Eden of the East / First Impressions

OP Sequence

OP: 「FALLING DOWN」 by OASIS
Watch the OP! Mirror 1, Mirror 2, Streaming ▼

 

Summary:

Morimi Saki is a girl on her college graduation trip to New York City, but she’s made a detour to Washington D.C. to go see the White House. It’s not quite what she expected, but since she’s there, she decides to try to throw some money into the White House fountain. Her throw falls short though, and it draws the attention of some nearby police officers. To Saki’s surprise, she’s saved by a naked guy holding a gun and a cell phone, and after getting the attention of the officers, he disappears when a truck passes by. The police chase after him, but in actuality, he had just hidden himself. Saki is taken aback by the fact that this guy is naked, but she’s grateful for him saving her, so she gives him her hat, scarf, and coat. The two then go their separate ways, but the guy is unsure of what to do because he doesn’t have any memories of who he is. His cell phone offers no clues other than allowing him to call a special number. On the other end of that number is a female voice who calls herself his concierge Juiz, and she reveals that his memory was erased, but she can’t tell him who he is now. She is able to point him to an apartment building though, so the guy heads there.

Inside, the guy finds a messy apartment with an armoire full of guns, ammunition, and multiple passports with his picture on them. There are also pictures of a ton of naked guys standing together and him waving in front of them. The guy wonders if he’s a terrorist, but his thoughts are interrupted by the arrival of Saki at his door. She had forgotten that her own passport was in her coat jacket, and she managed to chase him all the way here. The guy goes to get her passport for her, and while he’s at it, he chooses to adopt the identity on one of the fake passports. He thus becomes Takizawa Akira, and he gathers his stuff because he’s planning on leaving with Saki. In the hallway outside the apartment, Saki is then approached by a female police officer who’s on the lookout for the two suspicious characters, and she’s got some surveillance photos from earlier. Since Akira is naked in the blurry picture, the officer asks to see his “Johnny,” so he pulls down his pants. This leads to her letting the two of them go, and Akira thinks that it’s because it was cold earlier.

Since Saki has a flight to catch to go back to Japan, Akira decides to go with her, and the two eventually make their way to the airport. Akira is surprised to see that his passport is valid, and he’s able to get a plane ticket with some help from the Japanese embassy. While making their way to the gate, Saki asks Akira what he was doing naked in front of the White House, so he jokes that he’s a terrorist. He goes on to claim that it was actually a game that international students here play, and he then asks about Saki coming to Washington D.C. Saki explains how she’s on her graduation trip and how she really wanted to see the White House due to how she thinks of it as the center of the world. She had wondered if everyone was connected to there, but she realized that this place has nothing to do with them in reality. After joking with each other, Saki finally formally introduces herself, so Akira shows her his passport. From it, Saki realizes that he was born January 7th, 1989, the day after her, and both of them were born right before the changeover to the Heisei period from the Shouwa period. Saki likes Akira more and more, thinking of him even as perhaps her prince, but the mood gets dampened when they see a news report on a nearby TV screen of a missile attack on Tokyo.

ED Sequence

ED: 「futuristic imagination」 by school food punishment
Watch the ED! Mirror 1, Mirror 2, Show Spoiler ▼

If there are any doubts about the production quality of this series, just watch the opening and ending sequences. The opening uses a combination of CG, kinetic typography, and traditional animation and comes off looking really, really cool. The ending meanwhile uses papermation (as opposed to ufotable‘s claymation) to depict what appears to be a missile attack, and it seems to imply that (plot-wise) Akira has the ability to destroy them. As for the actual songs, I admit that I’ve never listened any of OASIS’s music before (not knowingly anyway), and I was pleasantly surprised by FALLING DOWN. I was unsure if an English song by a popular band would fit here, but it does quite well. The ending song is quite catchy too – as good as I remember it from the promo video.

As for the episode, it was very impressive, exceeding even my high expectations. Eden of the East is a ton of fun to watch, has some great characters, and it even manages to be hilarious a few times (the whole penis shrinkage thing and Saki’s reactions). Even the English voice work was done by actual English voice actors, so there weren’t painful segments of Engrish to get through. This being Production I.G, the animation quality was superb as well, especially the background detail, and the characters had a familiar feel to them since they’re designed by mangaka Umino Chika. Akira in particular bears more than a passing resemblance to Honey and Clover‘s Morita Shinobu in both looks and manner, but that’s not a bad thing since he’s a great character (who just happens to be pants-less for most of this episode).

The story is also intriguing, though it’s harder to comment on that since this is only the first episode. They did a good job setting things up though. Akira appears to be originally part of some powerful organization whose motto is “the abuse of greatness is when it disjoins remorse from power” (from Shakespeare‘s Julius Caesar), and I’m sure part of the mystery will be figuring out who he is and what’s going on with the missile attacks. That mysterious man in the car near the beginning is also probably important (he refers to Akira as Number Nine), and there appears to be some overarching east vs. west theme going as well. In short, there’s a lot of promise here, and with only eleven total episodes, I doubt they’re going to waste much time. Even if that is what ends up happening, this first episode makes me want to watch more, and I’m going to keep blogging this as well.

80 Comments

  13. Somehow I got a Casino Royale vibe from the OP. It is also the first anime I’ve seen in a while that has good English voice actors (the last time that happened was with Detective Conan a few years back). From the first scene with the cab driver I was crossing my fingers the English wouldn’t be as bad as that heard in Chrome Shell Regios.

    Tsubasa
    Reply

  25. I like the OP, though I don’t particularly like how I don’t get any idea of what the story might be based on it. Like the animation, but hate the character designs. Not really interesting to me.

    Xailah
    Reply

  26. you know what, i would take any sort of coherent English after having to constantly hear the …… god, i cant even call it Engrish ….. from Chrome shelled Regios. seriously, they made my ears bleed on many an occasion. anyway, this show looks very very good and has an interesting story, interesting characters, great animation, great OP/ED. all in all, i am happy.

    GGear0323
    Reply

  33. It’s like Eagle Eye w/ Bourne Identity (LOL). The missile attack on Tokyo here in the series goes well with the current events (what with North Korea developing missiles that could reach Japan’s coast). I wonder if there is gonna be movie ending? Well, it’s just the first episode and it was very well made.

    kai_y
    Reply

  35. This is the second time (to my knowledge, there might be more) a popular western song has been used in a Noitamina series. The previous one was a song by Franz Ferdinand as ED for Paradise Kiss.

    tokugawa
    Reply

  39. Have to agree with an earlier poster that the opening is pretty but shows nothing about the show other than the character designs, lol@”remorese”.

    Loved the “Ass’n” cab, and the Washington Nationals cap for that little extra detail

    ChaosJJ
    Reply

  47. The production quality is really really high but hey it’s Production I.G.. Now regarding story… their original productions tend to turn either into horrible mind screws or into excellent and original shows. I am hoping for the latter.

    steelman
    Reply

  52. To be perfectly honest I didn’t really know what to expect before I saw the first episode, on one hand it had a great premise etc but still it’s done by Production IG, and their latests works didn’t really amaze me that much (quite teh opposite). What can I say after actually watching it? It BLEW MY MIND.

    A great OP by Oasis (huge fan here), a more cheereful ED (it’s like they complement one another). Add to that the whole 007/spies/Bourne vibe and we get either the biggest disappointement in anime hisory or a top5 on my anime list if done right. Don’t let me down this time Production IG!

    Anyway I didn’t really got around to gathering information about this series, so could anyone tell me is it based on a book/novel (I know there’s a book that goes by the same title, but iirc it has nothing to do with the anime), a game or anything else, or is it an original Production IG idea?

    Zenzen
    Reply

  56. By far my favorite series of this season! Exactly what I was hoping for, the opening and ending sequence was enough to fangirl over a little, let alone how much I am enjoying the story and art itself.

    Thanks for the review Omni! I’m glad this one tickles your fancy as well. ♥

    Pandora
    Reply

  59. Finally I would declare this anime is the best anime ever this year not to mention a there would be a movie as well after the TV series ends.

    Anime of the Year award 2009 goes to Akira. (Now I know why Gundam00 Movie would happen in 2010 and not 2009.

    Maybe this is one of Morita Shinobu’s odd job whenever he left Japan lol.

    Ending makes me relieve Honey and Clover opening again.

    arigatou
    Reply

  60. ^ I don’t think its practical to judge an anime with such feat by just watching one or two episodes. Such evaluation should be done after an anime has been declared finished.

    Kabayongtao
    Reply

  61. I’m really hyped about this anime. It’s not everyday that you get to watch an anime about themes like these AND with decent english usage. Btw, i’m intrigued about one thing though – “Juiz” means indeed “Judge” in Portuguese, and also in the opening, in this screencap https://randomc.net/image/Eden%20of%20the%20East/Eden%20of%20the%20East%20-%20OP%20-%20Large%2005.jpg you can see “SELECAO” (if it were correctly written it would be SELEÇÃO) which means “selection”. This is probabily one of the very few anime where i’ve seen the portuguese language being used (Apart from Chrno Crusade in which the main theme is the 3 little sheppards and the aparition of Fatima), and if i was already hyped about this, now i’m much much more (eheh i’m portuguese). It was also a pretty good surprise to see that the opening song was Falling down by Oasis, i knew i recognized that music from somewhere. Can’t wait to watch more! This won’t disappoint me like Honey&Clover did, for sure (my opinion, don’t flame me please).

    Murasaki Ayame
    Reply

  63. Oh men the guy above is right, Akira isn`t the main character (well i think) is his JHONNY he is the suposed “selecao” and will own the world mwhahahahaha …… oh well my imagination……… BTW just waiting the next week because this was awesome i want to know more about this “morita pantless wannabe” thanks omni for the review

    Null_x
    Reply

  65. thi is a very awesome anime & I truely recommened to all

    Also the opening song is quite a surprise & a first for an OASIS track to be in it, but they’ve done a pretty good job at it, & its cool

    SilentmanX
    Reply

  67. The whole “am i a terrorist” part is kinda like Jason Bourne. I love the OP, maybe because I am an Oasis fan. The first episode definitely drew me in the series. i can’t wait for more.

    V6
    Reply

  77. think i agrees with kabayongtao on saying that it’s still too early to be too exited about the show. We all remember how we felt when the 7th episode of Macross Frontier aired.

    well, at least it has the potential to become the second ghost in the shell phenomenon.

    horace
    Reply

  79. OP is nice but seems so MTV-ish, as opposed to Anime-ish. This is the only series that I am genuinely interested in (not a big fan of the art style though).

    But I might try watching V.Chronicles…

    Cas
    Reply

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