Eden of the East – 04



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.

13 thoughts on “Eden of the East – 04

  1. I think taking off the mini-summaries makes sense, but I will say that I really miss the quick number rating. It gave me a good idea of the quality of the episode at a glance and I usually agreed pretty closely with what you rated it. Personally I really think you should keep at least that in each post. Just my two cents.

  2. I miss the ratings too, though it did get a bit confusing as almost everything got between 7 and 8! You should be more harsh on the scoring 🙂

  3. I didn’t get the feeling that Hiura was that extreme, but you’re probably right about the other Selecao being all over the map as far as motives go. Also, with IV and V down, I have to wonder if all the rest are alive or if others have been terminated already. I agree with the feeling of freshness too; when EoE first referenced 9/11, it was a shock for me (in a good way).

    I don’t miss the number ratings, by the way. They didn’t really add anything for me.

  4. Well,if the opening is anything to go by,number 1 would be the supporter as he is the only one who made contact with Hiura among the selecao(the only one as if in Akira’s number was not shown to be connected to Hiura’s either).Of course,the opening should not be relied on to make theories about the anime,its just for fun till the next episode comes out 😛

  5. You should keep the one-word ratings – that provides a measure of how good an episode is and gives you a wide scope of descriptions.

  6. “I’m especially intrigued that nobody aside from Kondou has tried to abuse his money for his personal gain.”

    No, seriously? We’ve only really seen two(!) ‘kindhearted’ Selecao out of the four(!) so far, and there’s eight left. Judging from the descriptions on one or two as of yet unseen characters on the official page, it’s likely we’ll run into a few more Selecao who are using their money for their own agenda.

    And talking about extremeties, given the phone and the kind of power and consequences it brings with it, it shouldn’t be too surprising how the Selecao end up. Hiura was probably one of the more straightforwardly rational ones. And Kondo seems more like an average case really: Someone who was initially pumped to helping the nation but then was disillisioned as time passed. It’s just some of his actions that seem extreme, but in terms of intents and objectives he’s pretty simple.

  7. Meultima: the thing is, that if there were indeed more Selecao who used their money for their personal gain, they would have gotten killed off by now by the supporter (aside from the supporter himself, of course). Sure, I’m not excluding that some of them are bastards, but for them to have survived to this point they must have done something to help save the nation.

  8. psgels: Consider how long Kondo’s been alive. If you read some of his spending history, you’ll notice he’s been trying to rig race track results and such. He’s been off the straight road for awhile. Personally, I think the whole “Supporter Death” thing is highly arbitrary and only really comes into effect when they have not enough money to turn their situation around, i.e. Kondo and his grand balance of seven yen. Of course, that’s conjecture at this point, but so far the Supporter (At least, if he’s the guy in episode one) does seem like the kind of guy who watches things happen for the fun of it, so why bother killing them early?

  9. I’m not yet convinced that number one is indeed the Supporter. For one, it’d be far too obvious, and also if he wanted to have him removed, then why did he go through such great lenghts of having him his memory removed? Kondo indeed had no purpose left in the game, but the doctor in this episode still had a billion yen left on his account if I’m not mistaken.

  10. Hiura ran out of money when he finished his meeting, or at least it was implied. He did say he used his ten billion for the whole project, though it wasn’t all at once. And I don’t think Number One wanted to remove Akira, not yet anyway. In episode one he was chatting with Juiz on how he ‘expected unique results from Number Nine’. At the very least, Akira’s memory loss was shown to be self-inflicted (When he picked up the phone and suddenly became confused from his memory loss). Whether Number One had any role in that decision has yet to be seen, of course.

  11. On the subject of fresh and up-to-date – the Freedom Tower is scheduled to be topped out sometime in…2011, just in time for Saki’s trip to America.

    On the subject of nostalgia – it makes total sense that the only movie Saki can think of to watch in ep 3 is Besson’s The Big Blue…like the divers in that film, she seems to be contemplating taking a deep dive into Akira’s world.

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