Okay, I decided to rewrite this entire thing since the review I originally wrote was crap. Kenji Kawayama really is one of the better directors out there. His sense of realism, attention to detail and originality has really made his series one of a kind. After Seirei no Moribito I therefore was very eager to watch his next work: Eden of the East. As promised, it’s a very solidly produced series, but I do have to admit that it is a tad disappointing.

After thinking a bit about the series, I’ve come to the conclusion that there are two reasons that prevent this series from being among the top of this season for me. First of all, the cast of characters leaves a bit to be desired. The lead character Saki is a great one: she grows very subtly through the series, and while she may seem weak at times, she really stands out as a strong character. The rest of the cast lacks a bit of a spark, though. Akira as the male lead is a bit too much of an idealist; his character without any seeming flaws is a bit hard to get into. The majority of the rest of the cast simply feels not fleshed out well enough: some characters show too little of themselves to really make an impact, while others are just plain annoying (most of Saki’s friends). Two notable exceptions are Kondo (whose story gets nicely explored through his limited airtime) and Micchon, who serves her purpose as a quiet side-character well.

My second issue with this series is its mystery. As a mystery-fanboy, I was of course elated after the first episode. It was so delightfully weird and unusual. There were so many different theories possible for what went on, and it really intrigued me like no other. But yeah, the thing with mystery-series is that the challenge comes with correctly revealing the mystery, and in that I feel that this series did a lukewarm job. It can’t keep its air of mystery consistent through the series, and as the series goes on and the answers come, there aren’t really any new questions asked: the answers are simply presented on a silver platter when the time seems ripe for it, without really using them for anything other than for the sake of filling up plotholes.

But yeah, despite these flaws, there still is lots of good stuff in this series. The animation really is amazing. Animation in anime is often a job of cutting corners, but here the animation is really well done to the finest details: the creators have made sure to bring their pictures to life. The CG may be a bit obtrusive at times, but the realistic movements and awesome background art really make up for it.

The setting is also very thought-provoking. Through the 11 episodes of airtime, this series takes a critical look at idealism and its positives and negatives. The whole concept behind the show remains very original and thought-provoking. You can see that a lot of imagination went into creating the setting for this series.

So overall this series served its purpose as a solid build-up for the upcoming movies, which of course I’m going to review as well as soon as they come out. I know that the rating is lower than what one might expect, but I just can’t say that this was the best of the season because of the reasons mentioned above. Small series like this one really need be focused, and in my opinion this series goofed off a bit too much at times and it feels to me that this series was trying to stuff too much into just these eleven episodes. Let’s hope that the movies will use the build-up that the series has provided, but standalone this series for me wasn’t as enjoyable as other short series as Natsu no Arashi or Ristorante Paradiso, which both did know how to make optimal use of their tie (so far, at least).

Ah, there are two movies going to be released. That means three, possible four more hours for this show to tell its story (unless they pull a Death and Rebirth), which really should be enough time for this show. Overall though, this series didn’t turn out as good as I hoped it would be. My biggest issue with the show is that my favourite episode still is the first one.

Still, this episode was a pretty decent ending until the movies. There were some things I didn’t understand, though. Why did Akira feel the need to wipe his own mind again? How and why did he get all of the NEET to access the Higashi no Eden site and take pictures of Akira, protecting them from the missile attack? Why did the creators find it necessary to bring Pantsu back to life? After spending all of his money on becoming king, and getting rid of his cell phone, isn’t he supposed to die?

In any case, as it turns out the reason why Akira wiped his own memory was because he kept getting accused of being the one behind the missile attacks (because he knew that they were going to happen), and so he at one point couldn’t take the accusations anymore and decided to travel to America and mind-wipe himself. That’s totally different from the crazy Japanese terrorist that I originally believed him to be.

Overall, it’s been fun, and although I can’t say that this has been my favourite show this season I definitely enjoyed watching this. It’s a bit of a wait until the movies are released, but in the meantime I’m looking forward to see what Noitamina has in store for us next.
Rating: * (Good)
Lotsa Johnnies and a pretty nice cliff-hanger for the upcoming movies.

Okay, so I was wrong in last week’s impression: this episode of Eden of the East was definitely an excellent one and a step above the previous episodes about Pantsu. This episode explained a lot, and I have to admit that these revelations were well worth it. Mr Outside was nowhere near the evil overlord I thought him to be, Mononobe didn’t turn out to have the motives of simply destroying the world. It turns out that this show really likes to use red herrings.

So as it turns out, Mr Outside was a rich businessman called Ato Saizo (har har har), who himself had a part in reconstructing Japan after the second World War. He then however started to wonder whether the society he helped to create was the right one, and so whimsically created Juiz and enslaved 12 people apparently against their will in his quest to improve Japan. Mononobe and another Selecao we meet in this episode simply want to escape this plan, and the only way to do so seems to be to win the game. Apparently it involves sending a whole bunch of missiles to Japan. The only one I didn’t like was Number 10. He really was an emo kid who hates the world and therefore decides to blow it up. I’m glad that he’s going to die soon.

Juiz turns out to be an AI, probably modelled after Ato Saizo’s secretary. Ato may be dead right now, but the real Juiz seems to be working behind the scenes, and she probably is the one who maintains the AI Juiz. In the meantime, it also turns out that number 12 is either the supporter, or another Selecao who doesn’t agree with Mononobe, and something tells me that he’s going to be the main villain of this series once the movie starts.

There’s one part I didn’t quite get though: what was up with the boat-load of NEETs that suddenly returned on the ship? Wasn’t one of those NEET shown as he managed to become active in the society again? Why is the rest of them still naked and captured? Didn’t they get the chance to pick up their lives or something?

Rating: ** (Excellent)
Finally some answers, and satisfying answers they are.

Okay, so now that this series is nearly at its end (2 episodes left), I unfortunately have to admit that Eden of the East was a disappointment. It’s obviously nowhere near bad, but with its awesome first episode, I really expected something better from this series. Unfortunately, after nine episodes my favourite episode still remains that first one: it never really managed to surpass the creativity and intrigue of Akira and Saki, meeting each other in America, and to be honest, it never even came close to that.

My guess would be that it’s the lack of focus that’s working against this series. The pacing has simply been too slow for such a series, and during the quiet moments I don’t think that the creators really made optimal use of it to flesh out the cast. I once praised this show for how it involved its side-characters with the main-storyline, but for the past two episodes I’m really beginning to wonder what their purpose is. What really is the point of Oosugi, showing the Akira-hate messages? What can that really add to the story, other than making the side characters hate Akira with passion?

The thing with mystery-series is that creating intrigue is one thing, but making the revelations worth it is really the difficult part. Now that the revelations have finally come in, I unfortunately have to say that they… don’t really live up to my expectations. So yeah, the rockets were launched by one of the other Selecao who is out to destroy Japan and start anew. Should have seen that coming. Every Selecao is trying to destroy Japan, it seems, aside from Akira of course, who along with Number 5 was probably the only one who was doing the right thing. My big worry is also that Mr. Outside. I know that there are two hours of movie left for him, but my big fear with him is that the creators aren’t going to have any time to flesh this guy out, making him dangerously close to your typical evil overlord.

Compare this to shows as 07-Ghost: even though its plot is nowhere near as interesting as that of Eden, it did put lots of time into building up and fleshing out, and actually looks like it’s going to get away with it. Eden though… something just feels to have gone wrong during its build-up. I really hope that these hunches are wrong, because I really want this show to work.

Rating: (Enjoyable)
Predictable, Pantsu wasn’t really that interesting, but at least the plot moved forward a lot.

Okay, this episode is probably the one that sets up the story for the final arc of this series. With three episodes left until the movie, I have to say that this show turned out to be quite a bit different than I imagined. With 12 Selecao, you’d expect each episode to focus on a different one of them to see how they decided to try and change the world, but the creators cleverly tried to stay out of that formula and instead are going to explore what lies below everything.

Having said that, this wasn’t the most exciting episode though. I really wonder how Akira knew that Shiratori had wings, and what is it with his dreams about “Johnnies”? The parts with Oosugi were also quite annoying, especially when he got jealous for Saki and all. I really don’t know what a pointless love triangle is going to add to this series, especially when there’s no doubt that Akira and Saki are going to end up together.

Still, I like Micchon a lot. Finally we see an actual believable programmer (seriously, most programmers you see in anime nowadays are nothing but l33t hax0rz instead of the software developers that you’d assume them to be, but that’s just me being the computer science student that I am) and that Pants-guy intrigues me, and it’s going to be interesting to see how they’re going to deal with the Selecao system.

Also, I’ve been wondering: what’s up with those squares on everyone’s faces? Are they meant to be subtle shadows or something?

Rating: * (Good)
Quiet building up episode.

Whoa, WTF…

Here I thought I had this series figured out, and then it comes with this episode. Looking back, there were indeed a lot of signs foreshadowing that the Selecao system had something supernatural about it, but for someone to be sprouting wings and defy the laws of gravity… I didn’t see that coming. Especially so soon, even though the dog with wings was pretty much an obvious hint for this. This episode seriously added tons of intrigue to the series, and really: I am SO looking forward to that upcoming movie.

That Mr Outisde… I really don’t know what this guy was thinking. It’s of course one thing to pick out individuals that didn’t turn out to be fit for the task of saving the world, but making a mass murderer a Selecao? What the hell was he smoking?! As it turns out, she cuts off the Johnnies of the hopeless men in society because she has some deep-seeded grudge against males for some sort of reason.

And really, the Saki Running scene really has to be the best animated scene of the season so far. Her movement is really life-like, and for once no corners are cut in a running-scene at all. And I must say that the creators have really succeeded making Saki a part of the storyline, and making her important for Akira even though she has nothing to do with the Selecao. The kidnapped guy didn’t even turn out to be Oosugi, it was just one misunderstanding. Though that does beg the question how the guy got Oosugi’s bag and where the real Oosugi ended up. My guess is that his bag got stolen and he had no way to get back home.

It’s also interesting that Number 11 is really planning to defy the system. What seemed like an absolute truth at first may turn out to be rather vague; either that or she really believes Akira to be the supporter and that made her confident enough to just ditch her cell phone. But really: she knows Number one. If she does, then why didn’t she know that he was the supporter? I mean, if she calls him on a regular basis, she must have expected something, no?

I also wonder, the number 20000 just keeps returning, doesn’t it? With your given budget, you can kill 20000 people, Akira chose 20000 NEETs to send to Dubai, Number 11 has cut off 20000 Johnnies by now. I wonder if it’s another sort of foreshadowing, or whether it’s simply a nice coincidence that the creators wanted to insert.

Rating: *** (Awesome)
Some of the best animation this season, and really an episode where things start coming together.

Yet another episode of building up, but really: that’s exactly what this series needs to be doing at one point. I watched this episode raw, so I probably missed quite a few things, but it’s always good to see an episode dedicated to fleshing out the side-cast. There’s plenty of time for the climaxes during the final episodes of the series and the movie, so I’m happy with how this show has turned out so far. It’s definitely the series with the most solid execution of the entire spring season, even though it’s not the most exciting one.

This pattern really reminds me of how brilliantly Mouryou no Hako turned out. Its middle part also had SO much building up, and yet it finished off with such an awesome climax, and Eden of the East is shaping up to become the same. This episode shows how Saki gets dropped off by Akira near her friends, so that she can introduce them to him. Among her friends are a female programmer and two NEETs, of which one has lots of resemblances to a hikkikomori. In a way, especially her male friends are exactly those targeted by Akira’s “saving the world” programme.

Also correct me if I’m wrong, but “Eden of the East” turns out to be Saki’s friends’ programming club. At the moment, I’m not sure whether Saki herself is also a computer geek, but she sure did befriend a lot of them. When the show started, I thought that it was some sarcastic reference to Japan, with all of the bombings and all. The theme of young people trying to find the place that they belong turns out to be surprisingly large for a series that first seemed like just a fascinating mystery-series. The “Eden” more means something like a heaven for NEETs.

Also, this episode sure gave an even more macabre image of the white-haired woman, as we learn that she kills her victims by cutting off their “Johnnies”. I really am not sure how a selfish bitch like her managed to escape the supporter for that long. My guess would be that she made some sort of deal with number one, who pretty much everyone suspects to be the supporter.

Rating: * (Good)
Building up and fleshing out the cast with still all-out excellent production-values.

This episode was a typical building-up episode, but it definitely added some extra intrigue to this series. Most of the episode was about Saki’s first interview, but we also get to see two more of the Selecao: Number One and a strange woman whose number we don’t get to see and who seems to be a bit too full of herself. That Number one really baffles me, though. There are lots of hints pointing at how he’s the supporter, he seems to have a lot of connections to the Selecao, and yet he didn’t just kill off pre-mindwipe Akira like he did with the other two.

Speaking of which, if you take a look at the OP, at one point you see connections being made between certain numbers of the Selecao: One is linked to all of them, while Nine (Akira) is linked to Four (Kondou), One is linked to Two and Ten once more, and Three is linked to Twelve. There are three numbers that disappear: Four, Five (as shown in the previous episodes) and Ten, who I guess would be that woman of this episode. What’s also interesting is that apart from them, it is suggested that nobody dies… or that might be saved for the movie.

In any case, it also gets revealed that Akira didn’t kill off the NEETs at all: he just dropped them in the middle of Dubai and had Juiz made it look like he killed them so that others wouldn’t start searching for them, allowing the NEETs to finally have to do something for themselves. And that was his way of trying to make the world better.

Saki was also great in this episode, with her first job interview and all. Her depressed look after seeing the interview failed felt really genuine to me.

Rating: * (Good)
Just building up, but still a very nice episode.

I just realized that Akira and Saki have quite a few similarities as the two lead characters of this show. They’re both at the turning point in their lives and both have to deal with the rather annoying consequences of it. Saki has finally finished her education and is about to get ready for a job, while Akira is someone who seems to have cast his old self away and wanted to start anew, or so it seems at least.

In any case, this episode sheds some light into the purpose of the Selecao and the role of the supporter. Quite early, actually. It indeed turns out that the Selecao are in a game to see who can save the nation first. Accepting such a phone is pretty much a guaranteed death, because if you aren’t the fastest, you’re going to get killed off anyway, and I think that that was the intention of number one when he tried to get rid of Akira: he knew that with such a ’special’ personality, if anyone would be able to save he nation, it would be him.

The thing is that up till now, all we’ve seen is extremes: ignoring the mysterious number one who appeared only for a flash, we have one incredibly strange Selecao (Akira), we have someone who tried to save the nation, and failed horribly and so started using his money for his personal gain (Kondou), and we have someone who has no problems with dying and just wants to do what he can with his money. I really doubt that the other Selecao are just as extreme as these guys, and they probably all are somewhere in between the latter two (aside from the Supporter, perhaps). I’m especially intrigued that nobody aside from Kondou has tried to abuse his money for his personal gain.

As I’m watching this series, I realize how little anime deal with actualities. I mean, I of course understand that series usually are planned years ahead, and if they’re based on a manga even more, but still even the events of 9/11 are only mentioned or referenced in a very select amount of series. In most ‘modern’ series, the PCs are still stuck in Windows 95. Cameras still look like the models of 10 years ago. And in a way that’s a shame, because keeping up with actualities is a very good way for anime to remain fresh. And that’s why Eden of the East feels so fresh, in these financially difficult times the theme of how difficult it is to save a country is very up to date. In fact, it’s so up to date that it’s almost scary, since I doubt that this series was only planned and produced within the eight months since the recession started.

Short Synopsis: Akira and Saki arrive at Akira’s… “home”.
Episode Rating: 8/10 (Excellent)
For me, the great thing of Eden of the East is that it only gets awesome after an episode finishes. At least, I had that with this episode: most of the episode was just a collection of strange events with very pretty production values, but as I started putting all of the pieces of the puzzle together and things started to make more sense, the setting only became more and more intriguing.

So, we now know that all of the Selecao get a starting budget of 10 billion yen, or 77,7 million Euros. Akira used 13,9 million Euros of that in order to buy his own shopping mall and gather 20.000 NEET and had them killed. Since having 3 people killed costs around 11653 euros (as shown in the previous episode), the murder of the 20.000 NEET would have cost him nearly exactly 77,7 million Euros. Now that’s a nice coincidence there that I didn’t expect.

Now, my guess would be that Akira killed those NEET in person, instead of using Juiz, since otherwise he’d be broke right now. The question now remains what he did to all the bodies of those people, since it doesn’t seem like Juiz cleaned up for him.

My image of the pre-mind-wipe Akira at the moment is one of a deranged madman: somehow he got the complete wrong idea of carrying out his mission of improving the world, thought that it’d be a good idea to simply get rid of all of the NEET in Tokyo, rather than all of the bank-robbers, rapists or terrorists. He threw around with money for a while, bought his own shopping mall, killed 20000 people by hand and was happy about it. Then he started to probably regret his choice; he went crazy, did nothing but watch every possible movie in existence, made some fake passports, fled around the world and in the end he simply erased his own memory to end himself from constantly being haunted.

It’s interesting how for once, we have a show that doesn’t criticize bad society, but those naive minds who think that with the right amount of money and power this world can simply be turned into a better place. I do want to see more of the other Selecao though. Akira in this episode was labeled as a very notorious member, which means that the other members of the Celecao didn’t run off with their money in the way he did. It’s going to be interesting to see how the other ones ended up using their money: are Akira and Yuusei the two worst examples, or are the others the same and also waste the money of the Selecao?