Psalms of Planets: Eureka Seven
Eureka seven, was an original TV anime which originally aired in April 2005 to April 2006. The original series lasted 50 episodes and was headed by Director Tomoki Kyoda, writer Dai Sato, character designer Kenichi Yoshida and animated by studio BONES. Originally proposed as a Bandai Visual vehicle to studio BONES and as the anchor of a multimedia project (TV, manga, games, toys, models, etc), the creators in charge of the series instead approached the series in a much more personal matter.
Eureka Seven was about love, war, isolation, harmony and tolerance, but more than anything else it was about growing up and finding and understanding ones place in the world. Whether it was the naive 14 year old Renton who yearned to be a grown up and explore the world and its skies, or the stubborn 29 year old Holland, suffering from arrested development, refusing to face his responsibilities as an adult, the series put its cast through a gauntlet of emotional and physical trauma that would leave no character unchanged at its conclusion.
Worth mentioning also, is that one of the things that set Eureka Seven apart was just how "global" it was at it's core. Influenced and informed as much by the music of New Order as it was by the worldwide political climate of the time, the series developed its very own and unique personality. For a series that aired on 7am on Sunday it was unashamedly political, espoused environmental values and still found the time to feature robots duking it out amidst the clouds set to techno!
The franchise has remained dormant since 2006, aside from appearances in popular video games such as Super Robot Wars.
Eureka Seven: Astral Ocean
A sequel to the original TV anime, Eureka Seven AO (Astral Ocean) stars a young boy named Ao Fukai who lives on the island of Okinawa along with his friend Naru Arata. Ao's mother disappeared when he was a young child and lives with his guardian, Dr. Toshio Fukai. Ao's life is shaken up by the conflict between the alien Scub Coral, the military and a mysterious enemy named "the secret."
Returning director Tomoki Kyoda spearheads this new series with a mostly new group of supporting players, from character designer to mecha designer, lending a a very different look and feel to the characters and robots of this new series, however key staff from the original that are returning consist of art director Kazuo Nagai, DP Shunya Kimura and colorist Nobuko Mizuta, hopefully maintining some semblance of visual continuity with the first series.
Original character designer Kenichi Yoshida returns as well, providing designs for the two lead characters, and VFX director Yasushi Muraki will also return, assuring that no matter what, Astral Ocean will feature some kick ass mecha action.
As far as writing duties, the person credited for Series Compisition is named Kakuto Takeyoshi, there is little to no information on who this person is, the likelihood that a complete 100% unknown is suddenly in charge of a series like this seems slim to me, so in all likelihood this could actually be a pen name. If I were to guess who, I would say it was for the director. Interestingly, writer Shou Aikawa (original Fullmetal Alchemist, Oh! Edo Rocket, Ayakashi Ayashi) is also credited as writer on all 4 first episodes.
The original E7 was lathered in musical influences, whether it were shoutouts, references, or feeling like it was straight up based on the music of select artists, the sheer volume of musical culture represented in the original series played a good part in getting people interested in the series.. In addition, the series featured a plethora of insert songs by many electronica artists, but perhaps its most iconic song was "Storywriter" by the Japanese band SUPERCAR.
While original composer Naoki Sato, who worked on all of the previous series' orchestral work is not returning here, original SUPERCAR singer, songwriter and guitarist, and current solo artist Koji Nakamura will be handling scoring duties on this new series, emphasizing a more rock influence rather than electronica in its soundtrack.
The practice of naming episodes after albums, songs and lyrics will continue in AO.
And yes, as mentioned above, the robots surf. In the sky. While in the original Eureka Seven, essentially all of the robots used surfboards to float through the skies (thanks to the ingenuity of a bunch of stoner scientists), the new robots revealed so far for Eureka Seven AO seem to be a bit more eclectic and reflect a more future sci-fi over the top militaristic design
The new spec of the Nirvash, the signature mech of the series however will still feature its board, and will feature at least two color schemes in the beginning of the series.
Staff:
Director: Tomoki Kyoda (Eureka Seven)
Series Composition: Kakuto Takeyoshi
Key Character Design: Kenichi Yoshida (Eureka Seven, Overman King Gainer)
Character Design: Hiroyuki Oda (Oreimo)
Nirvash Design: Shoji Kawamori (Macross, Escaflowne, Eureka Seven)
Mecha Design: Kanetake Ebikawa, Kimitoshi Yamane, Takayuki Yanase
Design: Shiho Takeuchi (Rahxephon), Shigeto Koyama (Eureka Seven, Diebuster, Star Driver)
VFX Director: Yasushi Muraki (BONES)
Music: Koji Nakamura (SUPERCAR)
Animation Production: BONES (BONES)
Cast:
The two leads are both relatively young newcomers, Ao's VA is 16 years old
Yuutaro Motoshiro as Ao Fukai
Kanako Miyamoto as Naru Arata
Katsunosuke Hori as Toshio Fukai
Ayaka Ohashi as Fleur Blanc
Chiaki Omigawa as Elena Peoples
Takuya Kirimoto as Gazelle
Chie Nakamura as Rebecka Halstrom
Official Website: http://eurekaao-prj.net/
Official Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/EUREKA_AO
Full Official Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgFwb3kg_n8
As of this moment there is no officially announced english language stream of Eureka Seven AO
