Eden of the East – Ehhhh – [Eps 1 - 7]
I honestly can’t decide on this series and judging by the reaction of parts of the ‘sphere and their Twittering, I’m not alone. Certain schools of thought currently best describe my nonchalance. To summarise: it’s objectively good, but . . . eh. Something feels like it’s there, pulling me along to follow each episode, but I can’t work out if that’s genuine interest or fear that without it I’d be watching nothing of this current season.
Eden of the East is a solid effort, or has been for the past seven episodes. Its ideas are interesting, the set up is mature and the characters… actually, this is my biggest problem. I honestly don’t care about Akira, quirky, carefree amnesiac, or Saki, quivering docile anime girl, or any of the bland supporting cast. I particularly don’t care about Saki, in fact. Her bizarre sense of duty towards her sister’s husband confuses me, it seeming to be a sort of misplaced paternal respect or weirder still, inappropriate feelings. Her unrelenting wetness (no, perverts, not like that) drives me mad and I wish with every episode she didn’t exist. She stumbles around in that knocked-kneed squealing way anime is so fond of depicting its female characters in and adds nothing to the proceedings. Of course, apart from some hackneyed prince fantasy, which I suppose is meant to add romantic depth but instead only adds depth to my contempt for her fatuous existence. She’s like Yamada only tedious and shit.
All this from Kenji Kamiyama. Kenji ‘one of the adults’ Kamiyama, a man born nineteen years and a day before me and a reliably thoughtful, interesting director. It feels like he’s watched Honey & Clover, decided it was pretty cool and attempted to apply his love for sociology and hard sci-fi onto its contemporary-Japanese-kids-falling-in-love template. It fails horribly in that respect: Saki and Akira’s fledgling relationship doesn’t feel like anything more than the obvious, ‘save you from this bland, dissatisfying life’ situation its meant to be. There’s no substance there, no hint of chemistry that would spark a relationship between these two characters. Maybe Poor-Mans Morita likes the idea of being the prince to Faux-Hagu and his interest stems from that kind of saviour complex, but that isn’t interesting nor is it convincing. Eden of the East seems pretty keen on verisimilitude – particularly in regards to its characters who occupy real places and reference things/events that give firm nods to reality – and this obviously affects the expectations of the audience. Our suspension of disbelief adjusts and our tolerance for whimsy declines. It takes a certain shrewdness to juggle so many contrasting genre elements together and make them work. Kamiyama, who struggles with characterisation at the best of times and isn’t known for his flights of fancy, can’t seem to pull it off. The sci-fi is solid, and the social commentary is interesting but everything else, which is a much bigger piece of the pie, is mediocre at best. The end result just feels rather stale and difficult to warm to.
But then it’s important to remember we’re only half way through and Eden of the East still has many intriguing, honestly decent aspects to it. The plot has a lot of potential, though it’s difficult to imagine them fitting in the suggested formula of one Selecao per episode. I suppose it’s obvious now that Kamiyama doesn’t intend to play it that way, which makes the remaining four episodes a rather interesting prospect. I can probably bear the tepid love story if the broader pay-off is worth it. Either way, Eden of the East has a class that makes it very easy to stick around and find out.
May 29th, 20098:18 am at
I think this is why I was sort of afraid of continuing Eden (btw I stopped watching more after episode one). It was a hunch. Technically there wasn’t much ‘flaws’ per se, but there was no real connection between me and the characters (despite how adorable the girl was). And there were lot of talk about religion and symbolic meanings in blogosphere (that seemed pretty far-fetched tbh), which kinda turned me off. Then there is this issue of suspension of belief I’ve been hearing about…in any case, I’m glad other series I’ve stuck with (cross game and ristorante) are still going strong. That’s the kind of characterisation and direction I truly appreciate.
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May 29th, 20091:51 pm at
Although to me, this is the best show of the season, and a great watch every week, I know what you mean. To me, Kamiyama is always a little distant to his characters in some way. However, the chemistry between the leads may be hard to grasp because it is not boringly normal. Each of them has their own direction to travel, and the romantic development is very much in the background. Like most couples, they are using each other in some way, as well as just wanting to be together. And the Death Note-like complex situation is a shounen element that makes a difficult fit with shoujo romantic emotions. Of course, that is also what makes the show interesting.
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May 29th, 20093:06 pm at
Different people have different buttons, or weaknesses, whatever–shows like Cross Game and Ristorante, for example, are very heavy handed and it comes off way too sentimental for some. The whole nonchalant, Teflon prince Johnny thing on the other hand might seem hard to relate to for others. Maybe there’s some middle ground, but at the same time I think there’s so much going for Eden that they don’t need to go to the middle. I rather like that they didn’t!
I don’t really think characterization is a weak point to the show; they’ve gone out of their way to make the focus of the show on what is happening and in that sense it is very unlike Honey and Clover; I’m not sure just how much they have taken from H&C, contrary to the post’s claim.
And what’s up with the inappropriate feelings? I think that adds to the realism actually.
If I had to fault anything, though, it would be in the planning and direction. The show doesn’t do a great job keeping you engrossed in the mystery because it tries to give depth to all of its characters, it tries to tell a story about the lives of NEET-freeters-peopleabouttograduate-goodfornothings-etc. It’s a part of the theme of the show, but they definitely could have done better.
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May 29th, 20097:50 pm at
I think I was first attracted to the show by that slickness (or classiness) which keeps you watching, but personally I didn’t find it to be enough to overcome the sense that it had peaked with episode 1′s silliness. I suppose it’s not possible to figure out whether a show which raises the odd mildly interesting idea is actually going to go anywhere with them by the end, but the subsequent episodes I watched didn’t really convince me that there was any sort of progression of ideas – at the same time as being unsatisfactory as character drama and as mystery. So, yeah, I’d agree that the writer seems to have reached for something broad and come up short. I dunno if you watched Rideback, but to me this felt somewhat like Rideback in sensible shoes.
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May 30th, 200912:08 am at
Sounds like you’ve never been loved by a Johnny :(
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May 30th, 20095:26 pm at
@gaguri:
I think Eden of the East will benefit from a marathon. The film may also help flesh things out (assuming it’s not a shitty summary film as is the fashion with anime), I dunno. If we were at this stage in a 26 episode series I wouldn’t be so pessimistic – there’d be plenty more time for character development etc – but we’re already two thirds in and it feels like it’s going nowhere.
@hashi:
It’s definitely the best show of the season, and I don’t mean that in a sarcastic ‘best of a bad bunch’ way, either. It just deserves to be criticised properly rather than blindly praised. People are getting carried away with its contemporary, filmic style that’s quite unique for an anime. If the hype brigade had a lot of experience with the pop culture the show itself constantly references they’d see that it’s got a fair few problems tied up in with its successes.
@omo:
No, Eden is distinctly middle-ground when it comes to its characterisation. It gives clear indications of the type of relationships between its characters and leaves their development in a bland, lazy stasis. I don’t have a problem with subtly or melodrama – either extreme is great when done well – but Eden just seems so disinterested that it’s bizarre to suggest either apply to it. If the plot actually moved at a decent pace I wouldn’t mind so much, but as it stands the pacing is a bit of a mess, too. It might fit together well after it finishes and we can marathon it. As a weekly piece of entertainment, not so much.
@coburn:
Yeah, exactly. It’s difficult to even grasp the tone of the show. It has moments of reality but then goes off on total flights of fancy that seem contrived and hokey. Honey & Clover did exactly the same thing but nailed it every single time because it was consistent and imaginative. Eden just fumbles around in territory its producers obviously have little flare for.
@Baka-Raptor:
Oh man, if only you knew.
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May 30th, 20095:40 pm at
I think that might be you problem right there–Eden is not a character driven show. The relationships between the characters are not going to change besides the one between Takizawa and Saki. In that sense, there’s nothing “middle ground” about it. On the other hand, something like H&C is 100% about the characters and their relationships.
And likewise, I’m not sure how the characters will change besides their token, turning-over-a-new-leaf way that’s typical in most shorter stories. I think your attitude towards the show is justified but ultimately misguided.
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May 30th, 20095:51 pm at
@omo:
I understand that it’s not a character driven show and I’m down with that entirely. It just doesn’t seem to be all that plot driven, either. Like I say, the pacing is terrible and it can’t seem to decide on what it wants to be in terms of theme or tone. When it does actually focus then it becomes really promising. It just can’t seem to concentrate on anything particular to be a satisfying experience.
I admit criticising characterisation in a plot-driven show is misguided, but I’m failing to see what exactly drives Eden of the East at the moment.
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May 31st, 200911:43 am at
I’ve been getting mixed feelings on this show recently too. I have to say it improves a little with the eighth episode – as in, there’s a character introduced who’s more interesting than any we’ve met so far and Saki starts to finally act her age – but there are one or two aspects that detract from the numerous things the show gets right. Kinda like the way Xam’d fell short of ‘excellent’ and landed in ‘very good’ territory because of some incidentals like under-used supporting characters and so forth. In this case I’m finding the humour to work well in some scenes but misplaced in others, for instance.
I have to say I’ve no idea where the H&C comparisons are coming from though, beyond the Chika Umino-derived character designs. Honestly, I utterly fail to see why so many people have made an issue out of it if the link is as tenuous as that: Micchon’s VA worked on both but that’s all I’ve managed to glean from ANN’s staff listings.
Things are improving with ep #8 but I’m having trouble deciding on whether to approach this from the POV of a political thriller or a lighthearted romance story – my guess is that it’s trying to do both (a tall order for any director, it has to be said) but falling into the vast no-mans-land between the two.
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May 31st, 200912:00 pm at
@Martin:
The comparisons to H&C are much subtler than the character design or voice acting. For me it feels like Kamiyama is chasing after the ‘vibe’ H&C had, aping (poorly) its sense of fun and trying to tap into the way it dealt with romance (again quite poorly). The similarities aren’t glaring but when it seems so obvious that the director is taking H&C as a point of reference (even their EDs is stylistically similar) it makes folk inclined to compare. And I’m on their side: the comparisons may seem difficult to make because Kamiyama just isn’t doing a very good job at capturing H&C’s magic. :/ It’s not the be-all-end-all of the series but it’s distracting when people try to imitate things and miss the mark.
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June 2nd, 20098:31 pm at
[...] Add in the amazing animation quality and great soundtrack that Higashi no Eden brings to the table, along with lots of facepalm inducing randomness and a bit of romance on the side, and this series is really is a complete package that has something to appeal to everyone. Or almost anyone, at least. For some reason that I can’t fathom this series has been met with a fair amount of criticism and meh from people I would’ve expected to enjoy it. [...]