I bought 東のエデン (Eden of the East) on blu-ray last year (or was it two years ago). I can’t remember whether it was an impulse buy at HMV or because it had the ‘from the people who brought you GITS'[1] tag. I saw like the first three episodes and left it on the backburner, like really left it. Busy with life and all that. Heh.

I picked up where I left off last week and I have to say it was one of the best piece of work I’ve seen in a long time. The story is set in present day/slightly near future Japan about a girl named Morimi Saki who bumped into Takizawa Akira, a young chap who had lost his memory but was allegedly connected to a major terrorist event in Tokyo called ‘Careless Monday’. The subsequent episodes contained further revelations on Takizawa and the other 11 like him, unwitting selected (the 12 are called Seleção) to participate in a game in which a winner is proclaimed if Japan is ‘saved’ (whatever that meant remained somewhat ambiguous). The snag was once there was a winner, the other 11 will be terminated. There were also other rules which could lead to termination (like spending all of the 10 billion yen credited to their spending budget before ‘saving’ Japan).

I thought the story was clever – it had intrigue in the vein of Bourne, and topics relevant to current day human behaviour following the advent of mobile technology and social media. There is a follow up to the 11 episodes which comprises two films – King of Eden which I saw last night, and Paradise Lost, which should conclude the whole story. Looking forward to that.

Oh, thanks to this anime, I am now hooked on school food punishment. Pity these guys have disbanded.

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[1]The anime was written and directed by Kamiyama Kenji who did Jin-Roh and Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex.