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「メイビー・トゥモロー/the day」 (Meibī Tumorō)
“Maybe Tomorrow”
Whenever and however the last two episodes of this series arrive, they’re going to have their hands full wrapping up this story.
After a string of character and intrigue-driven episodes, we were due for one that just ratcheted the action up to eleven and blew the doors off, and that’s exactly what we got. We also got what appears to be, at least superficially, a whole lot of tragedy – a shocking number of regular and semi-regular characters bit the dust this week. Though there’s a continuum of likelihood that their deaths are for real starting with Christophe (probably) through Team Harlequin and down to Truth (probably not) the shock value was certainly undeniable. The ground seems to be laid for what could be a very dark and painful ending – but then there’s Ao’s quartz gun, which still looms as a literal reset button waiting to be pressed.
The three characters who dominated the episode this week were Truthie, Elena and Christophe – and it was Fleur who linked all their storylines. We learned something about each of these characters – some revealed truths that were already suspected, and some sides to characters that we haven’t really seen so far. My initial guess that Truth was a Secret – based on the visual evidence of the flashback to his first appearance – appear to have been correct after all, despite the seemingly contrary nature of his actions since. But there’s a reason for that – Truth didn’t know the “truth” about himself, and refused to believe it even when confronted with it.
There’s an irony to that, a character named Truth living a lie – but in the final analysis, his being Secret was the only explanation that made sense. Naru seems fully committed to a notion that’s very much a throwback to the first season, humanity becoming one with the Scub Corals – perhaps she’s directly responsible for the “infections” plaguing people around the world. She sees Ao’s cannon as the means to making that happen, and has been using Truthie to that end – when all along, he thought he’d been using her, and Ao. Apparently Truth appeared at the time of the giant scub burst in Okinawa 10 years earlier, and “lost his purpose” when the quartz was removed – and so, took human form and was taken in by Johansson. But he refuses to believe it, and immediately takes off into orbit, where he destroys a string of telecommunications satellites and, in the process, The Poseidon and Team Harlequin (apparently).
There was something very chilling in watching Mama and Rajkumar up there, in the moments before the end. I had a strong feeling of foreboding as soon as I saw Truth go into “Firecracker” mode, and quickly, almost too quickly, Harlequin was apparently destroyed. The possibility exists, of course, that another reality could be created where they were never killed, or perhaps were never pilots at all – but what really struck me was watching Ivica’s reaction. The Allies assumed it was GenBleu that had destroyed the satellites, and sent IFOs to attack their HQ – and GenBleu assumed it was the Allies that destroyed The Poseidon. But Ivica’s furious pledge to “avenge” them struck me as especially hollow, even if it was sincere. Ivica is the ultimate hypocrite, really – he professes his desire to keep the children safe at all costs, yet he’s a willing participant in a pseudo-military organization that places their life in danger. He may feel he’s trying to do the best he can for them, to be an advocate from within – but ultimately, he’s an accessory to their murder. I can’t honestly say I’ll mourn Generation Bleu if they really are doomed, as it appears.
Speaking of which, much of the rest of the episode chronicles what appears to be the last hours of GenBleu, through the eyes of Elena, Fleur and Christophe, with Ao largely secondary. Big Blue World abandons GenBleu, and the first thing that happens is that their power gets cut off. Everyone is more or less in survival mode here – Rebecka is system-restoring the Secret-infected Georg, and being pressed by Gazelle to decide where her loyalties lie. Stanley is gone, back to the boardroom. Christophe seems basically to be preparing for the end, and trying to make contingency plans for his daughter.
And then there’s Elena. Elena is becoming more and more open about her identity. For the first time she tells Ao and Fleur that she’s “from another world” – and that she expects Ao to use his big gun to take her back there. In her mind, at least, Elena came from Eureka’s world – it was certainly Eureka who brought her – but I’m not 100% sold that she’s the daughter the Eureka who visited and spent time with Ao was supposedly carrying. She might be Ao’s sister – but I’m skeptical. The hair certainly looks more like Anenome’s, and there’s the matter of typeTheEnd that was supposedly in GenBleu’s basement (along with Lillith, if Elena’s Eva reference is to be believed). Elena sums up her fascination with otaku interests this way: “When your life is like a manga, you can only believe in the fantastic.” It’s as good an explanation as any I’ve heard for why she is the way she is, and I think there are still more secrets about her we haven’t uncovered yet.
As the walls close in, Allied forces surrounding the HQ and the Pied Piper IFOs unable to fly because of Georg’s incomplete software downgrade, Christophe tells Fleur to be prepared to run, because “Generation Bleu is finished”. I don’t know about anyone else, but I definitely jumped when Fleur shot him repeatedly – she was right in her guess that it was Truthie impersonating her father, but that took some brass just the same. Both members of the Blanc family showed spines of steel this week in their own way, as did Ao, and no one abandoned ship – but the real Christophe didn’t disagree with his impersonator’s notion that GenBleu was finished, he was merely executing his final solution. Christophe has figured out Truth’s Secret nature (Truthie still refuses to believe it) and apparently, when Secrets come in contact with quartz there’s a massive fusion explosion – something like matter coming into contact with anti-matter (hmmm) and he’s stashed some spare quartz for this eventuality. Whether his sacrifice will have been in vain is hard to say – I suspect that Truth won’t die that easily, or perhaps it’s in the very nature of Secrets that this explosion doesn’t destroy them, but transform or transport them.
The threads of the plot are really starting to untangle now, and it’s happening in a way that’s thematically consistent both with the first cour of this series and with the original E7 itself. Ultimately both series are generational in nature, and Blanc acknowledges this explicitly in his final words to his daughter and Ao – it’s up to them to “correct our mistakes” because adults aren’t very good at correcting their own. Nirvash, as Blanc says, doesn’t require Georg to fly, so flight is definitely an option for Ao and Fleur – but would they leave their friends to face destruction alone? I think not. And I think what’s going to be required in the end for Astral Ocean is both literally and figuratively a paradigm shift. No one – not Blanc, not Ao, not Truth – seems to know the true nature of who the good guys and bad guys are when it comes to the Scub and the Secret. But it’s going to be up to Ao to fundamentally reset the world in a way that fixes the mistakes his elders have made, to find a way to bring all these forces into balance . Whether that means reuniting with his mother or not – or perhaps even sacrificing himself in the process – I’m not sure, but I have a growing conviction BONES has something dark and troubling planned for the final act (whenever we get to see it).
Preview
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And so we begin the final quarter. (Or end the third. Are we sure that it’s 24 episodes and not 25 or 26?)
Anyway, can’t wait to see how this all ties in…and hopefully it will.
Sadly we can’t even be sure of when we’re getting 23 and 24, never mind worrying about anything after. Every source lists it as 24 eps.
This is why soccer shouldn’t exist! Who thought Episode 39 of the original series would come back to bite us in such a huge way…
Joking of course, for anyone who’s a soccer/football fan.
Oh yeah…. you had to remind me the last two episodes may never air… Sigh, was the show doing that bad rating’s wise that they couldn’t find a slot for them after the olympics got in the way?
Where do you get that info from? I’ve had a look round and couldn’t find it anywhere :/
The ratings have nothing to do with it – this has happened before when broadcast weeks were skipped (Code Geass for example). The eps may air on the other broadcast networks outside Tokyo as scheduled, or they may be streamed, or we might have to wait for the DVDs or a delayed broadcast. At this point we just don’t know.
I was like OYAJIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII at the end of the ep lolll
Gonna miss Christophe. Somehow I find Christophe’s wallpaper of Fleur and her mother being shown right before his end to be very tragic. It’s like he tried to do his best for his daughter even sacrificing his wife only to be shunned by his own daughter. And yet he still yearns for the time when they all could be 1 happy family. Just my interpretation tho.
Really hoping they would still air episode 23 and 24, it’ll be too painful if they really went on with finishing it in episode 22.
I really didn’t expect so much death in one go. As I thought, it seems that the storm we were building up to has arrived, and I’ll be very sorry if we are unable to get through the tempest of it. I too have misgivings about both Elena and Naru as sister-candidates. Elena has the wrong hair and skin colors to be related, but she seems to have the strongest connections with Eureka. On the other hand, Naru’s skin color doesn’t match her family’s, if you pay attention(though it mysteriously, along with her hair and eye color, somewhat match Renton’s), but her connections to Eureka are not as strong, at least so far. I doubt that a sister would be mentioned for no reason though. Perhaps Ao is weirdly his own sister; that is, perhaps whatever caused Eureka to return to Ao’s world messed with her unborn child enough that the gender was changed? Probably not though. I’m looking forward to next week, and to seeing where this really goes.
Miyu, Naru’s younger sister looks a lot like her though, hair and eye color-wise. So that would have to be explained with the Naru is Ao’s sister. Also, if Naru is the child of a Coralian and human, wouldn’t scub coral infection be…kinda redundant?
Yeah, I forgot to mention Miyu. They are very similar, that’s true. Like I said, both girls have their pros and cons as to whether or not they are the elusive sister. Well I don’t know if the Scub Coral infection would be redundant or not; after all, we don’t know if Naru is the sister or not, but let’s say for a second that she is. Half Coralian implies that her DNA must also carry human genes which would be susceptible to infection, although we don’t even know if being a Coralian implies immunity, seeing as the only three in existence, Ao, his sister, and Eureka, are either not infected or we don’t know. In any case, if Ao could have his Coralian genes dominate, perhaps his sister has mostly human-dominant genes, in which case she’d probably be susceptible. Or maybe the Scub chose her first because she was already part Scub (assuming she’s the sister) and thus easier to establish a connection with. But of course, we don’t know if she is the sister, and when you weigh out the pros and cons, Elena is just as likely to be the sister, and it’s also likely neither of them is.
wow did the episode ended with a bang…(as the Mythbusters have proven, it’s good to end something “fictional” with a bang)
One thing that got my attention: Did the quartz gun also went bye-bye with the fusion reaction in the basement?
caption of the episode: darn you BONEs, hiding such a beautiful woman’s face all the way (even at the end)!
Naru’s forehead… it’s too much…
Renton still hasn’t shown up. If the ending isn’t dark and saddening there could be major dues ex machina which would really suck.
For a second there I thought I was watching Evangelion, cause that’s what it’s becoming all of the sudden – especially when they make reference to it themselves https://randomc.net/image/Eureka%20Seven%20AO/Eureka%20Seven%20AO%20-%2019%20-%20Large%2021.jpg
I’m glad I decided to wait to watch this until it was over since now it looks like the ending will be delayed for a while
Ironically Truth wants to merge his world’s history with one’s where Scub and Secrets don’t exist. Wouldn’t he disappear as well?
I speculate that the Scub wants to travel back in time to correct its “mistake” that caused humankind to leave Earth.
Anyone mind filling me in on why MBS is apparently skipping out on airing the conclusion?
Two week delay due to the Olympics, with Zetsuen filling the timeslot starting in three weeks. There’s speculation that double-episodes aren’t going to be aired the last two weeks because BONES can’t finish them quickly enough, but it’s just speculation at the moment.
Actually as a stand alone, does it make sense for Elene to be Dominic and Anemone’s daughter. It would make sense to us,but as a stand alone isn’t it kind of weird for a main character to be reveled as the daughter of a couple of characters that haven’t even been mentioned.
On the other hand it surprised me that Naru is now a bigger antagonist(maybe) than Truth, does this make her a “decoy main heroine”?
It would be kind of weird for them to do that when Bones has to assume that people new to the series would have no idea as to who Anemone and Dominic are. True, they do kind of assume we have seen it because of all the cameos Eureka makes and the things that she says, but it’s unlikely. However, if Elena does happen to be related to someone we know (and not Renton or Eureka), her skin color is still wrong for her to belong to Anemone and Dominic (though that ultimately might not matter). Perhaps she’s related to a more minor character, such as Gidget or Hilda and Matthew. Even though Renton and Eureka quit Gekkostate, I seriously doubt they would never contact the crew, and we know that they do indeed have connections with at least Holland and Talho because they were experimenting on the ship. I wouldn’t be surprised if everyone had reunions of some sort every so often, and that their families all had contacts with each other, like an extended family would. That might explain why, under some strange circumstance, Eureka would bring her to the other world while in contact with the child. However, it’s still less likely that she’s related to another pair of first series characters than that she’s related to Ao. Also, there’s the problem of whether or not Elena really is from another world, or whether she just BELIEVES that she is. Perhaps Eureka took her from her real world to Renton/Eureka’s world by some circumstance and then returned her, but as a child the impression of the new world was too great for her.
It seems I was right in one of my theories, (or rather one that was at best predictable but only through its sense of disbelief.)
I’m still trying to find any redeeming thoughts for Ivica, I will admit that his wish to avenge Team Harlequin was at best, Hollow or perhaps just unsensible, perhaps the only reason I still find him enjoyable is possibly because I’m attempting to see parallels between him and Holland.
Heavy Emphasis on the word “Attempt”
However I still stand, Mind-blown otherwise that, things are beginning to come to an aphex. the things in AO’s world is that of a “heightened and futuristic” sense, but it still demands that it must be “reborn” in some way. For some of you, you may have already figured out the rest.
This whole time, I was going to assume Christophe was going to take a cowards way out and abandon Gen. Bleu. I WAS right, almost, if it wasn’t for Truth incognito. the actual Christophe has left with a bang, and I for one got lots of feels watching him go and hearing his final words echo.
(I may just have new name for Truth, “Lie” if he goes down the way my second theory is to believed, well IF it does.)
Hey everyone listen the SCRUB CORAL ARe ILL SICK SCRUB CORAL ARe ILL SICKSCRUB CORAL ARe ILL SICKSCRUB CORAL ARe ILL SICKSCRUB CORAL ARe ILL SICKSCRUB CORAL ARe ILL SICKSCRUB CORAL ARe ILL SICK
Did anyone else laugh at this part?
No, but I had a smile of smug satisfaction knowing that the arrogant overpowered jerk was actually SCARED and was begging Christophe not to do it!
Since the Quartz exploded IN HIS FACE he cant possibly keep denying that he is a secret gone rouge
Compared to the calm collected behavior of the secret Truth tried (and horribly failed) to destroy he is too lost in his own delusions to reason with
He’s like a child lashing out at the wold for not understanding him for what he is when it is HE in fact that doesn’t even understand himself
Man, that was so good, that moment 🙂
Truth x Quartz -> OTP of the season.
I expect Pixiv will be on it already.
I’m sure the Poseidon and Team Harlequin will be playing a big part in the ending, and I will be very disappointed if they don’t – because otherwise they were made up for nothing, and so far this show avoided wasting screen time on filler material, just the opposite.
Whoa, this ep certainly moved fast. I figured Naru was using Truth instead of the other way around, and him being a haywire Secret makes sense. Too bad he’s probably not gone for good, because he still pisses me off (especially so now that it’s been revealed that mister ‘you should all see the truth’ didn’t even know the truth about his own freaking existence). At least Cristophe went out like a boss…there’s something admirable about him going down with the ship.
Team Harlequin sure was killed off fast though, unless that ship somehow made it out of that explosion. As for Elena, I wonder what she really meant when talking about ‘her’ world…did she come from the future, like Eureka? Or from ‘our’ world, before the Scub Coral started messing about with the timeline? Kinda confused now. And you gotta love her Eva references, haha.
Well, it seems Generation Bleu is finished and Naru is helping the Scub Coral become one with humankind…um, didn’t the human race lose this war and flee the planet? That would be a dark ending. But then there’s Ao and his messing about with time could bring about a change, but, well, wouldn’t you get a butterfly effect then? Or hey, here’s a new theory, he became Eureka’s forefather! Haha…yeah right. And how is Renton going to play a part in all this? I do hope this won’t turn into a clusterfuck with a Deus ex Machine ending. Well, I hope the final eps air before that…
I have to say I feel like you have it wrong about Ivica. I think the call that he’s a hypocrite and Gen Bleu not worth saving goes too far.
I like Ivica’s character. It comes across as world weary but still dedicated to doing something good. Ivica’s as a decent man trying to make the most of the situation. He has flaws and walks the line but he always tries to ensure a good end results from those actions.
Ivica’s “I will avenge you” line sums up his world view. His experiences as a veteran soldier has warped his view on the value of an adult soldier’s life as having a cheapness about it. In other words taking another man’s, a soldiers life, doesn’t carry much weight for him anymore, which becomes especially relevant due to the impending attack from the UN forces.
Conversely, he thinks the world of children and wants to protect them along with their innocence. The fact that Gen Bleu doesn’t kill humans but fights Secrets to “save the world” makes for a more defined good vs evil sort of battle that Ivica apparently wants to rally behind.
Except that GenBlue does kill people – the employees who’ve died (including pilots) in carrying out their objectives.
I think Ivica believes he’s doing the right thing, and that he genuinely wants to protect the children. But in my view he’s kidding himself, because he works for an organization that puts children in life and death danger. He’s part of the problem, not part of the solution.
GenBlue killing people by proxy doesn’t amount to actively shooting people to kill them. GenBlue from what we can tell, has an all volunteer organization. You might as well call the police a bad organization based on the fact that officers die in the line of duty.
About Ivica. When a Secret hitting the Scub’s quartz results in devastation like Tokyo blowing up . . . I think most view Gen Blue’s course of action as a necessary evil. Now, you can argue that the whole Secrets = not the primary enemy angle. But that comes after the apparent results of their “helping” resulting in craters where major population centers once sat.
A line from this episode mentions children have the highest compatibility with piloting IFO’s, the most advanced military hardware out there. We’ve seen from episode 10 what happens when regular forces try stopping Secrets. Hundreds, if not thousands die in those exchanges, with no success.
Yeah, it still sucks that Gen Blue puts the lives of 3 children from each team on the line but considering what the alternative cost comes up to, I think they did the right thing. And Ivica represents the character where that necessary and good decision still weighs heavily on their hearts because they do have to throw children in harm’s way.
It’s not a volunteer organization – it’s a for-profit subsidiary of a multinational corporation. It’s true that the adult employees aren’t “draftees”, in that sense, but how can you say underaged children are volunteers? That implies they’re old enough to make decisions about what constitutes acceptable risk.
Though children may not have the level of maturity and development to make decisions on their own, no one in Gen Blue’s stopping them. The fact that Blanc’s own daughter fights on the front lines suggests exactly what risks they’ve taken.
In any case the alternative of sending a thousand lives into the meat grinder with little chance of success vs risking the 3 lives of children pilots with an apparently high chance of survival seems like a fair risk to take.
How can you honestly say that sending the men of roughly an entire city to certain death seems more moral than putting 3 highly trained and skilled children with no precedence for dying on the line? Given those men are all sons, husbands and fathers I think that sort of human cost is far greater.
“no one in Gen Blue’s stopping them” . . . from leaving.
Left those last two words out.
I stopped watching this a while ago, around episode 10 so I can watch it in 1 go. I can’t bear watching it episode a week because with all due respect, it isn’t living up to expectations. I guess I’ll have to pass on watching until it’s finished and see how well it goes before I continue watching it or completely drop it.
Show Spoiler ▼
“she’s “from another world” – and that she expects Ao to use his big gun to take her back there.”
…that’s what she said.
oh man i the downvotes are impending haha
Well whatever happens she’ll be in for one hell of a ride!… Wait! I-I mean piloting… the IFO…
Dammit…
Actually, she is from the young and the restless.
The art quality has been pretty bad these last two episodes.
https://randomc.net/image/Eureka%20Seven%20AO/Eureka%20Seven%20AO%20-%2019%20-%20Large%2020.jpg
Interestingly enough, the art quality for the original series lessened greatly for the second half as well. It was especially noticeable during the third opening (Taiyou no Mannaka he).
How is that bad? Isn’t tanaka reading a text thats why he’s looking downward? A few episodes back the animation was a bit worse,but its gotten better IMO.
It’s not really bad, it just feels… rushed? Not as high in quality as the central plot episodes usually feel. Different animators probably work on different sets of episodes.
I agree it’s not the worst but it’s the worst out of the screen caps. The episode had a lot worse in it.
The preview Nirvash looks pretty wonky though: https://randomc.net/image/Eureka%20Seven%20AO/Eureka%20Seven%20AO%20-%2019%20-%20Large%20Preview%2003.jpg
I get the reasons why quality drops and Ao has always had consistency issues within episodes themselves let alone the series as a whole. Was just saying I felt it has been leaning more on the bad side lately than the usual mix of quality.
Worst case scenario: They did what happened with the last episode of Shuffle!. Remember that episode where the quality was really wonky.
I hope Bones doesn’t rush the last two (or four episodes) to fit within three weeks.
Overall, despite occasional drops I think the show is one of the better looking series out there not to mention the vivid color scheme inherited from the old show now done in high def.
Maybe they’ll touch up some of the second half stuff they feel they let slip through for the currently releasing BDs like several other shows do?
I agree I hope they don’t rush animating these last episodes just to squeeze them into less weeks rather than just airing them on the other channels also running the show on the normal schedule, as I really want those to be gorgeous since I can only imagine what visual epicness they’ll pull out with the character drama, mecha and the Seven Swell-like effects and more and when we get back in the Nirvash (especially if Eureka and Renton show up in the last two or three eps).
Edit: Yeah, maybe they’ll touch up some of the second half stuff they feel they let slip through for the currently releasing BDs like several other shows do like you mentioned?
The last two posts are not showing in https://randomc.net/category/eureka-seven-ao/.
They are for me.
Ditto Elena being Anemone’s daughter. Ao is kind of a dead ringer for Eureka, same hair color and eyes. Elena is really a mini copy of Anemone too in that sense, same hair color and eyes as well. But why is she soo tan? lol Also still waiting for the Renton appearance!!!!! ah… is it next week yet?
Same here, based on those appearance features I’ve also been in that camp that she could easily be Anemone’s daughter. Which would be really cool as I loved Anemone (and Dominic) so it’d be great if they had an influence here just like Eureka and Renton through Ao (and maybe even show up along with Renton too).
Waiting to see if Renton comes and actually makes this anime good.
What could Renton possibly do to change your opinion of this show? You seem pretty set in your way of thinking, no matter what happens.
Obvious troll is obvious…
I can assure you that I am not trolling.
At least he could make the blow of this show being so bad less painful by being the second character from the original to actually make an appearance. Because Eureka sure hasn’t been around.
That doesn’t answer my question. Do you just want him to show up or do you want him to actually do something? What kind of role do you want him to have in the story?
I want to put everyone in their place and the Nirvash well its the Nirvash it would be criminal if it wasn’t in this series.
What the hell does “put everyone in their place” mean? What SPECIFICALLY do you want Renton to do to affect these characters?
Also, you’re forgetting that Nirvash is also a character from the original.
The Nirvash is basically the foundation of the series without him, this anime would be criminal to the series in general.
As I said in the recent Rinne episode: Shit hit the fan.
* Spoiler tags in case no one has seen Evangelion and its movies and its remakes.
Show Spoiler ▼
Believe me, I’ve been seeing those parallels for awhile now. It also doesn’t help that the original had a lot of them too.
It seems you can’t avoid Evangelion comparisons when you’re dealing with E7 or E7 AO.
Eureka Seven wasn’t Evangelion like at all it didn’t have weekly monsters
Oh yeah, DEFINITELY different from Evangelion. I mean, the first two episodes of Eureka Seven were about a shy, dorky kid getting into a giant mech that goes berserk suddenly and kills everything, though it’s recalled in flashback.
Wait…Evangelion did that first.
Well, Evangelion has a Rei, blue haired girl who is better in touch with the mechs than most of the other characters, and she’s taken care of by the leader of the main group, Gendo because she looks like the leader’s lost love, Yui who is related to the main character, Shinji, while the leader’s female subordinate, Ritsuko, is insanely jealous.
…oh yeah, E7 did that too. Basically replace Rei with Eureka, Gendo with Holland, Yui with Diane, Shinji with Renton, and Ritsuko with Talho.
But there’s a rival pilot who is the exact opposite of the blue haired girl, and feels that her very existence rides on piloting mechs! Again, Asuka and Anemone.
Or just compare the end of Evangelion Episode 18 to the end of Eureka Seven Episode 20, which is basically a shot for shot remake. Basically, the parallels are HUGE in both this and the sequel, and this isn’t even the first time BONES has done it (see Raxephon).