Review for Eden Of The East (2 Discs)

Introduction

Have you ever found yourself doing wrong, and unable to stop yourself? It happens to me all the time, usually with packets of chocolate chip cookies, and tubes of sour cream and onion flavoured reconstituted potato solids. But eighteen months ago, I was glued to my Internet connection in a way you wouldn't believe. Fansubs are wrong, fansubs are evil, and every time a fansub is watched, a puppy is kicked into orbit. Of course, with anime, fansubs are usually the only way to find out what the next big thing is. But still, it's the principle that counts, and what you really should do once you know you have the next big thing, is to stop streaming/downloading and wait patiently for a company to licence it, and be first in the queue when it comes to release day. But Kenji Kamiyama, the genius behind Moribito and Stand Alone Complex had made the next big thing, Eden of the East. I watched the first episode and I was hooked, and for eleven weeks I was there, sat in front of my laptop, the same way that the nation used to come to a halt for the latest mini-series like Roots or Shogun once upon a time. I did the usual maths, six months to a year for a company to notice and licence it for the US, a similar length of time to dub it and release it, and a year thereafter before it might just be licensed for the UK. But here we are, just 18 months later and we have the DVD and Blu-ray release in the UK, and only a month behind the US release. Times have changed for the better, and I might as well have just waited.


It was Funimation who got the licence for Eden of the East in the US, and following their new strategy; they have given Blu-ray purchasers a little extra for their money. As the UK usually follows the US release when it comes to the Blu-ray, those extra extras are available here too, although I'm reviewing the DVD release only. DVD purchasers aren't left out though. As usual, the DVD transfer comes via Madman in Australia (who sort the PAL conversions), and Madman have a new strategy of their own, native PAL transfers. But with all the silver lining, there has to be a cloud somewhere.

Careless Monday was a bizarre day in the history of Japan. Some unnamed terrorist launched ten missiles at Tokyo, resulting in significant property damage, yet claiming not one life. It quickly became a humorous event, latched onto by the disaffected members of society as a portent of something momentous yet to come, although nothing did, and the motive behind the attack remains obscured. At the same time there was the mysterious disappearance of thousands of NEETs, those Not in Education, Employment or Training, also unexplained.


The next year, college graduate Saki Morimi is celebrating her graduation with a trip to the US with her friends. But she ditches them for a side-trip to Washington DC, as she wants to see the centre of the world. She also has a daft idea about tossing a coin into the White House fountain. It's an act that would have got her intimately acquainted with the Department of Homeland Security, were it not for the appearance of an even bigger threat, a naked amnesiac Japanese guy holding a gun and a mobile phone. Security momentarily hoodwinked, Saki has a brief moment of solidarity with her fellow countryman, and lends him her coat to preserve his modesty. They go their separate ways, until Saki realises that her passport is still in her coat.

The guy having ditched the gun tries the phone, only to get through to a rather useful voice. He may not know who he is, but Juiz obviously does, at least she knows enough to direct him to his apartment. It's a run-down dive in Washington that holds more questions than answers. It looks at first glance as if he is a terrorist, what with all the weaponry and explosives within, but then it may be that he is a spy, given all the passports and IDs that he finds. He picks a likely looking one, Akira Takizawa as his identity, which is when there is a knock on the door. It's Saki, looking for her passport. But not far behind are the police, looking for a couple of terrorist suspects who raised a stink at the White House. The two will have to work together to get back to Japan safely, and it's a good thing that Akira still has his wits, even if he hasn't got his memory.


For there are far greater questions to be answered… Who erased his memories and why? What's with the hi-tech looking phone, and the voice on the other end, Juiz, who keeps imploring him to work towards being a saviour? Why does everything he asks Juiz for get done almost instantly? Why does he have over 8 billion Yen stored on the phone that pays for these whims? Who are the twelve Selecao, who is the Supporter, and just what crazy game has Akira got himself into?

Manga Entertainment presents the eleven episodes of Eden of the East across two discs.

Disc 1

01. I Picked Up A Prince
02. Melancholy Monday
03. On The Night Of The Late Show
04. Real Reality, Fabricated Reality
05. This Is No Time To Be Thinking About That…
06. Eden Of The East

Disc 2

07. Flight Of The Black Swan
08. Searching For The Path Already Lost
09. A Man Too Ephemeral
10. Who Killed Akira Takizawa?
11. The East That Continues On

Picture

As mentioned, Eden of the East gets a 1.78:1 anamorphic transfer, which just happens to be a native PAL conversion. I'm seeing it more and more often on DVDs that use Australian Region 4 masters from Madman Entertainment, and it's a welcome, and long overdue development. It means that the show makes use of the full, 625 line resolution, is exceptionally clear and well defined, and lacks any of the softness, ghosting, or judder associated with an NTSC-PAL standards conversion. It also means that the programme gets the 4% speedup required of a PAL transfer, and these DVDs will be a smidge shorter in runtime than the Blu-rays as a result. It isn't perfect though, as I did notice about three blended frames during playback. Then again, three blended frames in a higher definition PAL transfer, as opposed to a couple of discs full of blended frames in a soft and hazy standards conversion is a minuscule nit to pick.


The transfer is a double joy, as Eden of the East is such an exceptional show when it comes to the animation. It's a high quality, big budget production, with a lot happening on-screen at all times. As usual for modern anime, it's a blending of traditional 2D and 3D CG, but you'd be hard pressed to find the seams. The character designs are quirky and individual, tending more towards the realistic, but having a stylised charm of their own, with simplistic but expressive facial characteristics. It's also a show that makes uses of exaggerated expressions more typical of anime comedies for some of the character moments, but as Eden of the East is so atypical an anime, free of any of the tropes or clichés of other shows, that such sudden transformations actually suit the tone of the show in a rather different way. In terms of detail, world design, and the thought gone into every aspect of the animation, Eden of the East excels at creating and conveying a very intriguing world, and you often forget that you are watching an animation.

Sound

About the cloud to that silver lining… If you didn't know any better, and put on 10 out of 11 of these episodes and pressed play, you'd be treated to an opening song, 'Michael and Belial' composed by Kenji Kawai and performed by Saori Hayami. It's a nice enough song, fits in well with the opening sequence, and has a tinge of angst and gloom mixed with optimism that reflects the mood of the show. But if you did know better, you'd know that this is the alternate opening theme, and that the original opening theme is 'Falling Down' by Oasis. And it's an awesome opening song, perfectly matched to the opening animation, and it's almost as if the song was composed directly for this story, rather than licensed from an album. It's probably the best opening anime theme in many a year, so much so that it actually got some anime fans out buying Oasis albums.


The trouble lies in US copyright law, which when it comes to music, and has so often been demonstrated in shows like Quantum Leap and Dark Skies on DVD, has apparently been written by capitalist lawyers with the sole aim of maximising profit even at the expense of an artistic creation's integrity and original intent. Funimation claimed it as something of a coup that they managed to retain the original opening theme, even if it was just for episode one. I call it rubbing salt in the wound. Of course copyright law in the UK isn't as daft as that in the US yet, but there would have been the cost of re-authoring the discs, which would have amounted to the same thing. This is normally where I would put a link to a Youtube video of the opening theme, but experience has taught me that those videos get taken down every few weeks because of said copyright laws. Just type Eden of the East OP into Youtube's search engine and you'll find something.


As for audio on these discs, we get DD 5.1 Japanese and English soundtracks, with optional English subtitles and a signs only track. With a lot of Japanese text courtesy of computer monitors and mobile phone screens, you're going to need the signs, and probably be quick off the mark on the pause button as well, as Funimation try to overlay the signs on the text, resulting in some odd angles and aspects to the writing. The surround sound is very welcome on the Japanese track, which as usual was my audio track of choice. Usually we're stuck with stereo, but a show of this calibre deserves the best possible presentation. And there is a lot of action and ambience to make use of the surround sound. The English dub is no small potatoes either, with the cast living up to the high standard set by their Japanese counterparts. Kenji Kawai provides the music, and it's very much a contemporary and even conventional music style that accompanies the series, as opposed to the more avant-garde and adventurous music styles that I usually associate him with.

I noticed an odd moment 35:20 into disc 1; where the background noise of a river momentarily interfered with the dialogue in both audio tracks, but it's another tiny nitpick.

Extras

Eden of the East's two discs get static menus and a jacket picture when the discs aren't spinning.

The extras are all on disc 2, including a 30-second TV spot, and a 2-minute promo video.

More substantial is the 22-minute long interview with director Kenji Kamiyama, and character designer Chica Umino. It's actually the two of them having a chat about working on the series, and how they work together, as well as the visual genesis of some of the characters. It's a little odd in that Chica Umino remains obscured by a cuddly toy for the duration, opting to maintain a degree of anonymity through the interview.

The 19-minute interview with voice actors Ryouhei Kimura and Saori Hayami features no such surrealism, and is more of a light-hearted chat with the actors as they talk about the show and their characters.


The US DVD also had the textless closing, but this UK release doesn't. Normally that would be a small thing, but Eden of the East's closing sequence is a wonder of stop motion animation, all done in paper, cut-outs and origami, wonderfully entrancing, and I would love to see it without the credits text overlaid.

Given that Manga source their Blu-ray masters from Funimation, as opposed to Madman's masters for the DVDs, you'll probably get to see the textless credits on the Blu-ray release. Blu-ray purchasers will most likely also get an interview with directors Kamiyama and Oshii, an interview with art director Takeda, and an interview with composer Kenji Kawaii, all in addition to the DVD extras.

Conclusion

The current vogue in television drama is The Concept, what I call event television. It's where the creators come up with a left field, maybe bizarre, and totally out-there idea, and build a TV series around it. It has begat shows like 24, Lost, Jericho, Heroes, FlashForward and most recently, and appropriately, The Event. It's all about having one big, central mystery that unfolds over the season, or seasons, and the rest of the airtime is filled with character flashbacks and soap opera. And once a series gains in popularity, the creators have to stretch things out to fill extra years of programming, and usually turn what started off as an entertaining bit of fluff, into an interminable torture, where you wind up begging, pleading for them to end it all and tell you what the hell is going on. Even Doctor Who has been invaded by this story-telling style, with season long build-ups to evil menaces, with cryptic clues dropped over its runtime to tantalise and annoy.


Eden of the East is event television, but in anime form. It's one big mystery, spinning of countless other enigmas and puzzles, and it's why I was so hooked when I first watched it last year, and why I was even more hooked this time around with the DVDs. The big difference is that Eden of the East has a set number of episodes to tell its story, it doesn't have to stretch things to fill up extra seasons, there's no pointless character filler, and there's no soap opera, and no last minute twists to further tantalise and confuse, just because the writers need something to keep the momentum going. Eden of the East is a show where you wind up complaining that it was too short, not tearing your hair out at its interminability. As such, it is the best story of its type that I have seen, tense, suspenseful, and edge of the seat entertaining. It's a brilliant piece of work, drawing in all manner of genres to create something very unique. It's a cyber-punk, near-future thriller, a plausible bit of sci-fi, it has social commentary, political insight, it's witty, smart and funny, and it has a very engaging romance. This is quite possibly the best thing that director Kenji Kamiyama has created, and this is the man who gave us the incomparable Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, and the breathtaking Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit. So go and buy this anime now. No seriously, stop reading, head off to your local or online DVD emporia, and purchase a copy, and watch it of course.


Because the trouble with event television is SPOILERS. You only have to say the wrong thing and the whole series can be ruined, and much as I want to talk about Eden of the East in more detail, I know that just one wrong word and I could ruin it for everyone. So even though I'll try to be circumspect, expect some discussion of plot details and character arcs from this point onwards. It's notable that Eden of the East premiered on the noitaminA block of Japanese television programming. It's that project to bring anime to the masses, away from the established fan niches and genre aficionados. It's no surprise that despite adhering to some of the conventions (specifically the short cut character distortions to indicate extreme emotions), Eden of the East in every meaningful respect is unlike any other anime. It's free of cliché, stereotype and the expected tropes. This isn't a show where the male and female protagonists circle endlessly around each other, always awkward and fumbling. Saki and Akira's relationship develops from the moment that they first meet outside the White House, and does so in a very realistic and believable way, even given that Akira was naked, holding a gun and a phone at the time.


For an event show, that's one hell of a start to the story, and one that injects the right note of levity into the paranoia and suspense that so typifies the show's tone. A guy in front of the White House, naked, with a gun and a phone, and no memories, that's tantalising enough, but it's when he tries using the phone that the mystery deepens. There is a voice on the other end named Juiz, who acts as some sort of guide cum genie of the lamp for him, granting whatever he wishes for. Closer examination reveals that the phone holds a substantial amount of money, money which buys these wishes, and from Juiz' constant refrain of 'please continue being a saviour', it becomes apparent that Akira has some obligation to fulfil in exchange for having this hi-tech 4G power. So not only must he and Saki try and find out who he is, he needs to know who he was, and what he did to merit such a fantastic piece of technology.


They head back to a Japan that offers some hint as to why, as the country is in the grip of a downturn, where the rich establishment continue to squeeze the little people, and where more and more disaffected youth opt to become NEETs, choosing neither to work or train to work. It's a country that is recovering from some bizarre terrorist attack, where ten missiles caused massive destruction, but miraculously took not one single life. Except that changes as they return to find the aftermath of an eleventh missile strike. There is an ominous pall, combined with a general unease and disaffection that accompanies Akira's search for his past, and as Saki helps him, it causes suspicion among her friends too. She's part of a group that formed in college called Eden of the East, a bunch of NEETs that want to affect their own revolution and get away from the establishment. They've created a miraculous visual search engine that they would love to market. Akira is the guy with the billions on his phone, so it would seem like an ideal match, but Akira's mysterious past, and the group's mistrust doesn't help.


At the same time it becomes clear that Akira isn't alone in his spendthrift dilemma. There are others out there with phones similar to his, although not all of them were naked amnesiacs. It turns out that this amazing power has been gifted to all sorts, not just well meaning types like Akira. Crooked cops, philanthropist doctors, sociopaths, murderers, corrupt politicos all have phones, and are all pursuing their own agendas. It turns out that they are playing a game, and Akira doesn't even know the rules. That's about all that I am willing to say. Eden of the East has an engrossing, amazing story that simply has to be experienced. What I've mentioned is really just the set-up. It keeps getting better, the more Akira uncovers about his past, all leading to a jaw-dropping climax to the story.


Which turns out to be a cliffhanger. Originally the intention was that Eden of the East would get a second series to wrap things up, but instead Kenji Kamiyama opted to make two theatrical features instead, The King of Eden and Paradise Lost. So once again the interminable wait begins, as my desperation to see how the story concludes increases to a fever pitch. And this time I have restrained myself from the online option, as I would like to see the film on as big a screen as I can. Fortunately, Funimation have announced the release of Eden of the East: The King of Eden for Spring 2011. If there is any justice in the world, this series will sell like hot cakes, and Manga won't be too far behind with the movies. Noblesse oblige Manga Entertainment, may you continue being this anime fan's saviour!