Anemone is a villain protagonist of the anime series Eureka Seven. In the Hi-Evolution film trilogy, she is given the name "Anemone" Fuuka Ishii.
She was voiced by Ami Koshimizu, with Yoshiko Sakakibara portraying an elderly Anemone in the movie Eureka Seven: Pocketful of Rainbows in the Japanese version. In the English version, she was voiced by Kari Wahlgren, who played Haruko Haruhara in the FLCL franchise and Charmcaster in the original Ben 10 series.
History
Anemone was born as a normal human girl, and lived a happy and carefree life with her parents. However, after the First Summer of Love and several civil wars that followed, she lost her parents and began suffering from Desperation Disease. The Federation military took her in and used her as a test subject in experiments to create an artificial Humanoid Coralian. She ended up being the only survivor, gaining pink hair and blue eyes similar to Eureka's, albeit at the cost of her sanity.
She was placed under the command of Colonel Dewey Novak, who controlled her utilizing special drugs and carefully meted-out praise to ensure her compliance. Dewey's apprentice, Dominic Sorel, was assigned the job of acting as Anemone's handler. Anemone was officially placed as the pilot of the Nirvash typeTheEND, with Dewey and Dominic administering the drugs before sending her out into combat. These drugs focus her unstable mind, but draw out a violent, bloodthirsty rage that Dewey exploits when sending her into battle.
Piloting TheEND, Anemone becomes the rival of Eureka and Renton in the Nirvash type ZERO, as well as their organization Gekkostate. Though she starts out as the superior pilot, she is surpassed by Eureka and Renton, causing her already unstable mind to spiral further out of control as she fears Dewey will no longer find her useful and have her disposed of. Dominic tries to comfort her, as he feels genuine compassion for her unlike Dewey, but she rejects him, feeling that he does not understand what she is going through.
Later in the series, after failing twice to defeat the Nirvash, Anemone is sent by Dewey to destroy a swarm of Antibody Coralians he deliberately provoked. She does so and is then presented to the public by Dewey as a hero, causing her to believe that she can redeem herself for her earlier failures. Dewey then sent her to pursue Eureka and Renton as they attempted to cross the Great Wall and enter the Promised Land. She easily defeated Holland Novak, Dewey's brother and the leader of the Gekkostate, but was unable to cross the Great Wall. Falling into despair over her third failure against Eureka and Renton, Anemone completely rejects Dominic's well-meaning attempts at comforting her, but both asks him to save her and tells him to stay away from her. Dewey then brings her to a party and tells her of his past, seemingly expressing interest in her, but then immediately initiates a search for her replacement. Torn apart by her conflicting emotions and depression, Anemone realizes that she has actually always feared Dewey, who considered her nothing but a tool.
After being informed by Dominic that the potential replacements all died during the experiments, Dewey learns the location of the Scub Coral's Command Cluster and decides to send Anemone on a mission to destroy it. Now suicidal following Dominic's defection from the Federation, Anemone accepts the mission even though she knows she will die. Before setting off, she admits her love for Dominic to herself and that all she wants is a place where she can belong.
Anemone blasts her way into the Scub Coral and confronts Eureka and Renton, who try to protect the Command Cluster from her. However, she does not seriously try to fight them, causing Eureka to realize Anemone's pain. Eureka and Renton try to encourage her, but she is unable to break free of her despair. Suddenly, she spots Dominic falling through the sky, having chased her into the Scub Coral in an attempt to save her. She ejects from TheEND and reunites with him, and they finally share a genuine kiss, Anemone expressing that she has never felt happier in her life.
However, Dewey fires the Oratorio #8 satellite laser through the hole Anemone opened in the Scub Coral, destroying the Command Cluster; TheEND sacrifices itself to protect Anemone and Dominic. Dewey then commits suicide, triggering a failsafe he devised through Anemone and Eureka's collars designed to turn one of them into a new Command Cluster and then deliver a kill signal to the Scub Coral from within. Anemone manages to remove her collar in time, but Eureka chooses to become the Command Cluster in order to prevent the Limit of Questions from occurring. She later watches as Renton and Gekkostate go to rescue Eureka, and openly expresses her love for Dominic.
Following the conclusion of the story, Anemone goes camping with Dominic and is seen observing the moon with Eureka and Renton's names written on it.
Pocketful of Rainbows
In the film Eureka Seven: Pocketful of Rainbows, an elderly Anemone appears as a sage in an alternate dimension. At the end of the film, her younger self's spirit is reunited with Dominic's.
Hi-Evolution
In the Hi-Evolution movie trilogy, Anemone's story is dramatically recontextualized. She is introduced in the second film as "Anemone" Fuuka Ishii, the child of soldier Ken Ishii and a resident of the real world. Years after Ken dies in battle with the "Eureka Seven" phenomenon that devastates the planet, Anemone joins the military herself. Using a dimensional leap device left behind by her father, Anemone enters into the "virtual world" within the Eureka Seven, where she finds herself placed in the body of her original series counterpart during battles with the Nirvash. Dominic is presented as an artificial intelligence left by Ken to accompany her, and manifests as his human self inside the virtual reality.
After scoring humanity's first victory against the Eurekas, Anemone is held up by the United Nations anti-Scub unit A.C.I.D. as a hero, but she remains depressed over her situation. Seeing Eureka within the virtual world distresses her further, so her superior officer Dr. Bear brings her to see an imprisoned Dewey, who fell from the virtual world into the real world and thus remembers everything from the former. Dewey does not provide any help, however.
During her final trip into the virtual world, Anemone is attacked by Eureka, who tries to convince her to stay by offering to create a new world where Ken is alive. She rejects this and returns to reality, where a new monster begins rampaging due to Eureka's despair. Desperate, Anemone cries out for help, and Dominic appears to deliver a new TheEND to her. Together, they return to the virtual world, where Anemone manages to convince Eureka to continue to live and brings her into reality, where Eureka confesses that she accidentally killed Renton in a previous timeline and has been repeatedly remaking the world to try and reach a happy ending. Anemone encourages Eureka by expressing a belief Renton may be alive somewhere waiting for her.
In the third film, Anemone is a high-ranking A.C.I.D. official, the captain of the spacecraft Buena Vista, and Eureka's only friend. It is implied that she has married Dominic, who was made real at the end of the previous film. Anemone assists Eureka's mission to protect Iris McKenzie, a new Humanoid Coralian, from Dewey's military forces. She is last seen crying following Eureka and Renton's sacrifice to save Earth from Dewey's final plan, before Iris mentions her own status as an Eureka to cheer Anemone up.
Powers and Abilities
Anemone is extremely fearless fighter, and seems to have a knowledge on martial arts, she seems to have enhanced strength, durability, agility, and reflexes. She is also skilled in the use of guns and knife.
Gallery
Trivia
- In the manga, Anemone loves sweet foods and candy, loves playing with her hair and singing. She is also not as cold and callous compared to her anime counterpart, although she still holds her murderous tantrum and almost killed Eureka once.
- In the manga and novels, Anemone takes an immediate interest in Renton, finding him cute and knowing why Eureka easily fell in love with him. In the manga, she teased him by asking him to sleep with her, and in the novels, she forced him to go on a date with her.
- In the manga, Anemone and Eureka were not always enemies; they are in fact close friends who were torn apart by the military and the war with the Coralians.