Eureka Seven

[Xennon]

Originally Posted by Funkgun

Yeah I agree man. At first I hate the kids as well. But as with many mecha titles there is the Young kids who somehow are on board a big ship and for whatever reason are part of the show.

Ever since grandaddy Mecha titles like
Space Runway Ideon with three kids that live freely aboard the big ship that has our title mecha and Pilot.
to
Gundam ; with three kids that live freely aboard the big ship that has our title mecha and Pilot.
to this title
Eureka7; with three kids that live freely aboard the big ship that has our title mecha and Pilot.
to a show a show that came after with
Gurann Lagann With... you guessed it... (minus one kid)

Anyhow, they might grow on you. =)

Bounen no Xamdou also, but it really isn't a mech, but two kids do live on the ship!

[unitzero]

episodes 8&9

episode 8 - Slap that stupid kid's head off. Loved that part. The words of wisdom in the kitchen about fate and what not, hmm I wonder if that's going to play a role in helping Renton accept his future fate?

Where did the weird Russian looking dude with the mustache come from all the sudden?

episode 9 - Holland punching the shit out of Renton and then not telling him the reason then Renton runs off only to figure out some stuff by happen chance - classic plot device.

This is finally starting to get good.

[valondar]

Episodes 6-8

Sorry I've fallen so far behind. I'll be aggressively catching up asap.

In a nutshell:
Just more of the same. I stand by my Evangelion comparisons upthread; Renton's angsting really is more of a lighter Shinji then just another cut and dry shonen protagonist (in that episode anyway), and in episode 5 his interactions with Talho were strongly reminiscient of Misato Katsuragi, if they haven't been since then but she's also barely been in the series anyway.

These episodes have just been more of the same; plodding along with character development and prankish comedy antics (adequately entertaining enough, I guess, but not particularly much) with the vague hints of some kind of plot that will kick in at some point... well, feeling rather dull honestly. Not quite a good sign that the bits of plot are more boring than basically nothing happening.

Also Holland is just a bland prick. We keep getting told he's awesome, Renton sort of hero-worships him, but he's the most boring thing imaginable onscreen or he just acts like a conceited jerk you want to slap around. His lack of personality would bother me less if the series doesn't keep building him up so, though to be fair they aren't aggresively guilty of this.

The series has also been compared to Gundam upthread and, well, it suffers in comparison to Zeta Gundam, another series of similar length. That show is a lot less subtle when it comes to character development and interaction and just dialogue in general; but by this point a crapload of stuff had happened, the show had gripped me with its brutally angsty melodramatics, and the guy people sort of hero-worship, well - they totally sold me on him being a legitimate authority figure. Zeta Gundam may not be a masterpiece of pacing and incident but it never blatantly wasted time like Eureka Seven is doing.

And yet, and yet... Eureka Seven confounds me because despite how unappealling it is to watch it's just so frigging COMPETENT I can't call this a bad show. Gad, maybe I'd be more satisfied if it was obviously bad.

Originally Posted by tylerriggs

episodes 8&9

Where did the weird Russian looking dude with the mustache come from all the sudden?

Yeah, that was sort of a wtf moment.

[VivisQueen]

I agree that Holland is a prick - I didn't take to him no matter how much all the other characters said he was awesome. His attitude just irritated me. Particularly because

(don't read if you haven't finished series)

there never turns out to be any basis for him being like that. He just is.

[Funkgun]

Originally Posted by Xennon

Bounen no Xamdou also, but it really isn't a mech, but two kids do live on the ship!

Indeed you can add them to that list. because just like E-7 they give the main protagonist a hard time at first.

Originally Posted by valondar

And yet, and yet... Eureka Seven confounds me because despite how unappealling it is to watch it's just so frigging COMPETENT I can't call this a bad show. Gad, maybe I'd be more satisfied if it was obviously bad.

Yeah, that was sort of a wtf moment.

hehe, That sounds like me talking about Blood + when I was watching it the first time.
I had many complaints, issues, and down right frustrations with it; but alas with all my problems with it, I could not label it a bad show.
I was almost wanting to go back in time and sabotage that series so at least I could just cut loose and rip it apart. =)

As for the Russian guy, just like most of the cast aboard the Gekkostate, you feel like you have been plopped into a ship that your supposed to already know who's aboard, He is in control of weapons/cannons aboard the ship... I imagine you already figured that out though.
Luckily they flesh out most of the characters as it goes on, but for a few it takes time.

[therik]

So I've just woken up from a half hour nap. Having not had the chance to watch two episodes yesterday, I watched 4 just now, and it left me completely mentally exhausted. Anyway

Episodes 10-13

Originally I thought that I'd be primarily commenting on Anemone. Because she's fantastic. Intriguing, unpredictable and just that little bit of a terrifying edge to her. She looks like some other character (not necessarily from this anime, mind) but I can't for the life of me put my finger on who. It's more her face shape than anything else. Damn, that's going to drive me crazy.

Anyway, I was going to just talk about her, but then the story went and took off. And how! For all my comments about the show going too slowly, I can't believe that all this has happened and we're only a quarter of the way through. Episode 12, with reality basically snapping in half like a cheap plastic ruler was a masterpiece. It really captured what I see as the essence of dreaming; a variable, rapidly changing reality. Inventive and fantastic in the most specific sense of the word, that episode alone has changed my mind about what kind of series I'm watching here. I could be mistaken, that might all be a one-off, but it was great, no mistaking that.

I thought episode 13 was pretty good too, and all the goings on between Renton and Dominic really brought something home to me - Dominic's just a kid as well. One of the more successful jobs of humanising the bad guys that I've seen.

Right now, I'm really looking forward to the next couple of episodes. It feels like the end of an arc, so things might take a while to pick up again, but I'll be ready for it. I'm sure I had some more specific stuff to pick up on here... oh yeah, one thing that struck me was Eureka wearing that gold collar in the bath. Curious. But yeah, I had intended to pick up on specific stuff, but mostly I'm a little overwhelmed by the last two episodes. Very, very good.

[VivisQueen]

yay! *happy smile*

Honestly, I don't remember what I felt for the first few episodes... or any specific episodes for that matter. I watched Eureka Seven quite quickly, I think, just trying to suck it all in in one breath because I enjoyed it a lot. But at that time my anime stats were low (I think it was before I joined AP, not sure) and I would have loved anything that was halfway decent.

I'm surprised that it's taken 10+ episodes for it to get exciting (my overall memory is weak, to be honest, so maybe I'd find it slow too if I watched it now with fresh eyes). However, I'm glad that it does eventually get good for you.

[Xennon]

There are also no arcs. It is just a continuous story.

[Funkgun]

Originally Posted by therik

So I've just woken up from a half hour nap. Having not had the chance to watch two episodes yesterday, I watched 4 just now, and it left me completely mentally exhausted. Anyway

Episodes 10-13

Originally I thought that I'd be primarily commenting on Anemone. Because she's fantastic. Intriguing, unpredictable and just that little bit of a terrifying edge to her. She looks like some other character (not necessarily from this anime, mind) but I can't for the life of me put my finger on who. It's more her face shape than anything else. Damn, that's going to drive me crazy.

Anyway, I was going to just talk about her, but then the story went and took off. And how! For all my comments about the show going too slowly, I can't believe that all this has happened and we're only a quarter of the way through. Episode 12, with reality basically snapping in half like a cheap plastic ruler was a masterpiece. It really captured what I see as the essence of dreaming; a variable, rapidly changing reality. Inventive and fantastic in the most specific sense of the word, that episode alone has changed my mind about what kind of series I'm watching here. I could be mistaken, that might all be a one-off, but it was great, no mistaking that.

I thought episode 13 was pretty good too, and all the goings on between Renton and Dominic really brought something home to me - Dominic's just a kid as well. One of the more successful jobs of humanising the bad guys that I've seen.

Right now, I'm really looking forward to the next couple of episodes. It feels like the end of an arc, so things might take a while to pick up again, but I'll be ready for it. I'm sure I had some more specific stuff to pick up on here... oh yeah, one thing that struck me was Eureka wearing that gold collar in the bath. Curious. But yeah, I had intended to pick up on specific stuff, but mostly I'm a little overwhelmed by the last two episodes. Very, very good.

4 Episodes a night, might be the way to go. You can really see more development faster that way.

yeah Dominic seems to be all militaristic and acts older, but it takes the episodes with him and renton to realise he is just a very young man as well

Originally Posted by Xennon

There are also no arcs. It is just a continuous story.

Yep, but I suppose you could consider that it has acts.
It was nice that a 50 ep show did not have some arcs. Probably because it was not a manga first.

MAJOR SPOILER Below; only for those who have seen it -->

you could almost divide the show by the different evolutions to our heroine.

Originally Posted by VivisQueen

yay! *happy smile*

Honestly, I don't remember what I felt for the first few episodes... or any specific episodes for that matter.

This is how I remember it.
I saw it on AS at night the first time it went through. I did not think much of it, I believe it was on after or before the first run of some other series I was watching.
I really thought it was just another mecha title with surfboards as it's gimic... But then I found myself looking more forward to seeing episodes of it than the other show I was waiting on at night.
It probably helped that I had not read any glowing reviews before seeing it.

[Xennon]

I suppose you could divide the show into acts just for the sake of doing so, but if my memory serves me, it would be tough to do so, unless you were to categorize them like how you said, but even then, it would be very vague.

Man, I remember when they had it running on AS, good times, the dub was pretty decent, although the voice for Eureka... eh. Most my emotions from the show come about from the music honestly. If E7 were to have some mediocre soundtrack, and not the fucking awesome one it has, I don't think I would praise the show as much as I do, it would probably be some average show in my view.