Eden of the East
The mystery genre has always been very compelling and exciting when it comes to anime. However, for some people, it is somewhat stale and boring. Eden of the East is one such anime that incorporates the elements of mystery as well as action. Despite having only 11 episodes, Eden of the East tells a rather elaborate story with a reasonably big cast. It does not include any elements of the previous mystery anime that are too cliche. Everything in this anime is strange, and nothing like we have previously come across.
Today, we shall be reviewing Eden of the East and discuss the strong and weak points. Let’s find out if Eden of the East is worth watching or not!
The story opens in 2010. Japan was constantly getting hit by missiles on November 10, 2010. However, fortunately enough, the rockets did not harm anyone. The day was named “Careless Monday” and was soon forgotten. After that incident, everything went back to normal, and people started living their lives normally.
Three months pass, and we are shown Saki Morimi, who is a friendly college student. Akira Takizawa saves her during her graduation trip to America. Takizawa is weird. He suffers from Amnesia and believes that he is a terrorist. On top of that, he finds himself possessing a cellphone with 8.2 billion yen.
Saki still befriends Takizawa despite his mysterious and shady nature. However, she has no idea where this would lead her to. She gets involved in a death game that consists of a lot of money. Now, Saki and Takizawa must work together to avoid death and the salvation of the world. Will they be able to do it, though?
The premise and plot certainly feel promising and compelling. However, after the first episode, everything turns to nothing, and the interesting aspects just disappear. The story stops building, and there’s nothing to be excited about. The ending was a bit interesting, but it was still not worthy of being called a phenomenal climax.
The series is also full of plotholes. For example, there’s this one specific scene where a character gets wings and just flies away. It is never explained why that particular character got wings and where he flew away to. This never happens during the anime, and it’s probably the only supernatural scene that we get to witness in Eden of the East.
Another problem with the story of Eden of the East is that it keeps adding more and more different elements into the series. When we get to the end of the series, we’re confused as to what the central theme of the anime was. There were even some elements of “Magic” that confused us so much because they shouldn’t be there in this series. Eden of the East is supposedly funny. However, we couldn’t make ourselves laugh after Akira’s display of nudity. There's no comedy at all. The forced funny scenes do not come under the category of Comedy.
Overall, the story of Eden of the East was a huge disappointment. The series had so much potential to be a great mystery anime, but the poor execution of the story destroyed everything. It definitely left a bad taste in my mouth.
Takizawa is our main character who seems very interesting at first. He also stands out from the rest because of his charming personality. Takizawa seems like he would be a great protagonist. However, to our surprise, he feels constant and static throughout the series. This guy had so much potential to be one of the best protagonists of all time. However, the opportunity is wasted because of the failure of his character development.
Saki is the female lead who also seems to have a great personality at first. But just like Takizawa, we don’t see any kind of character development with her. She ends up being a very basic female character, only serving the part of being Takizawa’s love interest. She’s literally serving no other purpose.
So, the characters are also not very impressive. Because of their staticness, their relationship also did not progress much, and it was very disappointing.
The animation is probably the most substantial aspect of Eden of the East. It is pretty, clean, and very smooth. The quality of the animation is also consistent throughout the series. The backgrounds look beautiful, and some of them even look like they have been painted. Overall, the animation is outstanding, and we have no complaints about it!
The music suits the anime’s theme well as it gives an “Americanish” vibe, giving us the whole wordly feel, which is good because the anime is like that. However, it also retains some of the Japanese elements.
The opening is in English and is sung by a band named Oasis. It’s pretty good and also very catching. On the other hand, the ending is similar but in Japanese. These songs are replayed during the anime, and they fire us up right away, which is absolutely amazing. The background music is also excellent and suits the scenes well. Overall, we liked the music for Eden of the East!
Even though Eden of the East is not a timeless masterpiece or nowhere near such an anime series that will blow your mind, it is still pretty enjoyable. If you’re into complex stories, then you should give Eden of the East a try!
