^^ Epic Screencap “BANG!” ^^

Rating: 9.1/10

This is the type of series I’ve been waiting for. I’m not going to say it has been perfect, but within the last few episodes I couldn’t think of it as anything less than amazing. The ending can technically stand alone and be satisfying, but luckily we are given news of two new movies to be released. The ending had the whole conclusive atmosphere to it, but with what happened it evidently was a bit of an opened-ender. I’m not quite sure I really like the whole idea of what happened, but I don’t plan on pre-judging the movie before I see it.

Well before I start saying why this series was so awesome, I’ll start by the few negative comments I have. Primarily, my little issue is how this series wasn’t able to pull off arcs very well. When you have 11 episodes and what…12 Selecaos? I don’t really think it made much sense to focus 3 episodes on one selecao who cut off peoples’ johnnies. And on the mention of johnnies (haha!), it was a long running gag throughout the series and it didn’t bother me that much, but I think it may have been just a bit too weird for me and at times I thought even a little unnecessary. Though, it never passed a line of being annoying, more along the lines of just weird, so it was never something that bothered me. They should have involved more of the selecaos and their beliefs on how to “change the world”, but it can be argued that there will be two movies to explain all that.

Besides that I can’t think of much more negative things to be said, but that may be because I’m drawing a complete blank on everything today, which makes me wonder how I managed to write anything, but on to the reasons why this series was awesome! So the reason why I personally find this series so appealing, is because of the characters; mainly Akira Takizawa obviously. Takizawa is the type of character that draws you in right away and makes you want to continue watching the series, when he barely appears in an episode, you immediately think that episode wasn’t nearly as good as the others. Although, it technically isn’t the best thing that I find this series mostly relies on Takizawa, I also think it’s supported by a very strong story. It is unique and very well scripted, that carries a western influence with its abundance of references to American movies and there is also a few religious comparisons that can be made throughout the series as well.

There really isn’t enough intellectual anime series out there. With that being said, yes I do believe everyone should watch Eden of the East, but I don’t believe everyone will like it. The only type of people who probably wouldn’t enjoy this series would be if you’re a hardcore shounen person or just someone who likes series with endless plots, which both sort of land in the same category. Besides all the positive things I mentioned already, it also doesn’t help that the series has an amazing soundtrack (yay Oasis!) and animation. Naturally, I also love the character designs thanks to Chika Umino, even if every time I see Takizawa I can’t help but think of Morita from Honey and Clover. I’m pretty sure this series hasn’t been licensed yet, which comes as a great surprise to me, but I hope it does soon because it would definitely be a series I would like to own. I’ll miss Eden of the East until its return with the movies!