Thursday, December 14, 2000

Eureka 7 review

If you have never seen Eureka 7 you need to see it, period. If you are a fan of Evangelion, you need to see it, period. If you love crazy mecha action, you need to see it, period.

I'm not kidding. This show has me thinking . . . . dare I even say it. . . that it is even better than my beloved Evangelion. I never thought there would be anything that could ever come along that would make me even suffer a fleeting thought like that but with Eureka 7, my mind has been flooded with that realization. . . . Eureka 7 may be the greatest anime series of all-time.

Now it has to be said, there are a lot of similarities between Eva and Eureka 7, and you can tell that BONES was highly influenced when creating this story by the classic Angel series. How only the "chosen" can pilot the Nirvash (just like the 1st, 2nd and 3rd child in Eva) and there seems at least at the beginning to be another alien race that wants to destroy mankind (like the Angels in Eva) and that the subject of rebirth for mankind (the Third Impact). But Eureka 7 seems to run with these themes and tie them all together with one of the most heart-wrenching love stories I have ever seen. Pure brilliance.

And I have to say that I have watched the series both with the Eng subtitles and with the Eng dub and I have to say the English translation on the dub is great and perhaps delivers an even more moving performance from the voice actors.

I have never teared up more at an anime. Weird. What always got to me was during the English dub at the end of every episode Renton and Eureka would both say in unison "To be continued. . ." but in a way and tone that reflects how the episode ends emotionally. At the end of many episodes they sounded happy, chipper, excited, relieved, worried. . . it really let you know how the characters were feeling.

But what really got to me was the end of episode 47 I think. They had such a sound of hopelessness in their voices like everything was done. . . and then at the end of episode 49 . . . there was only Renton uttering those words. I have never been more emotionally invested in the characters of an anime series in my life and it may be because they reel you in with 50 episodes!

5/5

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