Eden of the East / First Impressions

Summary:

In a hotel somewhere in Tokyo, a woman wakes up and realizes that there’s a dead body in the bathroom. Since she is a Selecao, she calls up Juiz and arranges to have it taken care of as elegantly as possible. Akira meanwhile is reflecting on the game he’s involved in and is frustrated at the mysterious Mr. Outside. By chance, he’s recognized on the street by a guy that he doesn’t know, and this guy yells at Akira for everything that he’s experienced in the past two months. He’s got a grudge against Akira for leaving them in the desert, causing them to go through a lot of hardships, but when he realizes that Akira doesn’t have his memories anymore, he lets it all go. The guy reveals that he’s actually getting married the next month, and although he doesn’t understand why Akira sent them to Dubai, he attributes his social rehabilitation to it.

Over at the bakery, Saki is helping out before she has to go to her interview, and her sister’s husband has baked cookies that look like her. He tells her that she doesn’t have to push herself and that they’ll take care of her until she finds what she really wants to do, but Saki doesn’t want to trouble them though, and she finds his kindness to be painful. On the train, Saki runs into Oosugi, and the two talk about their friend Hirasawa who has ambitions to start his own company. In particular, Oosugi worries about Hirasawa’s seeming unwillingness to becoming a normal member of society. He also asks Saki out to eat later, and Saki agrees. By this point, Akira has returned home and is on the phone with Juiz about the mission to save Japan and what he can do. Juiz misinterprets one of Akira’s examples and makes the Japanese prime minister say gyafun in front of the legislature on live television.

Akira then notices the message he got from Saki and realizes that he never read it. He writes Saki a response apologizing and asking to see her, but she doesn’t answer him because of her interview. Not knowing this, Akira decides that he should go apologize to her personally, so he has Juiz track down where she is. In the interview, Saki gets asked about her opinion on the missile terrorism, and she gives a safe answer about how the presence of victims made her sympathetic. The interviewer, however, wanted to hear a more honest opinion and ends the interview early. He seems to invite her to lunch in the company cafeteria, but Saki waits there and no one shows up. Eventually, someone accidentally spills gyuudon on her, so Saki has to go to the restroom to clean up. While in one of the stalls, she overhears two office ladies talking about her not being able to take a hint and how the gyuudon was intentional.

Saki is thus feeling down as she leaves the building, and to her surprise, Akira is waiting outside for her. Akira notices that Saki is trying to fight back tears, and he gets her to leave with him. The motorcycle with the two of them on it passes by Oosugi right as he’s arriving to meet Saki. Though it’s raining later, Saki and Akira go out on the boardwalk, and Saki talks about how things didn’t go as smoothly as she had hoped after she missed the first interview and about her frustrations with how she was treated. To add to this, she feels that she can’t go home anymore even though she loves her sister, her niece, and especially Ryousuke. Akira surprises Saki by kissing her in response to all this, and he offers to take on all the burdens. He feels that he now understands what he can do, and she doesn’t have to work or do anything.

Unbeknownst to Saki, Oosugi is eating and drinking his blues away with underclassman Kasuga Haruo. Afterward, he stumbles around in the rain alone while feeling sick and yelling out his frustrations, unaware that a certain woman is approaching him.

Preview

I have to say that, as much as I liked the timing of Akira’s appearance, the kiss, and him trying to make Saki feel better, I felt kind of sorry for Oosugi. It has to suck to be rejected like that, and to make matters worse, he appears to be the next target of the killer lady Shiratori. I wouldn’t be surprised if he turned up dead next episode, though I guess her appearance at the end could just as easily be a red herring. Either way, it makes for a nice cliffhanger and potential story path that could add a connection between the Selecao and Saki sides of the story. Speaking of Selecao, this guy is likely the same mysterious man from episode 1 (they’re wearing the same ring), and as Selecao No. 1 – someone’s who’s not on the character list on the official website – it seems likely that he’s the Supporter and/or even Mr. Outside.

It was also interesting to see that Akira didn’t kill all those NEETs and instead sent them to Dubai. The fact that that one guy was rehabilitated because of the experience makes me wonder if the director and writers are making a point that a little hardship will do the trick for the real-life NEET problem. In fact, they seemed to focus a lot this episode about the younger generation and becoming a member of society, and the series overall has been looking at Japan’s problems a lot more than I expected. In any case, next week’s episode title is the title of the series, and I find that a little odd because something like that is usually reserved for finales. It makes me wonder if something big is going to happen.

51 Comments

  3. Great episode with more great work from Hayami Saori. I think the title of ep6 is the name of the college recycling club that all the friends are part of: “Eden of the East.” And from the preview, it looks as if we see more with the members next week.

    hashi
    Reply

  7. Yes! I knew there would be be a kiss in this eventually. It got me by suprise though. When I saw it, I wasn’t even paying attention, but when my eye caught it I was like:
    -__- O.O 🙂

    Zeke Asch Wilder
    Reply

  10. Osugi as the show’s designated Butt Monkey then eh?. I love that shot in the preview pictures with everyone making the same facefault. Are we going to get a Selecao agent who actually lasts longer than an episode and a half this time?

    Crossword
    Reply

  11. This is got to be the best show on right now!!! (excluding the exccessively popular FMA and Naruto)

    And is definately my favourite this season!!! (followed by S.Basara V.Chronicles etc…)

    Also i know its a really sad and obvious thing to say but i already want one of those phones where can i get one ? 😛 (but seriously they started making them to cash in yet?

    WingZerozxt
    Reply

  15. Ah, a kiss, alreadyyy. We all knew it was comin’ – it totally love at first sight for Saki. ~_^ I kinda liked assuming Akira was much more ”evil”/different prior to the memory wipe; killing all those NEETs. Good ‘ol Dubai.

    Meery
    Reply

  17. The eleventh Selecao is a dominatrix? What the hell?

    Anyway, this seems like a funny episode in a somewhat morbid manner, as we have why bondage is a rather dumb fetish, twenty thousand naked people dumped in a desert, Juiz making the Japanese prime minister say something that I assume is offensive, and Osugi getting screwed over.

    Nothing like a cheap laugh at the expense of others.

    Crossword
    Reply

  20. Great looking episode. Akira and Saki sure did kiss rather quickly! Though since it’s supposed to take place over the time of eleven days… I suppose it would make sense.

    If I were to use my “Anime Character Lifespan” senses, I’d sense that Akira may not make it through the entire series, and this saddens me. D: I say that because of the opening narration sounds like Saki is telling about the entire story and what she’s gone through, and I dunno if Akira would be there based on how she’s talking.

    Oh well! I won’t worry about that for now. We are still only halfway there!

    Akiyama
    Reply

  30. Did anyone find that bit after their kiss a bit strange? I’m referring to the part where he makes mention to a “Johnny” and how you have to limit your own irresponsibility when it comes to being given 10 billion yen to use. It felt like he was making an internal monologue almost / having a second personality speak, but it could be the subs I’m using – GG subs, and maybe I’m just not getting things 🙂

    Can anyone please shed some light on this?

    Mr. Bushido
    Reply

  31. @Mr. Bushido
    Might be possible that he remembered something/someone who is Johnny or associated to him.

    Btw, did anyone find this interesting, that making the Prime Minister say “Uncle” and charging only 60yen, would imply that Juiz has very close connections to the Prime Minister cause it costs so little to make him say something that stupid? That would obviously imply that Mr.Outside also has big connections to the Japanese government.

    Placinta
    Reply

  32. @ Placinta

    Yeah, I agree, I think it’s likely he remembered something.

    Apparently, Uncle is a homophone for “You got me”, so it wasn’t something that had to be prepared.

    Quote:
    he said “gyafun”, which is like “you got me”.

    It’s a common Japanese line, “I want to make him say ‘gyafun'”, when you want to have that person admit defeat, or say you win in general.
    When he said this to Juiz, she took it LITERALLY and made the PM say “gyafun”.

    I can guess it would be a translation nightmare.

    Mr. Bushido
    Reply

  36. Anyone else realize the blue-haired selecao cut off the man’s pen0r in the first scene and probably ate it? Her taste for human horn is supported in the following scene where she lines up all the male models. The footage focuses on the extra rare steak shes having and the blood that spills out as she carves and gobbles it down. I couldn’t help but cringe when she approached Oosugi at the end thinking he’s next on her menu.

    https://randomc.net/image/Eden%20of%20the%20East/Eden%20of%20the%20East%20-%2005%20-%20Large%2017.jpg

    pooper
    Reply

  37. Thanks for all your hardwork Omni, but please stop spoiling the episode with the pictures on the front page 🙂

    I want to read your comments AFTER i watch the episode myself 🙂

    rinrin
    Reply

  40. Awwww~ Akira & Saki’s scene was so sweet~ <
    And omg I feel so sorry for Ousugi-kun, cause damn that must’ve HURT D: And poor guy, his life is about to get even worse from the looks of the it..

    Rin
    Reply

  41. Love the kiss scene! not to mention the beautiful setting of the boardwalk really complimented the scene itself XD By the way, I wonder if there really are such mean people in companies who would do that to newcomers…cause that was just cruel o_o Too bad not much was revealed this episode but i’m looking forward to Akira’s possible encounter with that killer woman

    karuki
    Reply

  43. So it’s pretty much confirmed by now that Akira’s plan for “saving Japan” had to do with reintegrating NEETs into society? This ties in well with the themes of the personal experiences Saki and her friends are having. I’m interested to hear where the memory loss fits into all this. Maybe Akira undertook it to make it easier for him to relate to people who are unable to integrate with society because he’d have to go through the same process in figuring out who he is.

    Meh
    Reply

  50. Oh, and the lavender haired-woman is the Supporter. She’s going to incite Oosugi to attack Akira – presumably the way she arranged it for Kondou’s wife to attack him.

    happy_chip
    Reply

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