Finally, the Anime reviews have come back...to Buttonhole!
Publisher: Madman Entertainment
Mon, 24 July 2006
by: Jason
The Press Release blurb that accompanies the first disc on this series sounds somewhat generic for an anime release; troubled boy meets a girl, giant robot, and blah blah blah... things I'm sure we've all heard before. Does this one offer anything to make it stand out and rise to the level of the classics? Well, I don't know for sure yet, but it certainly has potential.
First of all, I would like to state that this series (at least, as far as I'm concerned) fits firmly into the genre of "giant robot anime" and has all the required features that go into any well done anime of this kind. Number 1: Our tortured, reluctant hero - in this case the story's main character is a young man named Renton, who lives in a festering shithole of a town where nothing ever happens.
 | | The Pepsi Max commercials just keep getting sillier |
His only joys in life come from "lifting" (which appears to be, basically, a type of hover boarding) and the hero worship of a great lifter called Holland, who it turns out is also theleader of a group of outcasts known as the Gekkostate. Renton's dull, boring existence seems set to continue forever, until the day a young girl crashes her LFO (giant robot) into his house, thus introducing genre requirement Number 2: The possibly not human heroine, is she a real person? Is she an android? Who knows?. Something I found slightly strange is this girl's name - Eureka. Yep, just like the exclamation made when you find gold, however it is pronounced here as something more like Erica.
Of course Eureka's LFO, the Nivash, is not working correctly (do these giant bloody robots ever work the way their supposed to out of the box?). When Renton notices that the Nirvash is missing a compact drive (kind of a personal data storage device type thing), naturally he inserts his own. This makes no difference, until he attaches the "Amita Drive" that belonged to his father, who died a hero saving the world. At this point (in the middle of a battle I might add), as you would expect, there is a f**king big explosion that vaporizes anything anywhere the Nirvash. As a result of all this, Renton joins the Gekkostate and his adventures begin.
As a whole, the series looks great; the animation is up to the high standard you would expect (the LFO's sky surfing mostly look cool, but the "vapour trail" they leave behind, can look a bit tacked on) and the giant robots look more awesome every time somebody knocks out a new one (bonus points, also, for the LFO's ablility to transform into car type vehicles). Like a lot of anime series, you can read into it as much as you like - the deeper you look, the more references to anything and everything you will find (the show's creators must be serious music nuts). All the episode titles are also the titles of songs, for example.
 | | Dude, you seem pretty cool, but...you are wearing a yellow scarf |
I suppose the bottom line is whether its any good. Well, in this case, it's certainly far from crap and has everything that you look for in a good anime: violence, awkward male-female moments and ,the clincher - great big shiny robots! If you're a fan of Neon Genesis Evangellion, Gravion or Voltes V (has any body else seen that last one?), then you should give it a look. I'm not going to declare it the best thing since sliced bread, after viewing only the first volume, but by the same token I will also be on the lookout for Volume 2. Eureka Seven is definitely off to a good start.
by: Jason
More articles by Jason
Giant robots skysurfing? HELL YEAH! | |
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