Yeah yeah. I know I threw my arms up in defeat a little when I reviewed the last episode. At this point, I don’t expect my opinion about this series will improve (or that my insights into its plot will even change) but I was such a mark for the last EUREKA SEVEN series that I really just have to know how AO spins out. I’m well aware that I might be falling for a very basic bait-and-switch here where the crew’s luring me into watching their disjointed socio-political screed by exploiting the good will garnered by the E7 brand… but I still can’t help myself.
And yeah, this narrative is still awfully disjointed. I mean, c’mon… this trillion-dollar mecha unit is run by a PR firm? Don’t PR firms have to work for a client? The only propaganda they could ever forward with the muscle of giant robots that would benefit their own agenda would be advertising their services as a firm. Picking a side in some skirmish in the Balkans wouldn’t really help anything except maybe their president’s sadistically-curious desire to see just how much spin power he had.
Ao figuring out that these Scubs (right?) only recognize humans by shape was pretty clever. Can’t say I’ve ever seen any hero ever use a spring-open camping tent to dodge the bad guys in a show before. However, even the set-up for that was disjointed. One minute he’s talking to the “pied piper,” and the next he’s running into the parking lot with no transition in between.
On the plus side, the Pied Piper analogy was legitimately interesting. Maybe I should be embarrassed to say, but I hadn’t ever actually seen those interpretations of the story extolled anywhere before. Does seem like a fitting analogy for the mecha genre in total, especially when Ao’s getting into serious “I mustn’t run away!” Shinji territory in this outing.
Watch this episode, "Pied Piper of Hamelin” here and decide for yourself, then read my comments on the previous episode here.
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Good news is, after this the plot picks up big time. Episode 11 is another mind-screw episode but one that sheds a bit of light on some things.
Bad news is AO's been on hiatus lately due to the Olympics so I wouldn't worry about getting caught up too quickly yet.
I'm withholding my opinions until after the whole thing is done. As much as I gripe about its pacing problems, I'm not going to declare AO as crap until the show's over and I can analyze the whole thing. Otherwise I'm no better than the people that gave up on the original E7 for its pacing problem back when it first aired.
And no those weren't Scubs that were attacking, they were Secrets/GMonsters. Remember, anything with the pink and black Tron look is a Secret.