Review: Eureka 7 – Pocketful of Rainbows (Movie)
By: Soulsavior42 (Zeronuckols@gmail.com)

Animation: 9/10
Story: 10/10
Music: 8/10
Action: 10/10
Overall: 9/10

Length: 120 minutes
Themes: Romance, Coming of Age, Mech

Highlights:
Nostalgia Factor – For those who actually liked the series, all the same faces
Hair Factor – You get a ton of awesome scenes with Eureka’s hair down, what more can you ask for?
Fresh Factor – For those who didn’t like the series, great new story
Cheesy Factor – E7 still is its same cheesy self, not saying its bad though

All right so before I get into the actual review I’m going to say this now, I hated the Eureka 7 series, when I say hate I mean HATE. There were many different factors in my opinion and are justified in my eyes, but that’s for another review another time. That aside, I went into this movie under the assumption not reading up on anything about it, that it was going to be an alternate retelling, or a follow-up of the original series since that seems to be the going trend right now for animes. Still keeping the hope that Bones would pull out another FMA movie on us and just blow our minds away. Well I’m not going to go as far as saying that it was as amazing as the FMA movie but you cant compare two separate genres against each other. The E7 movie aside from the fact of having a flamboyant name (Pocketful of Rainbows) was really damn good, from start to finish it kept you entertained and intrigued. From my perspective of hating the series previous it was refreshing not having to deal with a lot of the emo side of all the characters along with the 3 horribly obnoxious kids from the series that have only a brief cameo towards the end of the movie with Renton’s Grandfather.

The movie is set in a universe aside from the series only really having similarities with the characters and very general plot. So other then that you can kick out all previous knowledge of E7 and enjoy watching a new movie, new story line, and somewhat new character relations between everyone, I almost want to say that besides Renton, Holland, and Eureka everyone is playing different personalities for this story, which is nice since you don’t have to deal with all the side characters no one really cared about in the series.

The movie starts out with young Renton and Eureka witnessing a flower blooming and some other events that set the stage for the story, next thing you know your in present day with Renton on the Gekko-Go who is enlisted by the military now which is explained later in the movie, since those who watched the series will know its supposed to be the exact opposite. Though dragging a bit in the middle of the movie with a lot dialog and little to no action, it stays solid for its story telling all the way through to the quite epic ending which cant be said for the series.

Animation
Well being a Bones series, everyone including myself have come to expect top quality from any of their work, be it E7, Bounen no Xamdou, or Soul Eater, which they definitely never disappoint. Pocketful of Rainbows is no exception except in one aspect which is more nit-picky then anything from my stand point. In the E7 series the animation quality was awesome, you really cant much better unless your going to be watching OVA’s or Bones movies like FMA: The Conqueror of Shambala. So obviously you expect the movie of such a well animated to be better right? Sadly aside from the final quarter of the movie the animation is basically the same thing as the series, which was a bit of a let down since, they had so long to work on the movie. Giving animation an 8 that I was originally going to while watching the movie is made up for the absolutely stellar ending battle sequences bumping it to a 9.

Story
Definitely this aspect of the movie was the strongest out of the 4 categories for me. The writing for Bones series has always been top notch but they brought it to the next level with POR. There wasn’t one part of the story that was random or wasn’t explained by the end and given a logical justification. To me this is a great stand along movie to those who never have seen the series and aside from the normal E7 shenanigans like magical mech upgrades in the middle of battle you accept it and sit back and admire all the pretty colors. A solid 10 from start to finish for sure.

Music
There isn’t anything to spectacular for this aspect, I mean the E7 music has always been good and well placed though with POR there is a significant lack of music in parts that could have added much more to the scenes then just pure silence. For the rest of the scenes that have music, its well done and fitting for the context of the movie.

Action
Well besides the fact that they didn’t scrap the idea of surfing robots, the action is pretty damn awesome, lots of explosions and very fluid. The only thing I wish is that there was more blood, but what ever, that’s definitely not enough bad to take off a point, so another solid 10.

Overall
I personally was VERY impressed with this movie, it exceeded all my expectations and gave me a newfound love for the series as a whole, even though I still think the TV series should never have been made and they just made a movie for it. For those newcomers to E7 I recommend watching the movie first, and if you like it then maybe go watch the series if you enjoy watching 10 people feel sorry for themselves for 16½ hours of your life. As for the people who have seen the series this is a VERY refreshing addition to the series and should definitely be watched and appreciated. I’ve have always loved Eureka’s character and her character design, especially when her hair is down and not some ugly buzz cut. So I got a lot of good “hair down” action in the movie, which was great, and then at the end you get to see her with really long hair, which is just more icing on this cake of awesome.