EUREKA 7: THE MOVIE BluRay Review

(Because "Psalm of Planets seveN: Good Night, Sleep Tight, Young Lovers" is such a mouthful...)

This week distributor Manga UK released the European English-friendly BluRay edition of the Eureka 7 movie. It is known by several different names, some involving rainbows and some involving psalms, but to avoid confusion (and RSI) let's just call it "Eureka 7: The Movie" as there is only one movie so far.

"Eureka 7" started life as a 50-episode anime series which aired in 2005. At first dismissed as "yet another Evangelion wannabe", it nevertheless gathered its own following and the series would go on to reap loads of awards, both from audiences and the animation industry.

Now the movie is a bit of a different animal. Instead of opting for a straight sequel or a re-telling of the series' storyline, "Eureka 7: The Movie" is basically a "What If...". It uses the characters from the series but in a different setting, a different story, and in different roles.

Doing that sure is a daring move, one which could very well alienate both new audiences and the fans of the original series.
Did that happen? Read on...


The Story:

It's 2056 and Earth is at war with an invading species. During a raid, 14-year old pilot Renton and his organic fighter-plane Nirvash get reunited with his (early) childhood girlfriend Eureka. Renton and the part-alien Eureka had been separated when she was kidnapped by the military 8 years earlier, and now that they are unexpectedly reunited the two youngsters fall deeply in love with each other.

But events conspire against them: the humans, faced with a losing battle, are about to launch an ultimate weapon against the aliens which may destroy all life on Earth. On top of that both Eureka and Renton are shanghaied by a group of war orphans who want to use the two for opening a portal to another world...


The Movie:

Note that I had not yet seen the television series of "Eureka 7". However, I did some research into the backgrounds for the purpose of writing this review and I so much liked what I saw that I ended up buying the boxsets for the original series.
But do not mistake this for an endorsement of the movie, for I have some difficulties with the film which prevent me from truly enjoying it. I'll explain, but first I need to elaborate a bit on what this movie exactly is.

When the decision was made to create a movie out of the successful "Eureka 7" series, the next step was to decide what to do exactly. The end of the series did not leave very much room for starting a new adventure with all protagonists in it. Trying to redo the whole series in a single movie -"Escaflowne" style- also was a problem as there is a lot of story in the series, especially in the second half which piles revelation upon revelation.

So "Eureka7: The Movie" is neither. Instead, the film tells a completely new story, fully disregarding the existing universe. The narrative now takes place in last half of the 21st century while the series took place more than 10,000 years into the future. The Gekko ship is now a standard military vessel instead of the traveling media-circus in the series, and the aliens are a completely different entity, with different motivations and all, even though they look exactly the same as in the series.

As a newcomer this should not bother me as I have no connection to the original incarnations. However, the movie DEMANDS that you know all these characters already because you don't get any insight into any of them from the movie itself. Take Renton himself: there just is so much happening in the film that there isn't any time left for him to do anything or establish himself. He is the good guy and he loves Eureka. That's it, and even THAT is supposed to be known already at the start.

And it's hard for me to feel with any of these people if they are surprised by something, given that I haven't had time yet to understand what's considered mundane in this world.
Without emotional involvement it is hard to follow the barrage of discoveries, revelations and cataclysms you get bombarded with. Characters are announced and ticked off in moments, obviously paying lip-service to the fans of the series but leaving the casual viewer nonplussed.

But with anime there is thankfully always the artwork and designs to gawk at. However, the visual design here is deliberately dour and subdued with pastel colors abound, while the moments of action are frantic and bewildering. The film never gets as gorgeous as it obviously wants to be.

In short: the idea of trying to recreate the themes and characters of the series by placing them in a Marvel-comics-like "What if...?" universe is intriguing.
Unfortunately the alternate world used for this exercise is the one from "Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within", warts and all. And likewise "Eureka 7: The Movie" is encumbered with not being able to live up to expectations due to the lack of a coherent plot, especially during the finale...


Conclusion:

In its 101 minutes "Eureka 7" tries to cram so many characters, (melo)drama, twists and dread that it bursts at the seams. The story here is not so much complicated or intricate but rushed and unexplained to the point of incomprehensibility. No amount of explosions and tears can mend the big flaw at its heart. For newcomers there is just too much to swallow, too fast.

On the other hand, fans of the series may be intrigued by seeing their favorite cast playing out this alternate reality. I cannot imagine them to be delighted though...


About the BluRay:

Manga UK has released this film as a single BluRay disc of unknown regioncoding. Obviously it works in Region-B so that covers Europe, Africa and Australia, but what about the rest of the world? I've checked and double-checked but I do not see any markings anywhere. No globes, and all hexagons I do find are part of the general "Eureka 7" menu design. So does this disc work in Region-A? I just don't know, so American and Japanese buyers beware...

Manga UK and I have had some, ehm... disagreements in the past due to some ancient DVD-releases from a decade ago, but the last few years I just don't have any grounds to complain anymore. And credit where credit is due: they haven't released a single bad BluRay yet.
"Eureka 7 The Movie: Good Night, Sleep Tight, Young Lovers" does nothing to change that record. The disc is good quality for a very acceptable price. As a collector I have no complaints about this release whatsoever (bar the ones I have about the movie itself).

Both audio and video are very good here, with stereo and HD-5.1 tracks for both English and Japanese. The subtitles are fine as well. For the animation the film reuses some of the television artwork and that looks thick-lined and somewhat unrefined at times, but the BluRay image itself is very sharp indeed.

Next up are the extras which include a selection of trailers for the film itself and some upcoming releases as well.
The biggest extra is a whopping 50-minute "Making of" documentary. Actually it's a "Post-production of" as the whole item was created in the final stages of the production. All people here are very self-congratulatory but the big issues people were having with the film are not avoided. Director Kyoda explains at length why he chose to go the "What if..." route, and acknowledges the problems fans may have with this approach.
However, he also goes on to say how people should see that they tried to lift anime to a new level with this film, and brought their best work forward to do it.
Ehm... ... ... ... no. You kinda lost me there. This movie is not a step forward, especially when compared to other contemporary releases at the time like oh, I don't know... "Evangelion 1.0" perhaps?

Finally a note about packaging: this is a regular BluRay-case with no embelishments, but to my delight Manga UK has fully embraced the idea of the reversible cover as many of their new releases have those. It means you can take out the paper insert, flip it over and re-insert it, showing some alternate art without barcodes, QR-codes, technical details or BBFC ratings.
The flip-side artwork used for "Eureka 7: The Movie" (not the cover shown above, which is the regular frontside) is very elegant indeed.

All in all a good release for an interesting if underwhelming movie. I'd recommend it to fans of the series, not because it elevates the material to a new level but because it shows it from a very weird angle.


You can order "Eureka 7: the Movie" through our affiliate:
link to this disc.

Alternatively, you can order the two DVD boxsets for the original 50 episode series of "Eureka 7", as those are very affordable at the moment:
link to the first boxset
link to the second boxset