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Apr 11 2009

Categories: eden of the east, episodic review
Tagged: eden of the east

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The spiritual successor to Inukami.

Kidding. Eden of the East is this season’s most intriguing series… it’s the only one from an original concept for anime and without a visual novel, rpg, basketball, light novel, or manga as the source material. So, at the very least, your snobby anime blogging friends can’t spoil HUGHES DIES it for MIO MEIDO you. Beyond that, it’s written and directed by Kenji Kamiyama, who basically revived the Ghost in the Shell franchise with Stand Alone Complex and was responsible for 2007’s #2, Guardian of the Sacred Spirits. So you know there’s going to be conspiracy theories topped on more conspiracy theories, just like K-On! and it’s treatment of the sinister global instrument industrial complex. There also might be huge episode-long monologues with technobabble, but with this setting, seems less likely. I can’t picture Saki going into a detailed rundown of the menu at Taco Bell let alone an international terrorist plot.

Since Kamiyama is involved, Eden of the East brings out Production IG’s A team, one of the few entities capable of challenging Kyoto for production quality, and, so far, Eden of the East does not disappoint. It combines great animation with lots of characters moving on screen and a decent frame rate with the hyper realism backgrounds that were used in Someday’s Dreamers Summer Skies. I enjoyed their depiction of DC… though they needed an Obama reference to really nail things home. They also hired English speakers to voice the English parts, and, surprisingly, there’s no Japanese subtitles. And, yes, I was surprised when the OP came on…. and I was like… “Wait… this can’t be Oasis, can it?” And it was! Though I was more shocked to hear Mariah Carey for You’re Under Arrest.

Beyond that, the first episode is the classic boy meets girl scenario and without the subtle hints (okay not that subtle), we’d mistake this show for a harem action comedy like Tayutama or a moe war drama like Valkyria Chronicles. Well, what are these “subtle” hints? For one, the main male character, Taki, has his memory wiped and is introduced to us nakkid while waving a pistol in front of the White House. Definitely an attention getter. He runs into the main female character, Saki, there. She’s definitely in the deer-caught-in-the-headlights mode.

Taki is interesting since even though he’s memoryless, he’s got a lot of confidence in himself, and he is a very fast thinking– I mean, here’s a guy who used the fact that his penis shrunk in the cold to his advantage. In other words, he has the exact opposite mental capability as K-On!‘s Yui. Clearly, he’s a man to be reckoned with. The series will obviously revolve around him, but how? Why? If the first episode’s job is to suck us in for more, I’d say Eden of the East is doing a good job.

What is less clear is Saki’s role. She’s the random frumpy girl who bumps into Taki, and she’s pretty much the exact opposite of him in terms of mental agility (Yui with red hair). Throwing any objects at the White House is definitely not a smart move. Yet, because of the random events in the first episode, she’s now connected to Taki, and how will she affect him and be involved in the plot?

Other hints include there’s a sinister organization using the same cell phone that Taki has, and it all has a distinct 24 feel to it. Honestly, any cell phone with a spinning logo that’s ripped off from the Laughing Man logo has to be evil, right?

Taki also has a terrorist stash in his apartment, and he makes one Jason Bourne (good) reference and one Taxi Driver (bad) reference to punctuate his situation. Taxi Driver came out 33 years ago, so what are the chances a supposed twenty year old Japanese kid who lost his memories has seen it let alone remember it? He can’t remember who he is, but he can remember De Niro in Taxi Driver? Bull shit. I’ll believe Marina is useful before this one. And Taxi Driver wasn’t even about terrorists.

(If he’s going to make movie references, Taki should have gone with Eagle Eye. Or at least 24.)

Alright, you got me intrigued, and I can’t wait to see how the plot progresses. Just, please, no more 70s movie references. I thought my 80s ones were already dated enough.