Anime: Higashi no Eden

Title: In the far East, there’s an Eden waiting for you…
Own, Online Viewing, or Evade
This show is definitely worth Owning.

Overall Rating 4/5
Eden of the East is a very unique show to say the least. Given a huge bank of cash and a cellphone with a super artificial intelligence assistant can you save Japan? What are you saving Japan from, you may be wondering… You’ll have to watch the show.

This is a must watch anime. There are many competing to save Japan with this same setup and there is only one winner. The show has a very diverse cast that attacks the issue with approaches that range the gambit. The lead, Akira Takizawa, ends up encountering many of the others with interactions that range from interesting to very dangerous…
Some people like the anime ending better than the movie ending. There are two movies. I like the movie continuation and finish myself.

Theme Songs 5/5
The show has a solid well-fitting opening. The ending was my favorite this time. It’s very fast and interesting.

Ending 3/5
NO spoilers, the ending was…. okay. There are two movies that directly follow the tv show. They finish the story better in my opinion. (Read my movie reviews for some details)

This review is only based on the 11 episode dubbed version of the anime.

I really liked this anime. Enough to seek out the 2 movies that supposedly finish up the story but not enough to rewatch it.

There are some issues with the story such as the amnesia trope (which is actually not annoying this time around), as well as a few WTF moments in an otherwise believable environment. For example, a sudden hallucination, a grand illusion, a character miraculously and inexplicably avoiding certain death, and self-inflicted amnesia which are never ever explained and/or addressed at all.

The story could use more conflict. The Selecao rarely take action against each other or the rest of the world.
Also the lack of character development is disappointing.

I think most of these issues could have been resolved if it was more than 11 episodes.

Animation: 8 - Nice and clean modern style.
Sound: 6 - It had a good mix but nothing that really moved me.
Story: 7 - A good story marred by a few WTF moments.
Character: 6 - Enjoyable characters but honestly no character development is had.
Value: 7
Enjoyment: 8

Eden of the East is a refreshing post-modern story set in the real world and isn't afraid to address it. Let's face it, one stereotypical thing anime fans are associated with is simply not dealing with reality. Most anime tends to center around unrealistic things that will take our minds off the real world, sudden girlfriend appearance, giant mecha, magical powers, the rise of the undead, and so on. While Eden of the East doesn't entirely abandon the creative license bestowed on anime, it does offer up a not too far fetched near future that deals in a world we can easily identify with, the real one.

Story (9)

I really don't want to give too much away, because half the fun of Eden of the East is the process of discovery the characters go through. The male lead makes his appearance in front of the white house, naked and wielding a mock pistol, with no memories of his past. He bumps into the female lead, a girl from Japan who just graduated from college and taking her graduation trip. Against the odds, its the hero who ends up bailing out the heroine as she is confronted by a pair of police officers who find her activities in front of the White House suspicious. The two form an unlikely bond and travel back to Japan with more questions than answers.

The male lead possesses among other interesting items like multiple passports and firearms, a smart phone which is loaded with the equivalent of a hundred million dollars. Make a request to the operator, even an outlandish one, and it will be done and the cost of the action will be deducted from the balance. Quickly it is learned that there are others who possess phones with the same capabilities, and the hunt to answer the questions behind the phone is on.

Behind all this is the real life problem of today's youth, symbolized by the female lead and the collection of young adults who eventually join the party. Despite her college education and best efforts, she's having a hard time fitting into the "adult world" of employment. In fact the whole backdrop is a realistic one representing decline, youth unemployment, NEETs, loss of faith in existing governments, as well as "Careless Monday", a cruise missile attack launched on Japan that was never properly explained to the public, who eventually went along with such poor explanations because for some reason no one was killed in the attacks. The story even evokes the 9/11 attacks in the comparison. Indeed, desperate measures could easily be described as the on going theme in this anime. Toss in some romantic tension between the leads with the conspiracy they must struggle to uncover and you have the basic outline.

In terms of characters, really its the female lead who carries the story. She best symbolizes the human element in the story, as she struggles to come to terms with the world and attempt to understand what exactly she has encountered in the male lead. It's her realness, complete with a cuteness that is almost average and problems that are entirely ordinary that drew me in, leaving the male lead to be the X factor and deal with the more fanciful aspects of the story. All in all, its a very refreshing combination.

Art (7)
The style of art is minimalist while still being easily identifiable as using modern production values. The background settings are perhaps the most impressive, with things like skyscrapers, shopping malls, and other modern scenery being honestly reproduced with good detail. The characters seem to be designed to fit in better into this backdrop, instead of taking all the attention for themselves with over the top character designs.

The animation quality is up to par, with no obvious defects. Where CGI is deployed it blends into the scenery well enough not to stand out like a sore thumb.

Sound (7)
The opening theme, in conjunction with the edgy graphics and quotes is something that grew on me over time as I learned more of the story and did a very good job of setting the mood. The ending theme was more forgettable, as was most of the background music, but it did nothing to get in the way of the story and assisted with the construction of the mysterious and somewhat gloomy world.

Value (9)
I rate Eden of the East fairly high here because it has the guts to set itself in the real world. While the best works of far fetched fiction can take us places far away to escape, ultimately it's stories that aren't afraid to attempt to really connect with viewers as real people in real ways that have the highest potential to move us. Like an Olympic dive of a higher difficulty, if you pull it off you can score more points, and even if you don't make it at 100% it still might be better than an easy dive done at perfection.

Eden doesn't always follow through all the way with its brave attempt to be relevant to those of us that live in the real world, but at least it gives it a shot, which is more than most anime can claim. Honestly, if there are people around a hundred or a thousand years from now, they could look back at this to get an idea of what was bubbling just below the surface in the minds of this era's youth.

Enjoyment (8)
Eden is a fun ride that I marathoned in two sessions. Once hooked in I became attached to the main characters and wanted to know what their fates would ultimately be, and how the story would unfold. Eden probably isn't a show you can easily watch a second time quickly after viewing, too much of the story is built upon the questions that are answered, but I can see it easily being fun to watch again with a friend. Be prepared to obtain the two additional movies that extend the story after the series is over, too much is left unanswered otherwise.

In the end Eden of the East isn't just entertaining, its relevant. It isn't perfect, but its trying hard to be something more than other shows, and that in it's self is something noteworthy.

Notice: This review covers both the series and the two movie sequels. They have the same story continuity and the producers simply didn’t want to make this a single full season series.

PRODUCTION VALUES
The animation is done by Production I.G. a studio which always does an exceptional job when it comes to detailed and elaborate science fiction settings. The animation is simply the best thing one can expect from a tv series of the era the show was made.
- Every background is brimming with details and colors, most of which really look like real locations of today’s urban America and Japan.
- All the characters’ movements are so smooth and lively most of the time; you really can’t compare them with the average stiff body, mouth-flapping cardboard of an average anime.
- All faces are drawn rather simple but have such an amazing liveliness in expressions; you can’t help adoring the characters.
- BMG and voice acting are also done in a professional way, without high-pitched voices, random tunes and any of the usual things I loath in mediocre productions.
- Even the dialogues have decent context when they don’t try to explain the otherwise messy story.
- The opening song by Oasis easily becomes a favorite. I must have heard it fifty times so far.
- The artistic touches they gave to the opening and ending themes with all that paperwork is simply stunning.
- The SD comedy moments did not feel annoying; which is rare.
- Too much dick innuendo. Seriously, there are a lot of jokes regarding naked men to the point it becomes disturbing.

SCRIPT
Eden of the East is amazing when it comes to themes, and shit when it comes to presenting them. As much as you can like the moral and social messages, you just can’t turn a blind eye to a completely ridiculous plot that tries to impress you with a triple aerial flip but ends up landing on its head. The premise is definitely amazing, dealing with a plethora of issues such as unemployment, terrorism, a sort of death tournament, webbed in a global scale conspiracy concerning total control over a nation’s actions.

The first half was doing great, being a battle of wits where cell-phone owners use cunningness to outsmart one another and save Japan from a financial disaster. But then it lost all sense of logic; specifically when some bitch magically sprouts wings and flies out of a window. WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT? They vaguely explained it to be some sort of an illusion but not only they do not justified how she did it without preparation in just a few seconds but also why she HAD to result to such a costly gimmick and not just open the freaking door and leave like a normal person.

That exact moment is when you realize the commands the cell-phone owners give are simply not possible to happen. Requests are supposed to be fast responses by government officials, so technically you are bribing people to bend the rules or bypass bureocracy. Sounds reasonable, right? So guess how retarded it feels when you can wish the most improbable things to happen, such as kill that guy immediately, or make that guy have amnesia, or make me sprout wings so I can start flying. All of which happen in just a few seconds after you give the command, with perfect coordination and execution.

This is no longer logical and justified, IT’S PLAIN MAGIC! I mean, ok, it is an anime, you shouldn’t expect perfect realism, but suspending your disbelief can work up to a point; not when things are so retarded they can not be ignored anymore. The series began as a plausible sci-fi setting full of mind games; not magical nonsense. It essentially performed a U turn in themes and seriousness, and became an average dumb super power shounen.

CAST
And as if that wasn’t big enough of a problem, not even the actions of Akira, the protagonist, make any sense. He gave the order to become amnesiac in the very beginning of the show. Setting aside the fact that there is technology that can somehow do that, and also how amnesia is a very lazy plot device to halt progress, it was never explained why he did it. It wasn’t helpful in any way; in fact most of the show got wasted on trying to remember who he really is. And as soon as he achieves that, he just orders to forget everything once again. It’s all part of a masterplan … when there is no masterplan. And they don’t even stop there; they just spam amnesia after that to make everybody forget everything, and we essentially get a reset ending where nobody learned anything or remembers achieving something.

Along with the protagonist we have Saki, a cute girl running after Akira in his non-sensical adventures. She is there as a self-insert, representing the average young citizen who has a hard time finding his place in a world where money is never enough, troubled with finding a job, wanting to do something to help his nation, or even to seek love and adventure in the most unlikely of situations. That is supposed to make her very relatable to the audience. The problem with her is that she is essentially a lobotomized askman. She is doing nothing but being a lap dog to Akira, gasping and asking question for the sake of exposition. What does she otherwise offer to the plot? Absolutely nothing! She is just the stereotypical klutz naive girl in shojo manga, falling in love with a bad boy who has a mysterious tragic past. So corny! And this is otherwise supposed to be aimed at the josei demographic. This is twilight material! She is Bella, a bland cute face looking for romance so the audience can feel fuzzy inside. And of course not even the romance goes anywhere because they are spamming amnesia left and right.

In a similar way, everybody ends up being nothing but plot devises in the hands of the author and his magic cell phone gimmicks. Almost nobody has something to do in the show. They are just running around, asking questions they know the answers for, but fuck you because amnesia. There are a dozen cell-phone owners and most of them don’t get more than one episode of total screentime. They don’t do anything, nor do we learn much about them. But hey, who cares about such things? The cast has lively expressions, vivid movements, young naivety, romantic tension, and lots of things that make them adorable in the eyes of the casual audience. Why have personalities when you can have bland self inserts? And screw character development because amnesia resets everything. Start writing your fan fiction.

LEGACY
It is very pleasing to watch with a blank mind as visuals and music are great, while the cast is adorable. It is otherwise yet another easily digestable work of fiction for romantic fangirls, or people who care to watch without thinking WHAT THE HELL they are watching. Now order to grow gills and go live in ocean. Because technology.

SUGGESTION LIST
Death Note
Code Geass
Mirai Nikki
Terror In Resonance
[C] The Money of Soul and Possibility Control

Eden of the East is the first show in a while to actively strive for greatness. Echoing Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex both in themes and production, the intent is made clear with the opening: a masterpiece in pink, artistically clever and laden with plot hints and appropriate quotations, all to the strains of a tune they went halfway around the world to find. Indeed, this initially seems like it will be a fully western-oriented show, with the first episode told largely in surprisingly good English, and set in Washington. While the action quickly returns to Japan, it's nice to see the wider world acknowledged, if only in passing.

Characterization is good, but brought down by trying to introduce too many in a short space of time; even the leads' personalities are far from completely defined by the end of things, and the remaining cast are rather flat. That said, the show does well with what time it has; characters are realistic, and those human foibles that do show up are pitched perfectly between believable and interesting. Above all, the gentle development of Saki, the female lead, is beautiful to watch.

But the characters always take a back seat to the plot - and the plot rises to the occasion. Part mystery, part action, our protagonist's efforts to discover his role in a strange power game, why he wiped his memory, and his connection to the disappearance of 20000 NEETs are at once fantastic and yet enticingly plausible. There is also a staggering attention to detail; more than once an actually quite important plot element is shown only for a couple of frames, the creators clearly confident that this show will be discussed in great detail on the internet. It could easily seem hubristic, but I prefer to see this as Eden once again striving for greatness; indeed, a central theme of the show is "Noblesse Oblige", the responsibility of those with power to lead those without - but also the notion that the struggling masses need the nobility to lead them.

The animation is clean but characters are actually quite low-detail, and "super deformed" looks are used too much - one suspects because there is too little facial detail to convey emotion. Surprisingly for a show of this nature there are few visual effects (in fact I can't think of any); there is no CGI "flying" sequence for hacking, merely a quite snazzy but entirely plausible mobile phone, and even the missile strike sequence is admirably restrained, with simple smoke plumes trailing behind, and rarely more than two in close proximity. This seems to be a general theme in Eden; while memory wiping, the backing behind the Selcao system and the titular Eden itself all represent nonexistent technologies, a lot of thought has clearly gone into keeping things plausible, and the world we see is a very good blend of the familiar and the fantastic.

Sound is good; voice acting is well done, the large cast remaining distinct without resorting to weirdness, and the music is simply fantastic, although again restrained; there is little background music, a single perfectly fitting insert song at the end, and the challenge of the opening (which was admittedly offputting at first, but grew on me immensely), complemented by a more traditional, gentle ending song. This dichotomy extends to the animation; the ending is a supremely elegant, near-minimalist work, while the aforementioned opening is more high-tech. One can almost see an assertion from the animators, a "see? The detail level is a matter of choice, nothing more". And one is forced to admit that while the detail of the main series is low by modern standards, it's always high enough for the story being told; Eden's creators begin to look like sober filmmakers choosing the correct effect, while the rest of the industry fritters its efforts away on a high-detail binge.

One must reserve final judgement on Eden of the East before seeing the conclusory movies; while the series has broken off at an appropriate dramatic note, it remains to be seen whether the plot can be adequately wound up, and if the solutions to the remaining mysteries will be satisfactory. But this is certainly a superb show in its own right; a gripping storyline, with sober but elegant presentation, and characters who at the very least avoid dropping the baton between the action and mystery. While it would be premature to call this the best anime of 2009, it will certainly be a contender.