons to not disclose them so easily or talk about them, even if they wanted, because it would just not be proper or disadvantageous to do so. That approach is also evident from the first episode, as Naru verbally robs Ao of any right to feel bad over his life. (If that style sounds a bit like an Neon Genesis Evangelion characterization style approach, it probably does. But Ao is quite opposite of this whiny pressimitic emo boy shying away from any sort of responsibility as Shinji, whom you'd like to give some good slaps.)
I think the contrast between the two characterization styles becomes most notable, when a certain former titular E7 protagonist enters the stage again halfway though the show and pretty much acts excatly like in E7. It's like she is absolutely overreacting and overdramatising and annoyingly lovey dovey, feelings showing way to clearly on her face over just anything. It wasn't out of place in E7. But imo it felt quite alien in AO. So if one liked that extroverted style and expect it from AO as well, everbody in Ao is doomed to feel bland. Because they don't make it as obvious or simply go out there and scream out everything on their mind all the time. The show's first arc even concludes with Ao scornful over his unlucky fate, but then realizing that getting angry or running away really changes nothing. His feelings are still there through rippling out on all sorts of occasions. - With that in mind, I found this characterization style great. It's a "show it, don't say it" style and if you take a closer look, you will get a good deal of subtle facial expressions, visual tone variations, colour plays, little lines and gestures, that betray some complicated emotions. Also some really great scenes as people hestitantly disclose inklings of their true feelings as a token of trust. And yes there are also situations with "they really should just properly talk their minds to each other" that may gnaw on some peoples patience. But the show makes a good effort in displaying, why it is so and that the "properly" part is tricky. As in a lot of cases that people would not accept it, because they are weak, selfish or because things are so out there, they would only be downright unbelievable to their peers.
For instance look at how Naru and Ao start. They are childhood friends. One pitiful boy growing up hated by everybody because he is diffrent, with no place on the island and one pitiful girl sick because of the Scubs and probably not going to live long. She defends him from the other islanders. He helps her out given her sickly condition. Who is off worse than the other? It's a fragile equilibrium of support between them, which gets disrupted as Ao leaves the island after having protected it. But he becomes special due to exactly what caused his pitiful circumstances. She gets left behind, because there is nothing left she can do for him anymore as others are more competent in helping him out of his circustances. Until she herself also becomes special due exactly what made her life miserable in the first place. And in constrast to Ao who does it out of a sense of responsibility she embraces it wholeheartedly right away. Also much to Aos chagrin, since the one who opened the doors to her happens to be his enemy. They both continue with a sense of paternalism towards each other. Ao at some point realizes, that none of them have changed their former outview towards each other much at all. But just knowing it doesn't necessarily change it. They even have a talk, but it ends up being an awkward talk solving nothing, because they never really truly talked to each other. Which is subsequently brilliantly shown as Naru angrily exclaims, she does not want to be just protected by Ao, but be his equal. - While doing the same as her accusation herself. Still both are convinced of doing the right thing. While it just turns out, they both aren't right either when a new perspective is added. Because there wasn't a really completely right thing in the first place.
It also has to be said through, AO obviously only has 24 episodes. There is by far not as much screentime to develop supporting characters or "1-2 exclusive episode characters" as in E7. Characters like those from Team Harlequin, with which Ao barely interacts with, don't get backstory at all. But that's not necessarily a bad thing. E7 was character driven, AO is far less so and feels more tight and with less distraction than E7. The story follows Ao and everybody whom he deals with more closely and whom he gets to know better is explored. In reality you also don't know so much about your neighbour three blocks away, whom you from time to time happen to see on the street, do you? But that doesn't mean, they aren't able to appear as people and to possibly still affect your life some way or another even without you seeing excepts and summaries on their lifes.
There is some great handling about a mentor side character. He gets quickly introduced and killed off about just as quickly. Neither the viewer nor Ao never really gets to see much of him alive except like two lines of dialogue. Ao ends up visiting his to be vacated room after his death. There is some unspoken great characterization to be had from his bookshelfs and wall notes about this character we never got to know, never will, but still get an idea of. And this total foreigner still brought a realization and emotional impact to Ao, giving way for an understanding for support characters that did have relashionships with him, as his loss affects them even more. We don't get to know whatever they have lived through together in their own special dedicated episodes. But that's just fine, too. We do get see how their unknown past shape their present actions and how those affect Ao.
--- Plot ---
Even if it is a spoiler, I think it really is good to know beforehand: This show has parallel universes, time travel and timeline resets. The latter two are pretty much the same way as the time machine and D-Mails in Steins;Gate if the reference helps out.
What however is prone to make it a bit confusing at first sight: the parallel universes are not the parallel universes as in the known parallel universe time travel concept. There is some travel between universes. But that happens literally between a slightly similiar, but completely seperate universes. It looks like they are jumping from the E7 12000 something AD to its own past of year 2025 at first, but that's not the case. It's World E (the E7 universe) and there is World A (AO universe) and they happened to be somewhat similiar, but aren't the same and from World E it happens to be possible to jump to any time point of World A. (As explained as "space and time are the same" for the Scubs.) Any time travel and world reset stuff all happen within World A. World E isn't the setting at all and except for some cameo scenes and a dialogue line everything remains unknown. This parallel universe concept as it is does get explained verbally once in the last episode. Before that there are numerous little hints showing it, as are the time travel and resets hints, but at least I missed them when airing on air, since numerous weeks later I'd all forgotten about the details, so the last third became a trainwreck to me. When it actually wasn't as I realized upon a rewatch.
The show looks messy, but the pieces really do fall into place if you watch it attentively and then continuity issues disappear, too. Save for the 2 minute epilogue scene (which got remade to a full final episode years later) there is also no extra unnatural "the characters already know that, but the viewer doesn't so let's explain it once more even though we all know it already!" sort of exposition dialogue. This is great, but also means, nothing is served on a silver tablet.
The major general hurt point about this show's plot is admittingly that the original E7 universe is something we learn almost nothing about in this series. And the little we do know is adressed in some 3 minute explanation exposition in the last episode and some mysterious flashbacks (which never get further explained, but do indicate something went really awry in their world, too.) Given that anybody coming from E7 was waiting to see more of E7, what became of the world and the old characters and not getting what they expected, it's understandable they felt betrayed. But do make no wrong assumptions: This show is about Ao. From the old cast Eureka is the only one who really gets to have screentime. Renton gets a last episode show up and that's it.
It admittingly also doesn't help, that one of the narratives biggest initial driving mechanisms is a massive mystery box around "What the heck is up with Eureka? How did she end up in this time/place? Why is she alone? Where is Renton?" with all of the mysterious flashbacks of Ao of his lone mother and her being gone. It definitely is also intentional bait. And surely it did attract the most attention. But it never really gets focused on all that much. It gets resolved, but to the viewer the resolution feels short and unexplored as any of it is narrated, implied and not explicitly shown with a want for more been shown. Within the context of the show that actually feels very natural. Those two old characters are basically foreigners to the cast of AO whom the viewer is following. They would know nothing about them and any information will come from whatever those two outright tell them. And they don't say much. Eureka doesn't because she literally has no time to do so (and she has so see to some time line continuity) and Renton, because he doesn't even try. Because it's probably to painful to talk over his guilt and pain and as he wants to overwrite the world after all, so whatever talk there is would get erased in his agenda anyway. As a result, those two will mention stuff, that's evident to them and the E7 viewer (Nirvash, Mechas with souls, Archetype, Coralians, Limit of Questions...), without much of an explanation, but it only throws any of AO's characters into understandable puzzlement. To most viewers coming from E7 it probably feels like bad teasing.
I also think there is also something about the basic point of the show, that many don't like. It's not about love, catharsis, not about getting a peaceful cooexistance and not fight, about having fun and getting happy as E7 had and which are universally successful themes. (And it doesn't seem to me like as if the creators didn't consider it, but intentionally chose not to.) In Ao it's mostly about guilt and resposibility. About decisions to be made in a complex net of interests and how they could turn out to be completely wrong. As I mentioned before: The whole show's happenings are set in gear by how Eureka and Renton in E7, despite the happy ending there, had actually screwed up. And so they try to fix it. Almost everybody has something in need to fixed up. Naru wants to fix up the world, as she got herself fixed up by accepting the Scubs. Fleur is guilty over her mother's death and own survival and in need of fixing up her relashionship with her father. Rebecka about her past deeds in media manipulation. Ivica over his deeds in the war and follow up resolve to never let children die again. The Okinawa folks for being so weak despite boasting their (actual fake) independence. Gazelle, who wants to do better than his father. The Japanese who want more political power as does about any other state. Elena who thinks she is in a wrong world and flees into Otaku escapism most of the time. Truth who also feels out of place of the world and clings towards the world as it was before the Scubs came, which at the same time would also end his own miserable existance. Ao, who tries to cope between, what he can do, should do, can justify before himself to (not) do and what he wants to do, all the while he is gradually more than just slightly overexerting himself. Everybody is in want and need for something. - And then pops up some omnipotent world resetting device that can fullfil wishes.
But getting one thing fixed breaks another thing. Quite some responsibility and I do think the show makes a point in showing what this means. It also blends in really well with Ao's own character theme of finding a place where he belongs and his increasing doubts over if he really is somebody bringing only misfortune to others as everybody has ever blamed him for. He just got started getting along with Cloe, resetting the world has erased her team from his daily life. They are still alive and happy, but he is not amiss in their life, while left along with his memories of a now nonexistant timeline and nobody whom he can share that pain with. And moreover that omnipotent device sure makes situations go awry. Everybody would naturally want it and situations escalate quickly. And there is still his own wish of getting to be with his mother again. Should he use it? At what unknown cost? In the end he does, because the alternatives are even worse. And he does so by fixing up as many things up for the people whom he knew. He looses everything, but everyone whom he cares lives a nicer life. Without him. That surely isn't a cheesy happy ending as in E7.
At that I really recommend the "Final Episode" ONA, it gives a really good roundabout that even if he decided to do it, it came with considerable pain and it also is much more positively rewarding as he gets to get a happy ending despite having lost so much.
Aside that, there is quite some fun to be had through mostly Elena. There are a number of Otaku-culture references and self-referencing in line jokes from the creators themselves. Things like the scene in which they are in space and they stand on silicon with Elena saying "Zero gravity is hard to animate after all." In-series she makes one of her random eccentric remarks, outside of it it's a pretty witty meta-joke. There is even a scene in the last third, where some director of an in-series anime exclaimes that even of the show gets duped prematurely out of reasons that don't even have to do with its proper quality or due to a misinterpretation over what they were trying to tell with it, he is still all passionate about doing it. Given they bothered doing a full new final episode after 4 years to a show that gets dissed and rejected as much as this one, it does feel like a real statement. And there is Naru and Ao talking in "private" with an eavesdropping family including her sister exclaiming whenever the kiss is finally supposed to come, while that it's the last thing to expect.
--- Overall ---
I don't think the show was really messy, nor as if the creators had no clue what they wanted. It's also not really any worse paced than E7. (E7's last third also brushed over a lot of setting explanations rather quickly.) This shows one true major handicap is, that it's written so, that it expects you to have watched the original E7 and having been marketed mostly towards E7 fans, despite it trying and being really very much diffrent. This could have been avoided, by giving Eureka and Renton (or anybody else with knowledge) more chances of appearing and explaining in-series what had relevant things have happened in E7 leading up to their actions in AO and thus making the series accessable for complete newcomers and market it as its own independant story. As it is it doesn't really get through to the target audience, who would have enjoyed the show.
There is an in-series argument between Renton and Ao at the end of the show. Renton argues that only one (Nirvash with an archetype), the original, is needed and negates Ao's. But Ao has come so far as having his own by then and so he has what it takes to stand on equal ground in a fight against Renton.
Perhaps I just randomly see some meta implication here. But it fits hilariously well. A lot of those who dissed the show, had even made jokes over that dialoge piece back in the days, agreeing with Renton. When in the show he's comes off more like a narrow minded stubborn dork who doesn't want to listen, trying to escape his responsibility by erasing the mistake instead of dealing with it. But isn't that actually really sad? Dismissing that AO also has its own powerful merits just because he's an offspring that's diffrent than its predecessor?
But perhaps the announced remake movie trilogy might fix it up. The trailer sure looks more sober, serious and mature than the original E7. Are they going to make the prequel more like the sequel? Will they really dare to make immature Renton be less obnoxious? Or does that end up being just some bait again? Probably something in the middle. But I'm really crossing my fingers for a version with more likable E7 characters. And perhaps a moon cleanup.
