Eden Of The East [DVD]

It takes a while, but when you get beneath the surface of what appears to be a typical anime/manga approaching-the-apocalypse situation, there are some interesting and more modern themes tackled in Eden of the East that have a rather more urgent contemporary feel than the usual preoccupation with post-war trauma and questions of national identity.

What appears initially to be a post-apocalyptic event - the series set soon after Careless Monday, when an unexplained missile strike took out large sections of downtown Tokyo and targeted five other major cities - soon turns out to be only the tip of the iceberg. Finding himself naked in Washington DC, with his memory wiped, Akira Takizawa gradually discovers that he is part of some elaborate and dangerous game, one of twelve ordinary Japanese citizens selected by a mysterious organisation to be a Seleção, armed with a special phone and access to ten billion yen, charged with coming up with a solution to the crisis facing Japan, and given free-rein to interpret this aim and spend the money in whatever way they see fit.

The subject of a selected group of powerful individuals who have the power to either save the world from a looming apocalypse or themselves bring it about is a fairly common anime subject, but Eden of the East is paced rather differently from such series and appears to have other aims than just the usual build-up to an epic grand-scale destruction of the planet. At the heart of the story is the fate of young disenfranchised Japanese people and their struggle against the conservative and traditional ruling establishment that holds them back from realising their true potential in a modern globalised world, represented here not only by Saki and her friends who are developing a revolutionary computer programme, but by the existence and the role of NEETs or Shut-ins, young men who have dropped out of conventional society in favour of a locked-room, computer-oriented existence.

It's a little unsettling and confusing that Eden of the East doesn't follow the usual anime template however, and it isn't until quite late in the series that its purpose becomes clear. Each episode doesn't exactly leave you eager for what happens next and the tone is difficult to judge, with several bizarre episodes being based around a castrating 'johnny-hunter' set to an incongruous soundtrack of poppy Japanese music. It definitely gains momentum however, and it's a series that works best when considered as a whole rather than on individual episodes. Having said that, while technically the whole 11-part series is included here, the resolution is left to be completed by a couple of feature-length episodes. One hopes they will follow soon.

Technically, the series is presented well in the UK by Manga Entertainment on DVD, looking and sounding great in its 16:9 widescreen transfer and Japanese and English Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtracks. Subtitles are small and yellow and are not dubtitles. There are two subtitle tracks, one that translates everything, the other just on-screen captions if you want to listen to the English dub. The on-screen captions admirably try to capture all on-screen text, but can clutter the screen and be almost unreadable when translating phone txt messages. Extras include a TV Spot, Promotional video, interviews with the director and character designer, and an interview with the main Japanese voice actors.

While on a holiday in America, Saki Morimi encounters a naked man in front of the White House with no memory and holding a gun and a phone. Saki and the man, Akira Takizawa, then return to Japan where Akira plans to find out who he is, why he has a phone that can get anything done and how he is involved with a number of strange occurrences such as a missile attack on Japan and the disappearance of twenty thousand people.

This two disc set includes all eleven episodes of the `Eden of the East' anime and I must say that it is probably one of the best series that I have seen in a while. The plot is complicated but very interesting with some very nice developments as the series continues and includes some nice humour here and there as well. The English dub is good and the characters are all interesting and likable.

If the series has a problem it is that the mixture of CGI and traditional animation doesn't really gel in places and the ending leaves some things still hanging but these are minor problems and the general quality of the plot itself more than makes up for them.

As well as this series there are also apparently a number of `Eden of the East' movies which I hope will be released in the near future as this series is truly excellent.

Eden Of The East is, without a doubt, one of my favourite animes. It's thrilling, creative and appealing to even my dad who isn't an anime fan. It's references to American Blockbusters such as Bourne Identity made him chuckle. My seller was Amazon itself and I'm not surprised to say it came to me in great condition (wrapped too). The second disc's picture was a bit unnerving to my dad, causing him to say this - "What's this? ... Isn't she cold?" - truely a LOL moment for me even though I despise the word (or abbreviation, whatever it is. It's really a word now.) Moving on. My only problem I found was the yellow subtitles. I don't mean to nitpick but they were a little distracting. Also, trying to learn Japanese, I would of liked the option to turn off the subtitles but still have the Japanese audio but unfortunatly it's either English or Japanese with subtitles. Overall, I'd say the series itself was fantastic and open to even those who don't have an intrest in anime. They could have spent more time with the subtitles but otherwise, as a whole I'd say the menu and video quality was of very high standard.