Review for Eden of the East: The King of Eden (Review)

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Introduction
Has it been half a year already? The end of 2010 saw the UK release of Kenji Kamiyama's peerless Eden of the East anime series, 11 episodes of animated event television, a social satire, cyberpunk mystery that was conceivably the anime release of the year. It began when a young woman, Saki Morimi, prior to entering the workplace, took time to visit the US with her college friends. Ditching them, she scooted off to Washington DC to make a wish at the White House fountain. She was rescued from the attentions of Homeland Security by a naked amnesiac holding a gun and a phone, and so began a remarkable adventure. The naked amnesiac turned out to be one Akira Takizawa, a participant in an unbelievable game. The phone links him to a concierge named Juiz, and a balance of 10 billion yen. As long as there is enough money in the account, whatever he wishes for will be enacted by Juiz. The point of the game is to save Japan from its downward spiral. Losing the game, running out of money would be terminal. Of course Takizawa knows none of this at first, and with Saki's help he starts about piecing together his past, and learning about the game. One thing he does learn is that someone named Mr Outside is responsible for his situation, and it becomes a priority for him to find this clandestine manipulator. He also learns that there are eleven other players in the game, and not everyone is playing nice. Some people believe that to save Japan, they need to destroy it and rebuild from the ground up. The end of the series became a race against time to save the country, but it wasn't without cost. Akira Takizawa made one final wish to Juiz…

I love that series, it has a concept that is gripping, but in execution, with its wonderfully defined characters and engaging storytelling transcends anime to become unmissable television full stop. The initial idea was to tell the story in two television series, but after the first series, Kenji Kamiyama decided instead to conclude the story with two theatrical features instead. I have been waiting on tenterhooks for these ever since I saw the cliffhanger at the end of the series, and at last, the first feature The King of Eden is here. The conclusion of the story, Paradise Lost will be released nearer the end of 2011.

It's been six months since the events of the second 'Careless Monday', when Japan was targeted once more by some sixty missiles, and Akira Takizawa and 20,000 naked social dropouts somehow managed to save the day, with the help of the Eden of the East website. Being so prominent in the public eye was no way to win the Selecao game, which is why Takizawa made two wishes of Juiz, to make him the king of Japan, and to once again erase his memory. All he left Saki with was a cryptic message, that he will again meet her where their original journey began. Since then, the popularity of the Eden of the East website has skyrocketed, and Saki and her NEET friends are now fully-fledged businessmen. The image of the mysterious figure, pointing at the missiles and determining their destruction has circulated the world, and Takizawa has become a popular hero known as the Air King. But the failed attack on Japan has sent its stock in the world plummeting, and the nation is in the depths of another recession.

All this time, Saki has been trying to find Takizawa again, and she finally manages to track him down to New York. He's Akira Iinuma now, and has no memory of his brief existence as Takizawa, but once again, he and Saki are drawn together by circumstance and events. For the Selecao game is in full swing again, the future of Japan is still to be decided, and the other players have decided to use Saki and Akira to do so. There's one player who still thinks that the best way to save Japan is to destroy it and start over, another wants to set Akira up as a patsy to take the blame for Japan's situation, while there is a new player on the scene, who wants to assassinate Akira and get it on film, presenting the Japanese people with the death of their newest folk hero.

Picture
Eden of the East: The King of Eden gets a solid 1.78:1 widescreen transfer to this Blu-ray disc. The image is clear and colourful throughout, bringing the animation across without any issue. The character designs are unaltered from the television series, while the world design also maintains the series' high quality. That would be my one brief, and pointless nitpick about the movie, that in terms of quality it matches the television series, not exceeds it. There is an overall softness to the image that you wouldn't expect in a dedicated feature film, detail levels are concurrent with the television series, although higher on Blu-ray than on DVD and disappointingly there were some issues like colour banding, and aliasing and shimmer around fine detail that I wouldn't have expected from Blu-ray. It's much less prevalent than it would be on DVD, but it is there.

The images in the review are sourced from the PR material, and aren't necessarily representative of the Blu-ray disc.

Sound
The Blu-ray disc gets Dolby TrueHD 5.1 Japanese and English soundtracks, with optional English subtitles and a signs only track. With a lot of Japanese text courtesy of computer monitors and mobile phone screens, you're going to need the signs, and probably be quick off the mark on the pause button as well, as Funimation try to overlay the signs on the text, resulting in some odd angles and aspects to the writing. In comparison with the DVD of the series, the surround here is richer and more vibrant, bringing the action across well. There is a greater level of discrete audio placement here, and the movie has had an upgrade in audio, if not the visuals. I opted as always for the original language track, but the English dub is no small potatoes either, with the cast living up to the high standard set by their Japanese counterparts. Kenji Kawai provides the music, and it's very much a contemporary and even conventional music style that accompanies the film, as opposed to the more avant-garde and adventurous music styles that I usually associate him with.

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