Eureka Seven, but with Deadman Wonderland vibes – bonutzuu’s manga archive

Eureka Seven: Hi Evolution 3 is coming up soon, thought I’ll hurry up and write this before then.

Throughout my read, I kept thinking ‘whose idea was it to leave Kataoka Jinsei and Kazuma Kondoh in charge of the story?’ At first I was surprised by what is supposed to be an adaptation of a well-beloved PG-13 anime, but then as the manga goes on, I was like… wow, whose idea was it to leave the duo that wrote Deadman Wonderland, that bloody-as-hell manga, in charge of Eureka Seven?!

…It’s friggin’ awesome, I must say.

I will keep spoilers to a minimum unless indicated.

The manga is a PG17 version of Eureka Seven. After a classic shonen manga intro in the first volume where Renton and Eureka were still going on dates and stuff, volume 2 plunged into mass murder, suggestion of cannibalism, and mutilation. It was as if Bones told Kataoka-sensei: ‘okay, for volume 2 just do your thing’ and that’s how the manga turned so dark for the next 5 volumes.

E7 follows the story of Renton, a boy longing to find bigger things in life. He met a mysterious girl Eureka and joined her in the Gekkostate, a group of outlaws trying to prevent some bad government plot involving Eureka and her equally mysterious mecha, Nirvash Type Zero.

The story itself is simple enough: you have a band of outlaws with a mecha, and the government replicated said mecha with a mecha of their own, and that’s Anemone’s The End. What E7 did well is the stark contrast between Eureka and Anemone’s lives. Even though they’re surrounded by different people under different environments, they’re both suffering, and their experiences allow them and their boys to connect with each other.

The manga handled Renton, Eureka, and Dominic’s character development very well. I wished I get to see more of Anemone, she’s got a very interesting shift in personality throughout the story and I would like to see what goes on in her head. Also, I wish Eureka would spend less time getting trapped in the Coralian lol I barely get to see her pilot. Best line in the story is probably one where Dominic said “We both fell in love with a dangerous woman” lol

Since it’s only 6 volumes long, many of the other characters in Gekkostate aside from Holland (and maybe Talho) were pretty much pushed off to the side. The ship itself spent a lot of time either parked somewhere or being broken. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, since it keeps the story focused on developing relationships between the main characters and their storylines. If I wanna see more of Gekkostate, I could still watch the 50 episode anime.

The reason I mention Deadman Wonderland so often is that manga Anemone is almost like a beta version of Shiro, one of the two main protagonists of Deadman Wonderland. They both got long hair and are subjected to weird science experiments, they both love sweets and had very bad mood swings. Also, the aesthetics that would be featured in Deadman Wonderland can be seen here, there, and everywhere. There’s also some scenes in volume 6 that were almost the same as the ones in DW, just replace Renton and Dominic with Ganta and Senji.

Overall, if you’re a fan of E7, I recommend this manga. It’s a good read and an alternative take on what happens in the anime, featuring an alternative ending.

.

Spoilers of E7 and Darling in the FranXX ahead.

After I finished the manga, I gave E7’s original anime a watch. I must say I’m so happy for Anemone and Dominic, that stuff is cute as hell, but oh my the main ending… Now I finally understand where Darling in the FranXX got their ending from. The flickering lights, the traveling from outer space, and the open end, it’s so similar I think FranXX is paying homage to E7. I never knew that. What an eye opener.

That’s it for E7 review. See you later.