“And they all lived happily ever after…” -Maggie Kwan

Summary: We pick up right where episode 21 left off, with Truth coming in to interrupt Ao and Elena’s awkward love confession/special time/whatever by literally sticking his face in places where it really shouldn’t be. Truth and Ao go at it, as per the usual, but he’s unable to even get close the giant spinning ball that is Truth. Naru uses her special teleportation sea anemone Scub Coral to save Ao and bring him home before Truth does any real damage. Ao, Naru, Hannah Mama and the rest of Team Harlequin spend some quality time discussing the Coral Carriers and the different possible dangers that could come from them. Naru doesn’t want to believe that the Scub infecting people could be bad, even though there’s strong evidence against her in the form of the U.S IFO pilots that were Coral Carriers, all of whom are being devoured by the Scub inside them. Fleur, Ivica, Rebecka, and Elena also spend some time talking about Truth’s true nature and what exactly went wrong with him.

Because Naru and Ao both might die from getting close to Truth’s new form, it’s decided that they should stay on Iwato Jima while Team Pied Piper and Harlequin (who are now good guys again) team up with the Secrets in order to stop Truth from attacking the Scub Coral plant in Okinawa. But even with all of their powers combined, it still not enough to put an end to Truth, who is now fully in The Land of the Absolutely Insane, Population: One. Ao and Naru arrive (against orders, duh) and everything is set for Ao and Truth’s final battle. Cut to the future (or a different time line, or a different world, or a different galaxy, you choose) where the person who everyone was waiting for finally decides to make an appearance.

Impressions: Okay let’s just get it over with: RENTON!!!!!! He finally shows up! Fangirl! Fangirl! Confetti!! Bust out the party hats and strike up the band!!!! Let champaign run like blood through the streets!!!!! Queu the explosion of a million fans’ hearts!! Queu the high-pitched squealing usually reserved for 13 year old girls when they finally meet Justin Bieber/One Direction/the New Hot Boy Band of the Moment! Queu that one gif from Avatar: The Last Airbender with the guy with the foaming mouth who passes out!!! PARTY!!!!! WOoooOOoooooo!!!!!!! aaaaaaaand we’re done. Shut it down.

Ladies *insert hot/creepy wink here*

With that out of the way, let’s get on with this.

In all seriousness, this was a pretty good episode to go out on. We had some fun, fast paced action sequences (sometimes it looked a little wonky? Was I the only one who noticed that? Especially with the shooting and the flying; maybe that was just the quality of the download I had or whatever). We got some good info on the Coral Carriers and Truth. We finally see Renton. Naru gets rid of her ear things (side note: was any one else pissed that there was no explanation to those? They weren’t even real! Like you can literally see a bunch of dudes in business suits somewhere in a dark office scheming “How can we make her more appealing to fans? Oh! I know! Let’s give her weird clip on ear-horn things!”) With the last two episodes confirmed to be airing in late autumn (November), this episode was a great note to go into a short hiatus on. Overall, I found it to be very satisfying, and aside from Naru, pretty much grip-free.

The main things (beside Renton) where the two big talks that took place regarding Truth and the Coral Carriers. Truth has been completly off his nut since he merged with Kannon and became the world’s ugliest mecha biggest spinning top strongest villain. While a lot of it is rehashing the fact that “Truth is a Secret” only to change their minds ten minutes later and say that “He’s not a Secret anymore”, some of the information is new. Like that apparently the Secrets can be infected by the Scub Corals which leads to them becoming something else entirely. When the Quartz that Truth was pursuing on that day ten years ago disappeared, he lost his purpose which forced him to merge with the Scub Coral in order to survive. I can understand his wanting to destroy the Scub because part of him’s a Secret but then why does he want to destroy the whole world? I hope one of two things happens: either we learn more about Truth’s real motives, or they just fully commit to the loose explanation that he’s just plain crazy. He’s become such a mega-villain that really, I’m just curiouse to see how they take him down in the end. If 5 IFO’s and two huge Secrets aren’t enough, then will it all come down to the Quartz Gun?

We’re also filled in a bit more on the Coral Carriers. Turns out, hey, having an alien substance take up resedence in your body isn’t such a great idea! Who’d have thought? The U.S IFO pilots that had been “made” are not lookin’ so hot in this episode. The type Kannon by nature produces very high Trapar levels, which in turn causes the Scub inside people to devour them when they’re exposed to it. Because Ao is born of (basically) a Scub and a Human it’s dangerous for him to go near Truth, since no one really knows how it’ll affect him. This is an idea that I can kind of get behind, as an Achilles heel type thing for Ao, who seems pretty much unbeatable, especially if/when he finally decieds to fire the Quartz Gun.

This totally reminded me of something from Ranma 1/2 (or something along those lines) where the whole family is peeping and waiting for them to kiss already.

Naru, on the other hand, is totally convinced that the Scub enter people to change them for the better, and doesn’t really want to believe any of this when Hannah tells her about it. Naru, honey, denile isn’t just a river in Egypt. Man, Naru as a character just makes me sad. I can see where the producers and writers of this show wanted to take her character; they wanted her to be independent and not just a damsel in destress and someone who could fly on her own (cheese factor alert). But instead she comes off as a dilusional, confused child, stuck in a fantasy world, who is unable to see how others view her and her actions. She can’t see that Truth is a bad dude, who’s killed a lot of innocent people, and continues to defend him and tells Ao not to fight him. She continues to get upset when people misinterpret her actions, but really, what does she expect if she doesn’t at least try to explain herself? If she doesn’t give Ao a proper explanation for why she went off with Truth, of course he might tend to think that she likes Truth since she ran away with him. She could have been so much more than the half-baked love interest/prophet/sometimes-Mark 2-pilot that she is now. I hope this show proves me wrong, and does something amazing with her in the end, but I won’t get my hopes up too high.

I will say that I am really liking this very subtle theme that seems to be running through out the show of wether an “Us vs Them” mindset is ever a good thing. It’s come up a couple of times in the first episodes, the idea that the islanders treat Ao like a foreigner  turning it into Us vs Him. In this episode, Grandpa Fukai brings it up again, when the Islanders are talking about all Coral Carriers that have appeared. Obviously sometimes in life it’s necessary to make distinctions between two groups of people. We, as humans, do it all the time, even when we don’t actually need to. But at what point should we stop drawing lines in the sand between ourselves and the people who we perceive as different? Should the islanders ostracize and isolate the Coral Carriers because they might be a threat? Wouldn’t it be better for them to help each other, to minimize the death toll on an already reduced human race? It’s an interesting topic that I wish this episode brought to the for front more, but given how much stuff this show has to deal with already, I’m glad that it’s so, so subtle.

Other observations include Nakamura continuing his plan to raise Japan into a nation to rule all others, seemingly by hoping Truth will completely destroy it? Seems a bit backwards to me, but at this point I’m so confused as to why he’s still around that I’ve lost interest in his story completely (Also, he left the military last episode, but can still get on a military helicopter? Uh…) Renton, who is…someplace that looks like something straight out of Neon Genesis Evangelion complete with weird crosses all over the place, apparently has been hopping from one timeline (? or world?) to the next in the hopes of finally “fixing” whatever it is that went wrong and finally being able to reunite with Eureka. That is one reunion I can’t wait to see. It better be ridiculously cute and sappy, otherwise I’ll be really disappointed. If it’s not ridiculously cute and sappy, I’d want it to be the polar opposite, and be a complete mind-fuck a la Evangelion (since we’re on the topic of that show). What can I say? I either want the glass full to the brim or completely empty and questioning if the glass even exists.

Final Thought: Whelp, that got real long again. Eyeball massages all around for making it this far. The final two episodes will be airing in November, so let’s all meet back here then okay? It’s my official goal to re-watch the original Eureka Seven between now and then (and to see the movie…because I haven’t seen that…please don’t kill me), so look forward to me being able to remember and talk about even more tiny details that no one really cares about! Yes! You know you love it! Oh, and my newest theory for how this whole show will wrap up is that the last two episodes will all take place inside Ao’s head, as he is forced to decided which reality he wants to be the “truth”. November can’t come fast enough, one way or the other!