Episode 5 - Real Impressions
Disturbingly tantamount to cognitive dissonance. That's how the direction this series is going in makes me feel. Did that sound pretentious? I'm sure it did, but so is this show. Usually the thought of a pretentious anime would invoke thoughts of Shaft or Yuasa's stuff. But that's a different sort of pretentiousness. With Eureka Seven AO, it seems to want to present itself as the best of mecha anime and the worst of mecha anime at the same time. It is being smart? Or just incredibly stupid? I simply don't know yet.
The setting being presented this far is both interesting and disappointing at the same time. I find that there are comparisons to both RahXephon and Eureka Seven which make the show feel very right. There is a sense of a larger world, there are a good number of characters who feel like they inhabit a personal space of their own and aren't just characters written in to support the main character, the organization structures are interesting, and there are many times where the details or script elements show that the creators are aware that there are viewers who care for a smarter take on mecha anime than just fanservice and action pandering.
Yet at the same time, there are elements of the show and the setting which completely embrace what is popular (for the wrong reasons) among modern mecha anime shows. There is an unnatural imbalance towards having a diverse number of different but equally predictable young female characters who fill various "moe" criteria. There is an abundance of self-referencing in-jokes and parodies which would appeal to viewers of something like Oreimo. And for all the extra realism they try to put into the details of how things work in the world, there is also a sense of unreality with how the organization of Generation Bleu works.
The structure of the group feels very much like RahXephon's TERRA, and not so much like Eureka Seven's Gekkostate. The biggest contrast would be that the actual mood of the organization is more like Gekkostate in the sense of being laid back, but there is an additional artificial layer to it which feels even more relaxed. Like the adult characters are on vacation, but still on their toes a bit. The young pilots of the IFOs all feel like otaku-pandering characters inserted to help sell merchandise unfortunately, which is disappointing. This sense of contrast creates an atmosphere which is neither RX nor E7, and instead it feels like a sort of environment engineered around justifying the need for using children in combat.
This is probably the most interesting point in this week's episode. There is a very subtle but apparent sense of the characters on the show deliberately playing down the sense of actual tension or danger in favor of having an artificially lighter mood. Something about the adults in Generation Bleu feel wrong. They are too warm, too friendly, and without a good reason to be such, given the nature of the organization.
I really cannot determine for sure at this point if this is an intentional direction, or simply a require of a lack of polish in the writing, but the feeling I get is that the entire organization creates an artificial mood of goofiness to make the environment more tenable for recruiting and employing young girls as pilots for deadly weapons. If there is more to this that gets expanded on later in the series, it would be a pretty bold decision, because the way it is presented so far is subtle enough to be missed by some, but also obvious enough that there are things you can pick on if you notice them.
As for the rest of the episode itself, it was serviceable, but the pacing wasn't fantastic and there were quite a few lazy moments. The humor was hit or miss, with the scenes featuring Gazel and friends working out a lot better than the scenes with Ao. Ao's performance continues to be impressive though, with the actor doing a great job of sounding exactly like he should - a fish out of water, not knowing what to really do for the first time in his life, and trying to find a way to fit in.
The new mech designs for Team Goldilocks are kinda... bad. Hopefully they either look better when transformed, or we won't see much of them in the show in general. I dislike the pilots anyway. The use of CG for the hurricane cloud towards the end of the episode looked pretty poor too. BONES should play to their strengths of traditional animation and leave digital effects to the pros at other studios imo.
Looking forward to see how they further develop this situation next week. Plus, more mecha action! Yay!