Eureka Seven AO Episode 21: “World 2 World”/ Rising Sun

“You can’t go back to that imaginary place!” -Maggie Kwan

Summary: Team Pied Piper adjusts to life in Japan and start to work out what exactly their new roles are. Ao spends some time with a fellow IFO pilot, who shows him around. Through this, the audience sees some of the differences between life on the island and life here. Elena, having deffected to the U.S, spends some time on a base in Gaum and gets to know Maggie Kwan. She also learns about the Coral Carriers, adult IFO pilots that have been expiremented on in order for them to be able to see the Trapar. Meanwhile, Naru is back on Iwato Jima, drawing many people (as well as more Coral Carriers) to her growing resistance movement against those who would interfer with the Scub.

 Eureka appears before Maggie and Elena, and informs Elena that she wasn’t originally from Eureka’s world as she had belived, but had been born in the current world. Eureka only took her in order to save her life (for reasons unknown). Elena isn’t really happy to hear this. Pied Piper go out to collect some Quartz when the American forces show up and Elena takes all her frustration out on Ao. Just when it looks like they’ve finally reconciled, Truth shows up, looking absolutely off his rocker, and yelling about destroying everything.

Impressions: Let’s just take our collective annoyance at (possibly) having to wait until January/February to see the last two episodes, put it in a box, and just leave it in a corner for now. Overall, I think this was a so-so episode. A lot of little things happen, some kinda big stuff happens, there’s a sort-of show down at the end, it almost ends happily, so what more could I want? (actually a lot, but I’m trying to be more zen about this show).

We got a lot of focus on Elena this episode, culminating in the fact that actually, she isn’t from the Eureka Seven universe after all. Eureka saved her from a Scub Burst and ended up taking her there briefly, only to return her later. Elena’s reaction to this is to be very (very) upset, and take it out on Ao when they meet up again. Only Ao’s weird confession thing and Maggie’s straight talking (thank god for that) seems to snap her out of it. Elena seems to have gotten very wrapped up in believing in her own hype, so I can see how it would be a little bit of let down to hear that “No, you’re actually not from another world”, but the way it came across was just like a spoiled child throwing a tantrum at not being the specialist little snowflake. Instead of feeling sympathetic towards her, I mostly just wanted to tell her to build a bridge and get over it. I’m glad it didn’t last long, and that Maggie and Ao were able to get her to move on. It was also very nice to see the subtle ways in which Fleur acts that show that she still considers Elena her friend (her sad face when the Japanese mention her, her yelling at Ao not to shoot her etc.)

We’re also introduced to the idea of Coral Carriers. The idea that people have been experimented on by scientists to enable them to pilot IFO’s is one I find very interesting, especially seeing some of (what I assume are) the crazy  possible side-effects in the form of Mr. Glowing Eyes from last weeks episode. I just wish they hadn’t waited until three episodes from the end to truly introduce it. It’ll be interesting to see if that has any bearing on events that will take place in future episodes. We’re already getting hints of that with Naru and her growing group of followers. Did anyone else find it a little hard to fathom that Naru was just chillin’ at her house, living with her family? I thought that she would be out…doing weird Naru things like flying around in space naked or whatever. But nope, she’s at home, doing dishes and “working”. Seems very strange to me, but I guess since she’s not a terrorist like Truth, and not on a most wanted list somewhere, so it makes sense? Who knows.

After last weeks rampant speculation on who the mystery man was from the preview this week he was revealed as…drum roll please…RANDOM GUY #2 ! (*EDIT* Jk, actually his name is Soga. I swear I didn’t see any mention of it in the subtitles, but maybe they say it and I just didn’t catch it) What is up with this show and random dudes? And also..was the day that the Scub Burst happened in Okinawa national “Take your family on a hike but leave Dad at home” day? Random Guy #2 lost his wife (and children?) the same way that Naru lost her mom. Coincidence? Lazy writing? Or is there more to it? You decide.

I still get the impression that with an episode like this, which doesn’t move the plot forward much, that they’re wasting whatever precious little time they have left. Ao hanging out with the Japanese Pilot and having dinner is fun and all, but do we really need it? We’re not really learning anything new about Ao, or the pilot, or even the world that they’re in. I can’t help but think that that time might have been better spent.

Final Thought: Dear Nakamura; when a big, scary, lazer-shooting robot moster head tells you to stop and reconsider your “I’m going to make my nation into the nation to rule all other nations!” plans, you should maybe…just maybe, stop and think about some of your life choices. Because that big, scary, lazer-shooting robot moster head is right; those types of plans never really seem to work out so well for the people who come up with them.