Eureka 7 is the latest anime (on going in Japan, scheduled for 50 eps) from the animation studio Bones. Bones is an excellent studio who you can always count on for exceptional animation quality, as well as series with interesting stories and settings. Their most notable series, stateside, are Full Metal Alchemist and Rahxephon. As far as a comparison goes Rahxephon is the better of the two as both E7 and Rahxephon are mecha animes. However, consider the comparison to Rahxephon more for artistic style and the handling of pacing then any comparisons in story.

Eureka 7 through the first 26 episodes seems like it is a combination coming of age story and finding ones place in the world. The main character, Renton is at first blush your standard early teens  hero . He's got all the qualities working for him: the listless daydreams, the somewhat bratty nature, and is also conveniently from a small town and oh so curious about the big world outside. Despite this initial impression Renton grows into being an excellent and complex character. His growing pains, while they sometimes involve fighting in a giant robot, are very realistic. He struggles to find an identity for himself, gets depressed over looking like a dork in front of the girl he likes, and clashes with the authority figures in his life. Renton is also prone to your standard main character moodiness, but thankfully not in a,  Woe is me I'm the savior, and I don't want to be type of way (Kamina, Shinji I'm looking at you here). His ups and downs are tied to largely two things: trying to figure out if he himself can actually do anything on his own, and to how things are going with his girl. Admittedly occasionally this makes you want to bop him on the head, but for a kid with a crush it's hard to hold it against him too much. All in all Renton is an excellent and likable character.

Anyways, moving on. The series takes off when a giant robot (called LFOs) falls out of the sky and onto Renton's Grandpa's mechanic shop. The pilot is a mysterious purple eyed girl named Eureka. To again use a mecha anime convention; Eureka is the Rei of E7. By this I mean she's the shy, awkward, what's up with that girl and why does she kick ass character. Unlike Rei Eureka actually has a personality and is likable. Eureka like Renton grows a lot as the series goes by. Learning how to deal with people and open up to them. To a certain extent it appears like she is also trying to atone for past mistakes, but at the same time learn how to atone in a healthy way. You learn lots of things about Eureka's present, and a little about her past. The exact details at this point in the series are still a mystery, but enough is there to make here a compelling character, she's a very nice female lead for the series to have.

Shortly after Eureka's giant robot is fixed, the Nirvash aka Type-0, the military comes and we got our first fight on our hands. LFOs in the series largely fight by flying through the sky, but in a nice twist they do not do this with rockets or anything like that, but rather by riding on special particles in the air called strapped. To make things even cooler the LFOs ride the strapped using what basically looks like a giant surfboard. This departure from the norm in design and approach to the metes in the series is welcome, and does not come off as gimmicky. Also the combat while awesome, is not the focus of the series. The series is driven by the story and the characters. Which is nice, because there is always a danger with mecha animes for them to get bogged down in battles and special attacks.

Renton hooks up with Eureka and her comrades, and leaves his town and starts his life on the run from the military. His life though is hardly romantic, glamorous, or really even all that adventurous. This is another nice bit to the series. Not romanticizing the daily grind of life when you're just scraping by. Now there are some problems with the crew of mercenaries, revolutionaries and pirates of the Gekko-Go. The main problem is that there are a quite a few of them, and while they are all very well designed (both artistically and conceptually) many of them come off as only having half a personality. Now I realize not all supporting characters can be these wonderfully fleshed out, but there are some characters that, even though you see them almost every episode, you remember their job on the ship and not their name. For an anime that seems to focus on story and character development this is a bit of a let down. Also there are a few really annoying characters Eureka's  kids being three of them.

All in all the first half of Eureka 7 is well worth your time. Despite some issues with the supporting characters the setting, animation, and story are all top notch. It also so far avoids many of the angst and over the top fighting pitfalls that can plague series of the mecha genre. On a letter grade scale I would have to give it a strong B+. It's no Rahxephon, but it's another fine piece of work by the people at Bones.

Eureka 7 is currently available on fansubs from the fine people at Nanashi.

posted by Mayama @12:05AM 2-22-06 0 comments