Category: Eden of the East

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?

Short Synopsis: Saki and ‘Akira’ arrive in Tokyo.
Episode Rating: 8/10 (Excellent)
Okay, thanks for some of the comments. I think with this I established my blogging schedule for this season (do note that the days are in my timezone, not necessarily at the day they air):
Monday: Shangri-La, Konnichiwa Anne
Tuesday: 07-Ghost
Wednesday: Nada
Thursday: Ristorante Paradiso
Friday: Pandora Hearts, Basquash, Phantom, Eden of the East
Saturday: Nope
Sunday: Valkyria Chronicles, Cross Game, Guin Saga, Full Metal Alchemist – Brotherhood

Based on various comments I received, I realized that there are a lot of people who’d like to see me blog both Valkyria Chronicles and FMA, so I’m probably going to drop Natsu no Arashi instead. While that is one definite underrated series, I’m not that sure about the series right now, and whether it’ll be interesting enough to blog (at least, when compared to some other shows I’m blogging this season).

As for the rest of the shows I’m not going to blog:
– Tears to Tiara… I don’t want to go sit through another Utawarerumono.
– Souten Kouro has the bad luck that it’s about the Three Kingdoms Era. I like history, but I never really liked any of the anime that dealt with that period.
– Hatsukoi Limited, while I’m not 100% sure yet, is probably not going to live up to the standard that Sentimental Journey set for this formula it’s trying to use.

Eden of the East is also one really popular series it seems, but for me it’s just too awesome not to blog. I’m an absolute sucker for mystery, and even though it’s only been building up so far, it’s got me intrigued like no other. There seems this whole back-story behind it, and I’m dying to find out what it is.

The style of storytelling is also really addictive, with a lot of focus on the dialogue between the lead characters. What I really liked in this episode was the bit of time the creators set aside for Akira and Saki to get to know each other a bit. It’s great to have another series that’s about adults rather than the teenagers that usually overcrowd the season, and this Spring Season especially seems to have quite a few series that ignore the brats for what they are and just focus on people aged eighteen or above. And I especially like Saki in this series. She’s a young woman that has her own life and an interesting combination between a bit of an airhead and a headstrong woman who likes to take initiatives and try out different things. I also really like her voice actress.

No series is perfect of course, and the flaws with Eden so far are with the CG. It really stands out at times, especially considering how Production IG usually blends it in so well with the rest of the graphics. Here though, people randomly are cell shaded, CG cars and boats look out of place. It’s a bit of a shame considering the rest of the great animation. It’s very strange, because this series features just about the best staff of Production IG, who also worked on Seirei no Moribito.

So yeah, the budget for this series is clearly lower than it was for Seirei no Moribito, that’s the only explanation I can think of. However, the plot is just as intriguing, if not more. In this episode, we learn the meaning behind the “Noblesse Oblige” that was written on Akira’s phone. Noblesse Oblige basically means the obligation of rich people to take care of the poor. The organization Akira belonged to is called the Celecau, who I guess originally was formed by someone with a lot of money in order to help those in need. Somewhere along the way though, something went wrong and the members started up terrorism. I’m interested to find out why the heck the one who organized everything let everything go out of control this way.

In any case, my entries for this series are probably going to be later than usual, since I’m rather busy on Fridays (both with my studies and other shows that need to be blogged) and the raws usually air too late on Thursday for me. It’s interesting how the subs are already fast enough to be released in that kind of period, though, although I kind of get why speedsubbers are often criticized when watching this episode. Especially the translation notes of Ground Zero were pretty pointless.