Eden of the East

Name(s): Eden of the East / Higashi no Eden / 東のエデン
Director(s): Kenji Kamiyama
Format(s): TV series (11 23-minute episodes)
Genre(s): Mystery / Thriller
Studio(s): Production I.G
Release Date(s): April 9, 2009 – June 18, 2009

This show is more proof we didn’t need that MAL reviews need the ability to use spoiler tags. It’s impossible to discuss Eden of the East in-depth without giving away certain plot reveals (as it is a mystery story) or talking about its themes in relation to the premise which is kept hidden for a long time. Thus in order to even write the most mild review possible I’m going to reveal slightly more than the bare minimum of the premise that’s outlined on the main page. If you want to go in completely blind stop reading this, otherwise I hope you don’t mind spoilers of episodes one through four.

A man who chooses the name Akira Takizawa wakes up in front of the White House naked with no memories and carrying nothing but a peculiar cell phone. He’s discovered by a fellow native Japanese girl named Saki Morimi who is somehow charmed by this guy anyone else would find creepy and insane, and the two team up to find out the mystery behind Takizawa’s past and his weird cell phone.

It turns out that Takizawa is one of twelve people involved in a high-stakes game to “change the world for the better.” Each of these people is given ten billion Yen on their cell phone which they can use to contact a concierge to do anything they wish—for a price. The problem? Not everyone with a Selecao phone has selfless goals in mind, and only one of them can win this game. The losers get assassinated by a mole known as “the Supporter”. Takizawa and friends must race against time to discover the true context of this game and finish it before the other Selecao do something insane.

Eden of the East becomes carried by the potential of its premise with the cell phone game, and early on occasionally explores some of that potential as Takizawa must compete with the other Selecao directly. Because the motivations of the game itself aren’t made clear until the very end it’s these dangerous direct confrontations that give the series all of its thriller aspects and momentum.

The subplots about Takizawa’s memory and the other characters are far less engaging for a few reasons. For starters, it’s easy to suss out most of what Takizawa’s trying to remember faster than the show reveals it, so there are several scenes of characters dwelling on possibilities of stuff we nearly know the answer to. On top of that, the show’s attempts at humor are often bad and out of tone with the thriller scenes (the better ones), and every joke is made at the expense of one of the characters’ personalities which makes it slightly harder to take their plight seriously each time and crosses the already fragile line of this situation being forgivably plausible at all because no one’s taking it seriously like it is.

The Eden of the East Club makes no sense. They started out as a small recycling group that turned into a… something that’s focused on marketing a program called Eden which uses its database to recognize anything in a cell phone picture someone takes. The development on this was supposedly post-poned when a matchmaking feature went awry and this event isn’t given any detail as to why it was necessary to halt Eden, and despite the characters talking like Eden isn’t ready to be unveiled on the world it’s been open access to everyone the entire time to do the same function it always has.

Mikuru Katsuhara is the only member of the group who can code and is never seen doing it, and why this club gets together and what they talk about and what their goal is is a complete mystery despite acting like they have one and becoming important side characters. Kazuomi Hirasawa is an intelligent and charismatic leader who “wants to make a paradise for NEETs” even though as a near graduate who’s extremely capable he wouldn’t believably care about NEETs. He’s doing nothing to further this goal he states and the Eden program is useful specifically for people who leave their house and socialize.

If I was a NEET, I’d be creeped out by the existence of such a program and use it as an excuse to stay inside even more. In fact, with Google, Facebook, etc. selling out information to each other to create permanent profiles on every person on the planet this is pretty much already happening and it is creepy. The Eden Club is doing the devil’s work. Or they’re doing nothing at all. But that doesn’t stop these guys with no backgrounds or convictions from becoming the focus of several scenes that detract from why the show begins so strongly.

The series starts to fall apart a bit towards the end when it becomes focused on slow monologues to droll out plot explanatons rather than creating unique thrilling scenarios like the Selecao competitions where the characters had to continously one-up each other in amusing ways. Again, I’m prevented from going into detail but i found the explanation of Takizawa’s past and the reason for the game to be very flimsy and in need of more detail to justify why everything was done in the overly-contrived way it was, and again this shifting of dramatic tone doesn’t go well with the inherent absurdity of it all (including the characters’ response).

The theme about the obligation of the privileged was a promising one that could’ve given the series some much needed greater meaning and weight, but for once this part of the plot is tossed aside for the grand finale which doesn’t even make sense. How was Takizawa’s plan able to respond in the span of a few seconds, and why wasn’t something so obvious done before with his nearly unlimited resources?

Also, I’m fairly sure it’s never a stated rule that Takizawa can’t tell others about the game he’s playing, and it’s easily verifiable he’s telling the truth simply by using his phone. If he did this it could’ve made room for more of the Selecao competition as it makes the Eden club members go from barely relevant to totally pointless and would make it easy to write out most, if not all, of their drab scenes. The series’s shift from being a thriller that reveals its mysteries at the same time it heightens the tension to an investigation fronted by lame characters about something now obvious to us is its downfall.

Eden of the East’s best quality is a surprising one: its music. This is one of the most consistently quality scores I’ve heard in an anime and deserves as much as outside listening, and the opening theme of Oasis’s “Falling Down” is great and will make you surprised at realizing Oasis had a secret best song no one talks about. The animation and art is very clear and nice, but the budget rarely has to be utilized much. The dub is also flawless, and I recommend it highly as the dialect flows far, far better than the subs paired with my release. Everyone’s voice is how you’d imagine them to sound, and I can’t think of a reason not to go with the dub, unless you’re a purist.

Eden of the East Verdict

Though heavily misguided throughout its run, Eden of the East is an easy and enjoyable watch thanks to its short run and production, and it does just or more than enough to keep you guessing what the next episode has in store. It’s just unfortunate that the many threads it lays down through the show lead to a fairly hollow finish that pronounces itself long before you even reach it. A fun series with some cool ideas, but none particularly substantial in any way through the final results.