Koukyoushihen Eureka Seven Hi-Evolution 1

This film has less than 10 minutes of original animation. A full 80 minutes is scenes from the original series. Is this a recap film? No, a recap would have at least been tolerable. The reused material attempts to establish an alternate plotline where Rei and Charles had already adopted Renton long before Renton encountered them in the series. It even goes as far as to re-dub some footage to convey this alternate plot. Again, this might have been okay if done well, but it wasnt. The editing is all over the place, cutting between scenes with little relevance to eachother. There are probably 20 "X Days Ago" title cards scattered throughout the film. Lastly, nearly every scene is subtitled with expository text which provides zero benifit to the plot. At some points half of the screen was covered with text. What about the music? Even I could forgive this film if it had some sweet new soundtrack, but it doesnt. The soundtrack was bland and mostly reused songs. The main theme "Glory Days" doesnt play until the credits roll. Honestly it's like they only had enough budget for a short film, but wanted to make a full length film anyway, so they just gave a 12 year old Windows Movie Maker and raw footage from the original series and let them go ham.

[Note: This review assumes you have seen at least the original Eureka Seven TV anime. As such, there will be spoilers for it within this review.] Well, Studio Bones is at it again! Out of all the original series they make (and they’ve made plenty) Eureka Seven seems to be a favorite to many. But to be fair, why wouldn’t it be? The original 2005 series is a stone cold classic, with its arresting visuals, compelling lead romance, and just a grand adventurous tone through and through. I’ll make it no secret that I love it dearly, and its been my favorite anime for nearly 6 years now. It just does so much wonderful that I can’t help but wear a smile anytime I rewatch it. Unfortunately, with that much praise comes bank to be made on it. And with that bank comes Bones trying to make the magic strike once again. Their first attempt, Pocketful of Rainbows, was an alternate take on the series featuring some reused footage and had some interesting ideas going for it. It was never going to live up to the original, but for what it was it was harmless. The same cannot be said for their next attempt: the infamous Eureka Seven AO. Truth be told, I haven’t seen it myself. But everything I’ve heard makes it seem like seeing it would be the last thing any fan of the original would want. AO was pretty much the lowest point in the series, and many just thought it was done after such a botched follow up. Perhaps trying to wash away AO’s taint, Bones is taking the old horse out for another try. The Hi Evolution trilogy was announced last year, with the original staff and cast from both languages returning. With the first installment releasing last year in Japan, nerves have never been more on edge. Fans waiting with baited breath to see if they shit the bed once again. And from the first screening at Otakon last summer, reception was...mixed at best. Much of anitwitter was ablaze, claiming that the bed was indeed shat in; some going so far as to say that it was just as bad, if not worse than AO. But with its American release finally here, it must be asked: do those claims ring true? Is Hi Evolution 1 just another blemish on the original? Is it truly worse than AO? To answer this, I must put aside my biased love towards the original series. And now I can say with confidence that this new film is, surprisingly, really damn great. Though truthfully not for everyone. The overall plot of the film can be broken down into two parts: the first is the story of the Summer of Love. That often talked about but never shown event is finally shown in full glory, as is the story of the man who saved the world, Adroc Thurston. The second part shifts the focus onto the familiar face of Renton Thurston, as he reflects on his past experiences with both Eureka and his adoptive parents, Charles and Ray. For in this continuity, Renton was adopted by the Beams right after his father vanished, and so it’s from them he runs away from to follow Eureka. Let’s get the obvious praise out of the way: The Summer of Love section is amazing. The first 20-25 minutes is basically one big action scene, and it is jam packed with awesomeness. We’ve got Scub antibodies blasting away at KLF units. We’ve go lasers and missiles flying sky high and exploding into big beautiful bursts of color. We’ve even got a giant missile that transforms into the equivalent of a rave party; god almighty, it is amazing. But it doesn’t stop there, we’ve got plenty of great character moments to boot. It’s great to see Charles and Ray again, and they get a bulk of the early action in the scene. Holland and Dewey actually looking out for and calling each other “brother” is something i never knew I wanted, and it's amazing. It’s impossible to watch it without feeling pumped up. What’s more, they actually manage to one-up the original series by actually giving Adroc some character. In the series, he was dead by then, and more acted as a symbol for many of the characters. Here, he’s given some depth and it’s quite well done. The film portrays Adroc as a man who genuinely wants to help the world. Someone who is desperate to stop a doomsday plan he created, and laments all the pain caused by his actions. It really succeeds at humanizing him, making him more than just the legendary figure of the original show. All those elements makes his sacrifice all the more powerful in a truly beautiful sequence. The entire Summer of Love was just one big lump of fanservice to the original show, meant to please the fans in every possible way, and it unquestionably succeeded. And then the rest of the film happened and things got more complicated. See, the controversial reception this film has doesn’t come from the story being told. No, it comes from the way that it was told. Hi Evolution 1 takes a decidedly non linear approach to telling Renton’s tale. Signaled by the words “Play Back” and “Play Forward”, the film leaps throughout parts of Renton leaving the Gekko and his reunion with his adoptive parents. Fans of the original series will recognize these events, in particular Renton’s encounter with the Vodarac girl and his specific reason from running away in the first place. Many have complained that this style of storytelling was too confusing and hard to follow, but for me it wasn’t so. Everything followed a thematic throughline about Renton’s maturation, and it didn’t hop along too large of time gaps. Plus, if you’ve seen the original show, you should know where these events line up time wise. The criticism perhaps comes from how unexpected it was, which while certainly true proved to shake up the original version of these stories. To be frank, the film basically requires you to be familiar with the original series. It doesn’t really touch on Renton’s life aboard the Gekko, nor his relationship with Eureka; instead assuming you already know about everything Renton went through and giving the new information needed for this trilogy. Some may be aghast at those changes, and while I sympathize, I must also disagree. Had the film gone over that material it would’ve basically been the same as in the original series. Then you would’ve had people complaining about how the film retreaded too much of the same stuff. Some may certainly argue that reusing moments from the series in the first place was a mistake, and while that may have merit, the way they went about telling it was the most interesting approach. Some will also be disappointed to know that the focus is kept primarily on Renton. In fact, the film kind of turns into a character study of him, squaring in on his reasons for running away and his own problems with relating to Eureka. The elements explored are similar to the ones from the TV series, but they are different. Most notably, it is much harsher on Renton. This section of the original show was a dark time for him, and this film carries that over very well, and then some. It explores how, while he genuinely wants to be a good person, it’s difficult for him to understand what people really want. This was lightly touched on in the series, but here it’s put more front and center as the big character hurdle Renton has to overcome. It’s no coincidence also that the scenes taken are the ones that most strongly reflect that theme. His encounter with the Vodarac girl proved to be the key example of that hurdle in the original series, and it’s just as much here, but different in a subtle way. In the original, after Renton is brought back to the Swan, Charles comforts him by saying that he doesn’t begrudge his actions; that what he did was “the right thing to do as a human”, but that they didn’t know if the girl really wanted what Renton thought she did. In Hi-Evolution, while Charles still sympathises with Renton, he’s fairly more harsher on him: saying instead that Renton did what he truly thought was right, but that there was no way he could have known if it was for the best. It’s a subtle change, but Hi-Evolution’s version call Renton’s …

I’ve seen this movie get a lot of hate and I totally understand it. The movie is sort of confused, disjointed and weird. That being said I think I loved it? Hear me out! Even if it was reanimated for a lot of the scenes, it is still gorgeous. The weird pacing and skipping between different times came together beautifully in the end. I loved being immersed in the world and characters again. I get what the director means when he says that this will hold up better when all three movies are out. Full disclosure: I love eureka seven, it is easily my favorite show. That being said I hated Pocket Full of Rainbows and have never seen Astral Ocean. I went in expecting to hate this, but instead I felt the same energy and inspiration I got from the original series. This movie has convinced me to give them another shot. The movies messy at sometimes muddled but so is the show, it’s a retelling from a director that I think wants to deliver something even closer to his original vision. I understand why some people hate this movie, but I loved it. I plan on watching all the sequels as they come out. I hope some fans will see this and ignore some of the negative press the movie has received and I hope more give it a shot.

European Premier at the Glasgow Film Theater part of the Scotland Loves Anime festival Spoilers ahead: Eureka Seven: Hi Evolution show it's potential at the start of the film by showing Fresh new animation of the First Summer of love, this newly animated scene is fantastic, it shows the potential of what could possibly come from the Trilogy, but sadly this doesn't last long, the majority of the film is reused clips from the Original Series that shows the events with Charles and Ray up until Renton Leaves their ship, this becomes confusing to new viewers as they Jump back and forth between time frames a lot and viewers that are new the series are easily lost when watching this. It is a shame that it is mostly old stuff especially with how the new animation looks! There is a teaser for the Second film in the Trilogy in which they show more new Animation and I hope there is less of the Play Back and Forward stuff as it is used far to much. There is always something over the screen telling you what things are and give descriptions of what is happening, time frames and Descriptions of the KLF which I really though was a good addition but used way to much as it's happening throughout the whole film a lot. The soundtrack is the same style that was enjoyed from the original series and is a great techno synth which is just upbeat and fitting. Glory Days is good and is still stuck in my head from listening to it for the first time! This film calls a lot to the fans of the original series but I'd say that it will be mostly them that will get a kick out of the film as I did but will disappointed with the lack of new content added to the Series. New comers to the series will be lost with the amount of jumping back and forth that takes place and will struggle to keep up. The film shows potential but falls a bit with the lack of new content which is a shame.

I'll try to be brief because I'm not great at articulating my thoughts. And some *SPOILERS* for those that want to see this still. This "movie" starts out promising enough with Adroc Thurston trying to save the world...even though, from the sounds of it, he was at fault for it all in the first place. New animation, new music, and we hadn't seen this story in all of Eureka Seven before. (At least that I can recall, it has been a while since I had watched the series in its entirety.) So Hi-Evolution takes a step in the right direction and then takes a huge step backward to tell its incomplete story of Renton Thurston (Beams?). The story after the introduction (and death) of Adroc focuses entirely on Renton and his relationship with Ray and Charles. It briefly touches about the weight that Renton has to deal with being the son of Adroc, but nothing in depth. His sister and his grandfather are nowhere to be seen or heard. It hardly scratches the surface of Renton's time with Gekkostate, and worse yet barely covers Renton and Eureka's relationship. Holland is still an asshat, but for some reason this is part of his charm...newcomers will have no idea why though. They hint how Dewey become the Dewey Novak we know from the series. The movie is not quite clear if it is telling a brand new story or if it is telling a jumbled version of the series. As someone who fell in love with the series, I followed this as well as I think any fan would but it jumps back and forth in time far too much. And why is there so much text on the screen?! I fail to imagine that many non-fans went to see this, and good Lord if you didn't see three lines of text on every scene change. This movie over explains every little detail with the text and almost tries to distract you from what is going on screen. Another thing that disappointed me, but bears no weight on the overall product, was that JYB forgot how to Renton. There are flashes of the voice still being there but after 10+ years after the fact I think JYB can be forgiven for not being able to replicate the voice like he did in the series and Good Night, Sleep Tight, Young Lovers. (I'd mention Stephanie Sheh's Eureka if she was in the movie for more than a handful of scenes.) Still, to repeat, that did break my heart a little. To me I feel like Tomoki Kyoda and Dai Sato maybe didn't quite understand what made Eureka Seven resonate with us. Aside from the pretty good opening, this movie is a jumbled mess. And while I was happy to see it focus on two characters that deserved a better fate in the series it disregards and jumps around way too much to be enjoyable and, better yet, comprehensible. I almost feel too nice to be giving this movie the score I'm giving it. But there are some nice moments in between it all, you just might not be able to make sense it when it happens.

My biggest worry going into this was about the rumor that they were going to add original footage about Adroc Thurston and the Summer of Love. One of the key thematic arcs of the show was Renton's feelings of resentment for his father's reputation as a hero, having to live in the shadow of someone who lived this exciting life and became a hero to the entire world. We never got to see the Summer of Love in the show, so the gravity of what Adroc did got to be filled in by our imagination. How could they actually depict Adroc's sacrifice and make it stand up next to our imagination? By showing us just the last hours of his life and filling them with a million explosions as the world goes to fucking shit all around the main characters. The strategy of not explaining the complete nature of the Summer of Love or Adroc's part in the creation of the Silver Box that caused the Seventh Swell we see didn't just preserve the mystery of Adroc that is so core to the show: it accentuated them. Now we get to have our cake, this action-packed climax to the man's life, and eat it to by knowing just the right amount more about what occurred, such that the original show isn't tarnished. Not only is this a 10/10 masterpiece, it makes the original 10/10 masterpiece even better by proxy. But that's just the first 20-30 minutes or so. What the movie is actually about is Renton's relationship with Charles and Ray. I can't properly describe you the emotional swell I felt as the realization dawned on me that this wasn't going to be a straight rehashing of the show. The first part of this trilogy is a stylish re-edit of my favorite arc from one of my favorite shows of all time. I could cry. It was so beautiful to see, even if the 4:3 aspect ratio is outdated next to the widescreen of the opening and the remastered animation is still quite obviously TV-quality, not modern film quality. But what should we have expected? Bones to animate the sides of the frames so that all the scenes could be in widescreen while all the action was in 4:3? Nah. The Charles and Ray arc from the show can stand on its own very easily, so save that money for higher concentrations of original footage in 2 and 3, please. Charles and Ray is a microcosm of everything Eureka Seven was about. Renton meets them as the spoiled child who has rejected Eureka because of she wasn't the dream girl he idolized and expected her to be. He leaves them as someone who has a better grasp of the need to listen to other people and understand their differences so that he can respect them and go through the world more confidently. Making a movie about his relationship with them as a separate thing from his relationship with Eureka makes sense to me because it can be a standalone about growth in the aftermath of an undescribed massive disaster like Acperience was for Renton and Eureka. This very closely parallels how the show as a whole is about growth in the aftermath of the Summer of Love. More than that, the arc's presentation is edited and intercut such that the emotional gut punches of the arc just keep coming and coming and coming in an extremely methodical way. Using the lens we were given in Hi-Evolution 1 (and assuming for the sake of useful argument that 2 and 3 are strictly content from the show), I would totally expect someone only interested in watching the movies to get a good understanding of what Eureka Seven is about. They get a thematic summary with 1, then they'll see Renton grow up from nothing to a hero alongside Eureka while she does the same over the course of two more films. I'm extremely looking forward to that and whatever the hell they have planned for those soccer KLFs and idol singing in the next episode preview. Even if you haven't seen the show, you owe it to yourself to watch this. If you have seen the series, this is an unforgettable way to experience an excellent arc of it (again, my favorite) in a new way. See this. It's not a replacement for Eureka Seven; it's a peerless companion to it. SEE THIS.

I don't think I've ever written a review so I'll keep this one short. I'm disappointed again by yet another new attempt to spin Eureka Seven. The original series is by far one of my most favorite animes. Why do they insist on trying to remake it over and over again? Where did the good writers go who wrote the original? 90% of this film is re-used footage. The film is confusing to follow with all the scenes being played out of order. There is far too much text on the screen throughout the movie, I had to keep pausing it for fear I was going to miss something. I enjoyed the first 10 minutes of the film because it was new footage and a kind of prequel to the original story. I recommend watching that and stopping, the rest is a complete and utter waste of your time. I can not possibly express how utterly disappointed I am in this failure of a movie.

Why is it impossible for Bones to expand on one of its series? Nope once again they have to try and re-write it. No the entire world was devastated due to the summer of love, which doesnt really fit the rest of the movie. Renton was adopted by Charles and Ray Beams which makes no sense at all. The worst is the pacing it jumps around and is confusing to follow. You go in the past, then jump to present day day, then up to the past, then fast forward in the past, then rewind in the past, then jump to some time in the present. Geez ffs Bones just tell a dam story normally. I loved the original Eureka 7, in my top 5. Pocket full of rainbows was alternative dimension confusing garbage. AO was great until the whole time/dimension skipping, which ruined it. And now this...ugh and i was looking forward to this. Thought it was going to tell the story of how human found the planet/scub and Adrock/Dewey/Hollands/Talho's backstories

I wrote in my review for the TV show that Eureka Seven did the recap clip show in a way no other show has done before or since: The edited clips were recut as though they were written as reports from 2 perspectives, one from the eyes of a counterculture magazine writer, the other as a military report by a young officer doing what he thought was the right thing. So it might be natural to think that Bones would introduce some new material and bring the old series new life with the same technique, right? Yeah, about that... I think they were trying to be a little too clever. They planned a movie, they got some sponsors together, they sketched out a story, they decided to add a bunch of prequel scenes, cool, cool cool cool. Then something threw a wrench in the works. Maybe the higher-ups didn't like the direction. Maybe they ran out of animator resources. Whatever the reason, there is only about 25 to 30 minutes of new content in a 90-minute film. Not nearly as atrocious as Macross Fb7, but still pretty bad. Fans of the show will no doubt be delighted to watch the new prequel sequence, and anime fans will also enjoy the performance of voice acting legend Toru Furuta, AKA Amuro Ray from Gundam. Honestly, if they packaged this on a Blu-ray as an OVA it would sell like hotcakes: It gives us some perspective of Holland and Dewey when they were inseparable brothers, it shows us Eureka not long after she was discovered, and it shows us just what transpired in the show's past to catapult Adroc Thurston to the "hero of humanity". Unfortunately Diane, Renton's sister, doesn't make an appearance, even though she was a persistent, distant goal for Renton in the TV show, nor does his grandfather Axel (though this is understandable as his actor died years before the film's release). It's not a reinterpretation like the first film, it doesn't throw the show's lore and history into a blender like AO did (though there was a weird ding by changing Renton's surname and backstory by using subtitles), it's a solid addition to the canon. But it's only solid if they left it at those 25 to 30 minutes of new content. I get it. They needed to pad out the remaining hour, they needed to capture new fans, they were probably butting heads with the other studios working on the film, and they were probably running over budget, so even though fans of the TV show will be fast-forwarding through the latter two-thirds of the film, maybe there's someone new to the franchise who could see something they like about the heavily truncated, shoddily edited synopsis of the TV show up to episode 24-ish? Well, that's the thing, the first half of the TV show is a bit of a slog, and even if we cut it down to an hour like this, there is a significant amount of lost content that helped shape the world and the characters. I don't think a new viewer would get a very good grasp of the show, it's almost like trying to get the full experience of a nice cup of hot cocoa by pouring a packet of cocoa mix down one's throat. Also, there was probably nothing wrong with keeping the existing content chronological; I'm used to Japanese shows frequently flashing back and forth, but seemingly doing it every 3 to 5 minutes, even with the "flash back/forward" cards, is honestly exhausting to watch. Naoki Sato, by this time a music powerhouse in his own right, wrote the score, and while I miss his soaring and dramatic tracks from the TV show, the music of the prequel was fittingly epic. I remember the "alternate script" the cast performed well after the TV show wrapped, it was as though the writers/directors had hundreds of stories they wanted to tell with this cast of characters and this world, but they couldn't for fear of creating a monstrosity instead of the "symphonic psalms of planets" they were aiming for, and with the film and sequel series they picked up the pieces from the cutting room floor without much of a plan to tie them together. This film represents a sort of return to basics, but it feels like Bones is jumping on the "remake bandwagon" that Hollywood and Gainax are infamous for by now. Had they kept it to the prequel and the chase scene, I think it would've been a tighter, more solid production overall. Unfortunately, that's not what we got here.

The movie starts with an all new scenes from the past, around 35 minutes, which is one third of the movie, and all else is a puzzle comprised of the old episodes, and I really mean that: a puzzle. It takes effort to blew nostalgia away, and this movie did come out of his way to dirt my love for the series, but this movie did it. Who is this movie for? Newcommers are totally out of question, since the story is totally incomprehensible and even old time fans might be lost by the change of facts and overabundance of text exposition, which many many times it doesn't even provide important information or something to make sense out of anything. Ok, how about we add another layer of crap on top of all this? The movie scrambles the timeline of scenes at a screeching pace. Goes back and fort for completely no reasonable motives: just take for example episode 1 is cut to pieces and spit back in clips that show the last scenes first and the first scenes later, like the movie Memento, but way crappier and with out any of the music you'll love from the original series. I thought hey learned something from, the also crappy, pocketful of rainbows movie...

=====This review was written after watching the trilogy of Hi-Evolution movies. I wasn't sure if I wanted to drop it here or at part 3 but I decided I should leave it here. Also, this review comes from an all-time fan of the OG series, the spin-off movie and even AO===== Wow, I'm speechless. This movie is insulting, to the point that it almost appears to be intentionally disastrously directed making the dumbest timeskips and cuts throughout. Whom was this even made for and for what purpose? Is it fun to take a legendary classic series and wipe your ass all over it? These are the questions that make me stay awake at night. They could've at-least re-told the tale in a systematic fashion with some updated visuals. Hell, I would've been happy with a clip compilation of the series removing fillers and gaps so along as it was done without weird skips. I could've been able to share the amazing plot of the series with my friends. But, there is nothing here. There is actually NOTHING redeeming about this movie or this series. Let's rewind a bit. I want to give a bit of a background before I shred this series. The OG anime came out in 2005, 50 eps long. Amazing plot & narrative. Nothing was really 'wrong' with the anime and since it's OG we went in without expectations and came out blown away. Eureka x Renton was a match made in heaven. 2009, 3-4 years later the spin-off movie came. It had some mixed reactions, rating average unlike the series. I'd say it was decent and an interesting approach to tell a different story but with the same characters as the series. Though, some people got confused with a big personality difference. To be fair though, we wanted a sequel but we got a spin-off but whatever, at-least it was decent and not half-baked. Then 2012 came around, Eureka Seven: Astral Ocean dropped. I really don't understand the intense hatred for this series. Sure, it definitely lacked a few elements like romance. The characters weren't as unique or likeable as the OG series but the story was not bad. I quite enjoyed the story, Ao was not as immature as Renton either. In my mind, it wasn't a masterpiece but it wasn't horrible. I'd even encourage some of y'all to rewatch it with how much the threshold for 'good anime' has dropped recently. When this set of movies was announced, I was hyped because I expected a re-make of the original and I want to be clear that that means I wanted it to have the same overall plot re-told in the span of three movies. Ok, the first movie is terrible just straight up pointless apart from the first 10-15 mins. The first 10 mins was good because it showcased some events that are the foundation of the story for the series. Much appreciated, for having those key events visualized to see how it all went down. The problem starts when they introduce Renton. Why the hell does it have events sequenced like some drunkard narrating a tale in his youth? The job is so easy, you have a finished product (The OG series) and you have to re-tell it without the removing the important bits. There is no reason to change the timing of events from the original because why try to fix something that isn't broken? Instead, it's like watching a terrible live action movie while high. They pretty much skip straight to the arc that a lot of people love in Eureka Seven. I'm happy it got featured but skipping straight to it doesn't make much sense for both a new viewer and someone who has watched the original. Ultimately if you've watched the OG series, don't bother with the first movie apart from the first 10 mins. The second and third movie are slightly better in the sense they bring story changes etc but also unnecessary confusion to the plotline, canon stuff etc. So, the plot deviates extremely in the 2nd movie and I have to ask this important question...WHO ASKED? Who, in the ES community was like, 'Damn, I wished Eureka Seven had a better story than it does. I wish it ended better...' Again, I want to re-iterate that the beauty of the OG series was the story and character development between Renton & Eureka and the GekkoState as a whole. You removed all the good parts of the anime and stuck in this empty ass fart, well what do you expect? The 'new' story is not bad but it's a lot more rushed and inferior to the original considering Renton has almost no screentime and 'events' take place but it almost feels forced like something happens just to push the narrative forward instead of a natural occurrence. Ultimately, it felt like things got complicated for the sake of it and removing good parts and sticking in crap doesn't help. The only good thing about the re-makes is they did Anemone some justice. We witnessed only her bad sides in the OG anime so having her play a major role was a good change but at this massive a cost I'd happily decline it. This was an absolute wash, a complete waste of time and a complete waste of existence. I'd rather watch a 3 hour talk between Renton and Eureka reminiscing the past events from the series than this pile of crap. If you've watched the original series, my advice is watch the first 10-15 mins where they showcase Renton's Dad and that 'event'. Then, shut off your TV, computer, laptop whatever to save some electricity bill. That's definitely more important than this. Maybe give Astral Ocean another shot, that series deserves some love. Here's the thing, if they had strayed completely away from the original plot and made another spin-off incorporating parallel dimensions, that would've been acceptable. Or they stay completely true to the original and re-told the series, that would've been acceptable as well. But THIS is what I DIDN'T want nor expect. For the producers, kindly leave this series alone. It has suffered enough, it's been re-written twice now and the original still beats them by a long shot. Please don't bother, let it die as a legend.