Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Eureka Seven


Renton Thurston is a 14-year-old boy who lived with his mechanic grandfather in a backwater town. Every day he dreamed of being with the mercenary "Light Finding Operation (LFO)" aircraft pilot group "Gekkostate" and riding "Trapar" particle waves-- a sport called "reffing"-- with their charismatic leader Holland, especially when faced with his father's acclaimed past or his grandfather's desire to protect him. When a young girl named Eureka riding the original LFO, the "Nirvash typeZERO", asks his grandfather for a tune-up, she inadvertently brings the attention of the military to the garage; as a result, the garage is destroyed and Renton is forced to deliver a new type of interface-- the "Amita Drive"-- to the Nirvash. After a heated fight in which the Nirvash destroys the military LFOs by unleashing an immense amount of power, Renton is invited into Gekkostate. However, he quickly realizes that behind the facade of a traveling group of mercenaries is a very bitter reality.

Episode  1
Episode 21
Episode 22
Episode 23
Episode 24
Episode 25
Episode 26
Episode 27
Episode 28
Episode 29
Episode 30
Episode 31
Episode 32
Episode 33
Episode 34
Episode 35
Episode 36
Episode 37
Episode 38
Episode 39
Episode 40
Episode 41
Episode 42
Episode 43
Episode 44
Episode 45
Episode 46
Episode 47
Episode 48
Episode 49
Episode 50
Episode 51

Eureka Seven: New Order 

Eureka Seven : AO

Eureka Seven AO
The story is set on Okinawa's isolated island of Iwado, which has seen a growing movement advocating a return to an autonomous government. Ao Fukai, a 13-year-old boy with a missing father, lives on the island with an old doctor named Toshio and is about to enter middle school. Ao's mother was taken away a decade ago by unknown individuals. Naru Arata, Ao's 13-year-old childhood friend and the story's heroine, lives with her father, older sister, and grandmother. She has a "Yuta" power awakened within her due to an incident when she was young. A mysterious entity called "Secret" suddenly appears and launches an attack on the Scub Coral lifeform on the island. Ao launches a certain military FP called "Nirvash" aboard a Japanese military transport in his fervent desire to protect the island. 






Eureka Seven Pocket Full of Rainbows

Pocket Full of Rainbows features most of the Eureka Seven characters we know and love, but the events take place in a parallel universe and the story is entirely different. In this world, humans and aliens known as IMAGES are fighting for control of Earth. Eureka is an IMAGE in human form and she was raised together with Renton by the researchers who are trying to discover her secrets, but one day the military raided the research facility and took her away. Years later, Renton has joined the military and is serving as a LFO pilot on the Gekko. Renton and the Gecko successfully rescue Eureka from the compound she was held at in a mission to stop the IMAGES from taking Eureka. Unbeknownst to Renton and Eureka, the crew of the Gecko has an ulterior motive and wants the protagonists to bring them to Neverland, a world where people don't age.

... Or at least that was what I think the story was, since I had no clue what was going on half the time. The story of Pocket Full of Rainbows was a meandering mess, filled mostly with long-winded and poor explanations of certain events interspersed with brief bursts of action and emotional moments. The connection between Eureka, IMAGES, and Neverland was never fully explained, and therefore it wasn't clear what Holland and his gang really had in mind. The roles of Koda and Anemone are also puzzling, as both character received plenty of screen time while accomplishing little. Pocket Full of Rainbows went out of its way to tie in various details from the anime series, but none of the details amounted to anything. There was a lot of information being thrown around, but the film failed to bring them together into a satisfying conclusion, and thereby leaving the audience (or at least me) more confused than ever at the end.

Pocket Full of Rainbows brought back plenty of familiar faces from the anime series, but it didn't bring back their personalities. Granted, it's harder to develop a large cast of characters in a two-hour movie than a 50 episode anime series, but the film didn't develop any of the characters. Forget the fact that Holland and his crew are portrayed as nothing more than a bunch of selfish bastards, Pocket Full of Rainbows' most glaring fault is its portrayal of our protagonists. TheEureka Seven anime series, at its core, is a coming-of-age love story between Renton and Eureka, but this film version does not deliver on this central element. Part of the problem is with the story; the film starts with Renton and Eureka already knowing each other very well, so there is no bonding process between the two as in the anime series. The other part of the problem is the dialogue; the lines just seem so clichéd, with most of them being emotional outbursts or tearful realizations. The feeling of romance and teenage love was lacking throughout the whole film, and this is perhaps the most unforgivable failure among all of the other questionable aspects.






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