Eureka Seven AO - Episode 12

We head off to space for this week's Eureka Seven AO, as Pied Piper's latest mission sees them having to deal with an occurrence of Scub Coral floating above the Earth's atmosphere.

While Truth and Naru on the one hand and the Gazelle Corps on the other go about their business on the ground in terms of trying to reveal the truth in their own ways, Ao and company find themselves receiving a warm welcome on a Generation Bleu owned space station, and seemingly the home of the Quartz they collect - a station run by a dedicated team known as Harlequin.

All of this seems like mere pre-amble in advance of another routine mission, but once Ao gets ready to take off alongside his comrades it soon becomes clear that this isn't the case, as he finds himself feeling lost, unable to see the Trapar that guides him normally when he takes to the skies.  Although Ao considers the ability to see Trapar normal, it's actually anything but, and in the resultant discussion Ao learns why he's seen as an alien, complete with footage of the appearance of Nirvash and his mother.  With Harlequin's leader more than keen to look after Ao and prevent him from taking part in the mission, he's having none of it, and thus it's business as usual as he finds himself at the centre of some Secret busting.  At least, it's business as usual in terms of defeating the Secret, but escaping the perils of the Earth's atmosphere proves to be decidedly more difficult thanks to the intervention of Truth.  It seems as if the only thing that can save Ao now is some kind of deus ex machina... or perhaps I should say deus ex Eureka?

Following what looked likely to be "just another episode" of Eureka Seven AO (not that this is entirely a bad thing) as it set up another Secret of the week show-down and trickled more exposition down our throats like some kind of rare delicacy, everything is turned on its head thanks to the episode's closing minutes.  Without any kind of explanation, this is clearly a turning point for the show and the direction it takes hence forth, finally promising to bring a little more synergy (God, I hate that word) between this series and its predecessor.  Is this for better or worse?  We shall have to wait and see, but all I know is that I'm more excited by this prospect than I have been by this series for a while.