Eden of the east/Higashi no Eden (2009)
- Three months ago, November 22, 2010. Ten missiles strikes down in Japan. When their is no injured, the action is soon forgotten. The day is later called, "Careless Monday".
- Present time, Saki Morimi is in USA for her student trip. She's standing outside the White house in Washington D.C. She throws a coin for luck, through the fence, and gets into trouble with the guards because of it. From nowhere, a unexpected man from her homeland comes to her rescue.
- Akira Takizawa is a mystery, since he have no memory what so ever of who he is. And also is naked with a gun in one hand and a phone in the other. A phone loaded with 8.2000.000.000 yen in digital cash.
Saki gives away her jacket to the naked man, and sees him disappear again. But later, she recall having something of importance in the pocket of her jacket. Saki have to turn around and find the man again, running after him. From that, all of a sudden, she is involved in his destination to recall his memory. An adventure which is more complex then they ever could have guessed.
Genre: Action, mystery, psychological, romance
Episodes: 11
Characters:
Saki Morimi - The female protagonist. Even if she is very insecure sometimes, overall she seems like a strong person. She evolves a lot, very natural throughout the anime.
Akira Takizawa - The male protagonist. He is easy to like, and have a easy and outgoing personality. But he can seem pretty empty and flat, throughout the anime, since you don't get to know that much about him.
Eden of the East - A small group of people, Saki included. They started of as a small recycling group but evolved to a pretty successful commercial website. All thanks to Micchon's revolutionary image recognition engine, that is on their Eden website. And also thanks to Saki's ability to improve the value of any item. When it was available on phones, more members came and now it also works as a matchmaking site.
Satoshi Õsugi - A guy who I find pretty annoying. He is Saki's friend, and the only thing he does is going around being jealous.
Kazuomi Hirasawa - The leader type of the group, but with not much knowledge. I like his calm.
Micchon - A shy girl, which is the genius behind the software. She is a very talented programmer. The few times she speaks, she say it frankly.
Onee (sister) - A older woman, which is only there... for no reason. A filler in the group, simply put.
Haruo Kasuga - A guy, who I don't really get. He sits hidden in a secretary during meetings. Why? Well, he say a few wise words sometimes.
Thoughts:
My very first impression of the anime, was a full score within minutes. It felt good with a anime, which have some thought behind it. A deep anime, when you actually have to think now and then. And it was a lot of eye opener, a lot of provocatively elements. I found it, overall, a very unique and exiting story. Something you haven't really seen before. Yeah, the whole "I forgot my memory" is well used. But this creates so much more around that. Eventually you forget about him not remembering, and focus on the more important stuff.
So much is presented at once, that you get all eager for more.
Unfortunately, I have to say, the answers are to quickly reveled. It builds up a good mystery and you get a lot of different ways to go, in the story. I sat and thought both one thing and another. But all of a sudden you get the answers thrown in your lap. As to make up for the 11 episodes.
Mystery can gladly be deeper with more questions in the questions. It would have been preferred to have more episodes.
But, at least there is two movies too. Eden of the East the Movie I: The King of Eden and Eden of the East the Movie II: Paradise Lost. Since the animeserie have a very open ending.
But then again, there is plenty to figure out throughout the anime as it is. And apart from what I mentioned, there is not much to complain about. I really like Eden of the East, it's one of the better animeseries I've seen.
It's nice too, with a bit older characters which have a bit more maturity behind them. Saki, who is 21 years old, is a very believable character.
I have to say, episode seven gave me a minor shock though. Who would have predicted the supernatural aspect? - Not me, anyway.
Music:
OP; Oasis - Falling down. It's pretty cool with Oasis as opening music. Nice video too, for that matter.
ED; School Food Punishment - Futuristic Imagination. Well, it was okay...
Soundtrack; Kenji Kawai.
Animation: Excellent! Very special and characterized animation, which I like a lot. It gives personality and feeling to the characters. And the visions and background animation is really neat. They really put detail into it, in some scenes my jaw dropped out of surprise.
Rating: 95/100
Writter and Director: Kenji Kamiyama
Producer: Production I.G
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