Ao’s gone but not forgotten as the girls want him back, even if they can’t articulate why.
What They Say:
With Ao gone, Fleur and Elena are left to confront their differences over how they deal with the way he left. But no matter how they feel, the only way either of them can go to him is by activating the Third Engine on their IFOs.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
When a series removes its main character from events for a bit, it’s a good chance for the supporting cast and secondary characters to shine more, especially when you have a couple of them that are going to go looking for him eventually. The problem that Eureka 7: AO has is that when it wants to focus on these supporting characters, such as Fleur and Elena here, they’ve had a handful of lines at best for several episodes now and that makes it hard for them to really connect well. It’s an opportunity for them to step up and be known of course, but realistically this is all stuff that should have happened more earlier so they can focus better on events here.
The first half of the episode kind of dances around things as we see how Fleur and Elena are dealing with Ao’s leaving and the way he’s made it clear he’s not coming back. They’re working their IFO’s as best as they can, but they know that deep down the truth is the only way to really catch up with him is to get their Third Engine’s up and running, which is something that neither are in the right place for. While we see them testing things well, nothing goes right when the key moments come and it actually turns fairly dangerous. The pair have some decent dialogue throughout the episode as they cope with what’s happened over their time of service, but the tensions aren’t just below the surface anymore. And Elena is coming across as someone who is ready to just explode.
There’s some minor material with Ao throughout this, but it gets a bit more towards the end when the girls show up where he is and really do their best to get him to come back. They just have a lack of understanding why he’s there to begin with, but it also really seems like even Ao doesn’t understand it himself, even though he’s the one who left. It makes for a nice dramatic moment to be sure, but it’s another one of those odd points in the series where it makes sense in its own internal way but just feels off overall when you get it all out there on the screen.
In Summary:
Eureka 7: AO spins its wheels a bit here by giving Ao some time away but without really growing him with what he knows or feels during that time. As has been the case with many episodes in this series, there’s a lot of little things going on with the cast and supporting characters but it never really feels like it adds up to something cohesive. With an array of nameless people wandering around talking, you latch onto the main characters all the more, but there’s no depth there as well. With Elena and Fleur, we finally get some real emotion out of them but there’s no connective tissue to it since they’ve been bit players at best for awhile now. With the main character of Ao still feeling like a cipher at times, it’s no surprise everyone else is the same. Or worse.
Grade: C
Streamed By: FUNimation
Review Equipment:
Sony KDS-R70XBR2 70″ LCoS 1080P HDTV, Dell 10.1 Netbook via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.
