Eden of the East <\/span><\/i>is the story of <\/span>Akira Takizawa, a young amnesiac man who appears butt naked outside of the White House with only a gun and a cellphone to his name. There he encounters a recent university graduate, Saki Morimi, and the two form an odd friendship as they return to Japan. Soon, Akira discovers that using his phone, he not only has access to 8.2 billion yen (73.5 million dollars) but can also contact the mysterious Juiz–a concierge who can seemingly do anything for a price. Of course, for this money and power, there is a catch–Akira must use what he has to save Japan or he will be killed.<\/span><\/p>\n Worse yet, there are 11 other people, the \u201c<\/span>Sele\u00e7\u00e3o<\/span>,\u201d with access to Juiz and their own 10 billion yen fortune. Each of these people has their own ideas about how to best \u201csave\u201d Japan with the power they wield and aren\u2019t afraid to kill to do so–even if they are another <\/span>Sele\u00e7\u00e3o<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n The majority of the story is spent either following Akira as he matches wits against the other Sele\u00e7\u00e3o or is spent trying to uncover who Akira is–i.e., why he has the cellphone and money and why he chose to erase his own memories. The stakes get even higher when it starts to look like he is responsible for both the deaths of 20,000 Japanese NEETS and missile attacks across Japan.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n But while at times exciting, that\u2019s not the point of the anime–not really. Rather its an anime about the failures of modern Japanese society.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Of the Sele\u00e7\u00e3o we see in the anime, each tries to save Japan from a different one of these failures. <\/span>Kondo, as a police detective, has used his cash to kill many in the <\/span>criminal underbelly of society<\/span><\/a>–though the actual impact is fleeting. Dr. Hiura has used his cash to combat the<\/span> aging population problem<\/span><\/a> by building a self-sustaining hospital to provide care to the abandoned elderly. Shiratori, a CEO with plenty of money all her own, dismembers (pun intended) and kills rapists who have gotten away with their crimes–using Juiz only for cleanup and disposal of the bodies. And finally, there are the group who seek to return the country <\/span>to prosperity<\/span><\/a> by resetting it to how it was after World War II and building things up from there.<\/span><\/p>\n However, the story as a whole is focused on one major societal issue Japan is facing–<\/span>NEETs<\/span><\/a>. NEET stands for \u201cNot in Education, Employment, or Training\u201d and refers to the large percentage of unemployed Millennials. With the collapse of the bubble economy in Japan, the perception of lifetime employment–appearing to the new generation as nothing but joining a company and working long hours for little pay. Unable or unwilling to transition from school life to corporate life, many young people choose a new path. Some simply freeload off their parents. Others work half the year doing part-time jobs and the other half the year living off what they made.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Eden of the East<\/span><\/i> is interested in the potential of this new lost generation and the unique challenges they face. This is seen through Akira himself–especially the Akira before he erased his own memory. When he saw the incoming missile attacks, he organized the NEETs to step up and save lives–evacuating the areas in question and providing relief to the displaced. He saw their need to be useful and respected by society and gave them a chance to shine.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n However, what he didn\u2019t count on is the Millennial\u2019s reliance on the internet–that often, they take the opinion of the last thing they read–which turned his army for good against him. Unable to let them go free and thwart his attempts to stop the ones trying to \u201csave\u201d the nation through violence, he instead used a fifth of his money to move and house them abroad–all 20,000 of them. The depression at being betrayed by the generation he worked so hard to redeem in the eyes of society, drove him to wipe his memories clean and start anew, unburdened.<\/span><\/p>\n What\u2019s interesting is that, while many of the NEETs he deported simply languished, wanting nothing more than to return to their aimless internet-surfing lives, some managed to work hard and return to Japan on their own–made better for the experience.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n And in the end, as angry as the remaining kidnapped NEETs are, Akira is able to play the bad guy and use them as a brain trust to avert a terror attack of unheard of proportions.<\/span><\/p>\n However, while the ending is full of hope, it also presents some odd messages. The first is that letting the NEETs democratically vote on the best way to stop 60 missiles–the same NEETs that believe the last thing they read online–seems to be a recipe for disaster. While it is supposed to showcase their potential when focused on a common goal, the show itself has already deemed them highly unreliable due to their betrayal of Akira–making it seem like everyone survived thanks to luck more than anything else. Then again, when posed with the question \u201chow do we stop 60 Tomahawk missiles from destroying Japan?\u201d is there really any option other than \u201clet the army handle it?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Then we have Akira\u2019s final command to Juiz–one that he\u2019s allowed her to use all his money for if needed–make him \u201cKing\u201d of Japan. Now, while we\u2019ve seen that Akira is a competent, charismatic individual who might actually be able to save Japan if he had absolute power, the subtext is troubling. It can be read that the anime is advocating that only a totalitarian dictatorship can save Japan from itself and its current, modern-day problems. That\u2019s a \u201cbold\u201d stance to be sure and I am interested to see how it plays out in the sequel films.<\/span><\/p>\n Another problem with <\/span>Eden of the East<\/span><\/i> is the unexplained nature of Juiz\u2019s power. Early on, it\u2019s implied that using the Sele\u00e7\u00e3o\u2019s money and her own connections, Juiz is basically able to bribe her way to getting any request completed. Requesting to be let through customs unchecked? Sure. Need a passing cop to snipe some criminals? No problem? Want to make the Prime Minister of Japan cry for mercy during a public hearing? Easy (and it only costs 60 yen!).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n However, some of the requests she grants seem only explainable by supernatural means. How, within seconds of getting the request, do you jackknife a semi on a nearly empty highway with no outside intervention? How do you gain the power to levitate a person, grow angel wings, break a window with psychic powers, and fly away on those wings while carrying a body? The phone calls it a series of magic tricks, but these would have all had to be set up in mere minutes–an obvious impossibility. It shatters the suspension of disbelief so much I felt I had to assume that Juiz was simply an all-powerful god messing with humans for her own amusement regardless of her supposed nature as an \u201cAI.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The other major downside of the anime is that it seems to expect you to forget its original hook by the end of the show. While Akira\u2019s memory wipe is adequately explained, no explanation is given as to why Akira was left standing naked with a gun in front of the White House. If you were seeking to let yourself start over with a clean slate, why start yourself in a place where you are all but certain to be arrested?<\/span><\/p>\n In the end, <\/span>Eden of the East<\/span><\/i> is a mixed bag, to say the least. The central idea–i.e., \u201cif you have a ton of money and infinite connections can Japan be saved from itself?\u201d–is an interesting one to explore. It\u2019s got good mysteries, believable stakes, and likable characters. It\u2019s also good at pointing out and pontificating about many of the serious societal problems Japan faces in the modern era.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n However, it is in the details and implications that the anime stumbles. Its own world-building conflicts with common sense and the morals it espouses are perhaps not the ones it intends to. This results in an anime that makes a try for greatness but ends up being simply okay when all things are settled.<\/span><\/p>\n Eden of the East <\/span><\/i>can be watched on <\/span>Crunchyroll<\/span><\/a> and <\/span>Funimation<\/span><\/a>,<\/span><\/p>\n Top image copyright: \u00a9 EDEN OF THE EAST Licensed by FUNimation\u00ae Productions, Ltd.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/biggestinjapan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/eden_of_the_east_466_1024.jpg?resize=1024%2C768\")
<\/p>\n
\n