I just finished Eden of the East today. It was one of the most obvious choices on Netflix, considering Funimation recently sent me the movie Eden of the East: King of Eden.I will include a summary for wikipeia to accompany my review.

Summary:

On November 22, 2010, ten missiles strike against uninhabited areas of Japan, claiming no victims. This apparent terrorist act is referred to as “Careless Monday” and disregarded by most people. The series begins three months later, with a young Japanese woman named Saki Morimi visiting Washington D.C. as part of her graduation trip. When she gets into trouble, a mysterious Japanese man, who introduces himself as Akira Takizawa, helps her through it. The man appears to have no memory and is completely naked, carrying only a gun and a cell phone charged with ¥8.2 billion in digital money.While they are coming back to Japan, they learn that a new missile has hit their country.

The title of the series comes from the name of a cell phone application developed by several of Saki’s friends, which provides an advanced online image recognition and social networking service. The Eden of the East software can almost immediately recognize and provide details about nearly any object, allowing users to submit images and comments to use as data for future recognition.

Review:

Ok I have to start out by saying, I really do enjoy the story and the characters of Eden of the East. I sorta wished for more development of them, as well as some background.  I enjoyed Saki. Her connection with Akira adds a bit of a shoujo element. The mystery of Akira keeps me interested to figure out what is really going on. The negatives? I think some of the other characters could have been expanded on more. I hope the movies will accomplish this. The other negative, I think this series should have been longer. Not often you see 11 episode series of anime. It could have easily gone on to 12.

The animation and music of Eden of the East, I found to be quite superior. I found myself looking forward to each episode until finally after the last one, I couldn’t believe it was over!  I enjoyed both the opening and ending themes:

Opening theme: “Falling Down” by English rock band Oasis

Ending theme: “futuristic imagination” by Japanese band School Food Punishment

Overall Eden of the East scores a 4/5. I hope the movies will fill in the blanks I still have, as well as reunite me with the characters I sorta grew fond of.