Eden of The East the Movie I: The King of Eden

After hearing mixed reviews I wasn't sure what to expect from The King of Eden. I'm a huge fan of the first season and was really eager to see the continuation of the storyline. Story The story essentially picks up from where the first season left off. Takizawa has gone missing and the Eden members are trying to locate him. There are a few storylines intertwined as well as new Selecao revealed and old favourites returning. I found it was steadily paced, developing the characters further and setting up what I would expect to be an action packed finale. One of thestorylines involving a new selecao felt a little out of place, offering comic relief at times when the movie had been trying to build suspense and intrigue. Other people have criticised the lack of action in the King of Eden. I don't really have any problems with it though. The first season had action packed episodes as well as slower plot building episodes. The movie is perhaps more of the latter, however I'm eagerly looking forward to Paradise Lost! Art The art is great. It's crisp, vibrant and very detailed. Exactly what you'd expect from Production IG. Theres alot of cool details and found myself pausing from time to time to read the selecao cell phone logs and take in a lot of the subtle details (cult movie posters etc). Sound Once again the sound it great, the voice work is top notch and the soundtrack complements the story without being too overpowering. I still find it amusing when an American character speaks English and Japanese character responds in Japanese, yet the seem to understand each other perfectly. As far as the opening and ending goes, the new LEAH opening is enjoyable enough but didnt have the same kind of resonance that Falling Down had. I was glad to see School Food Punishment performing the ending theme once again though. Overall An enjoyable expansion to the Eden of the East universe. It feels as though the movie is more of a setup for the third movie, lacking a little in action but a must watch for Eden of the East fans. 8/10

Unique and likable characters, a plot that utilizes its relative sluggishness well, suspense, and excellent animation made Eden of the East a very enjoyable series, but unfortunately was let down by the fact that it only had 11 episodes, which combined with a slow plot meant that the ending was incomplete. However, the slow plot didn’t feel pondering nor did it incite in me a desire to have it move faster, since the advancement of the story and development of the plot and characters was utilized to the fullest extent. Things were revealed slowly but the story kept moving forward- not a momentwas wasted, making it disappointing that more episodes weren’t earmarked. Now, the logical thing to do for the movies in this case would be to pick up where the series left off and then continue on from there, since with only 82 minutes to utilize, time is of the essence. Sadly, however, the producers decide to stall the plot’s movement with a seemingly unnecessary use of amnesia and a splitting of the main characters. There is also a time skip used in this case, which while short, is more than enough to waste valuable time in explaining what occurred in the few months between the series and the movie and also to get the main characters back together again. The intertwining of plotlines of several minor characters plus two main plotlines in separate locations was successfully utilized in the series, and is utilized well here as well. However, getting the 2 main plotlines to converge in the series and then splitting it again before the movie is extremely unnecessary since it hinders progress of the story. As a result, by the end of the movie, the two separate plotlines are still in the process of reconverging. The characters’ personalities and chemistry was a high point in the series, but unfortunately was tapered and diluted here due to the split plotlines, amnesia, and time skip. That’s not to say they’re terrible, but the quality and impact that they had in the series is much less noticeable here in the movie. This is not as bad for the secondary characters, however, since they maintain more of their distinctiveness and helps soften the disappointment. The lack of time also doesn’t do much to introduce new characters, and as a result, there are several Selecao whose identities are still unknown and others who have died with only a hint of an explanation. As a result, despite containing art that’s as good as the series, the first Eden of the East movie as a whole falls short of my expectations. The high standards of character chemistry and suspense that were set in the series weren’t met in the movie, and the utilization of time in combination with the slow plot led to constant longings for the story to progress faster and either build up to a climax, expand on its depth, or start on its conclusion. It does move forward and doesn’t come across as horrid, but there was so much more that could have been done in those 82 minutes, the equivalent of nearly 4 episodes of a series. The movie, at most, accomplished the plot development of at most 2 episodes. Here’s hoping that the second movie will be able to bring the series to a close.

Please watch Higashi no Eden (Eden of the East) before watching this movie. I loved Higashi no Eden, but everything went downhill from there. King of Eden is such a disappointment. Since the prequel ended with a big cliffhanger, I felt the need to watch this movie. “What’s going on?” That question popped up periodically throughout the entire movie. There is no logical explanation for the prequel’s ending or the new plot. Before the majority of the questions are analyzed, there are even more questions thrown out near the end of this movie. Since there is only one more movie left for the series, it’s impossible notto think how everything will be interpreted in less than 1.5 hours. Apparently, Takizawa now holds the role of the successor to the King of Japan, and everyone knows about his right to the throne but him. The entire story about Takizawa’s life as a Seleção has to be repeated, since he erased his memory and created a new alias again for some unknown reason. It is bad enough that no one can easily predict the reasons behind Takizawa’s actions, but it’s even worse when he can’t even answer for himself. The primary objective of the series is misled. The whole game with the Seleção is ruined, and it gave me no hope for a good ending. The game has rules that brings excitement to the entire series, and it makes you anxious to discover how a winner will be determined. There is no thrill to the game anymore, since some of the rules are disregarded. It literally takes the fun out of the whole anime. There are signs of love and compassion like in the prequel, but there is not a passionate love story that most people would expect. Nothing sucks more than when the person you love doesn’t remember who you are. Poor Saki. However, Takizawa does consider her feelings prior to erasing his memory by leaving her a message that only they can understand. Saki goes against all odds to find Takizawa and help him regain his memory once again. Despite the fact that Takizawa has no memory of her, he shows her compassion. However, it is the same kind of compassion that you would show any kind or beautiful stranger. Based upon Takizawa’s considerate personality, Saki is not a special case. He’d do the same for any girl. There are the same naïve portions of the story. As in the Higashi no Eden series, the setting takes place post-9/11 and guns are brought into the U.S. as if people just magically go past airport security. There is no law enforcement present, and the American characters didn’t show enough fear or concern at the sight of the firearms. Thanks to Eden of the East’s miraculous technology, some things were clarified about the status of Seleção and the game in general. By receiving updates from the Seleçãos’ activity logs, they were able to predict their next moves and the level of danger from their intentions. The Eden team, especially Panties, made this anime a little easier. Admittedly, they didn’t understand much about the logic behind Takizawa’s present position either. Overall, I was highly disappointed and really confused. There was little to no romance. Stories were repeated for the sake of a character. The objective of the anime is ruined because of misled rules of the game. Basically, I see no hope in a cool ending.

Higashi no Eden, the series, was original, fun, and even interesting. The series really started to gain momentum as time passed on, and by the end I was very interested in what would happen next. Sadly, this movie was a let down. The original series definitely had some issues -- poorly done CGI effects, awful English (and I'm not even talking about the dub), and strange art decisions (Saki's eyes, for instance). All those things remain, but now they have taken away what made the original good. Higashi no Eden redeemed itself in it's interesting characterization and a plot that was pretty captivating, when it wascomprehensible. The movie drops all of that. Instead it focuses on the Eden of the East employees watching Saki run around trying to deal with memory-erased Takizawa all over again. As if we didn't have enough of that. Most of Takizawa's charm is lost when he loses his memory and he just doesn't act quite the same anymore. Plus, the nagging fact that he doesn't even remember anything that went on during the series (from the selecao plot to Saki to, well, anything) makes the whole thing feel like you're playing catch up. And that leads to the next point. The plot. It's quite bad. Which is impressive because it's almost nonexistent. For some reason the writers thought it would be a good idea to introduce a time skip since the series ended, but then go ahead and do flashbacks/summary of what went on in those 6 months. So... what was the point of doing a time skip at all? Finally, once you get past all the re-cap stuff, the plot basically amounts to Takizawa remembering a little bit of his life, going on a wild goose chase, and then realizing the dire situation they are in. Then the movie ends. Yep, they finally set up the plot to move forward and then the movie ends. Oh dear, oh wow. I have to click the little rating buttons above to score "plot", and the score of "2" is "dreadful." I'd have to say that's pretty accurate. Overall, this movie was not enjoyable. The series definitely had some interesting aspects, but the movie did not capture any of them. Standing alone it may be the most pointless thing in the Higashi no Eden universe that ever happened. 90% of it could have not been shown, and we wouldn't have missed much. The other 10% was just setup for the next movie which is pretty ridiculous. I can only hope the next movie is better.