RahXephon for example suffered greatly from the condensed plotline issue and Eureka Seven lost a lot of the spirit of the TV show, so both were disappointing to me. The Evangelion rebuild in particular is an undertaking I personally wouldn’t enjoy being responsible for since it’ll piss off a significant proportion of the fanbase regardless of what the production team do. Over the past decade and a half it’s bred so many conflicting opinions that whatever approach is taken, it’ll hit somebody’s sore spot square-on.

To be honest, I have more important things to do with my time than speculate on the motives behind the Rebuild; I’d rather spend it on deciding whether I enjoy it as *just* a series of movies. As in, how well it tells the story compared with the great-yet-flawed TV series rather than questioning its status as a cash-in. Aside from the usual problems with the Feature Film Remake, You Can (not) Advance also has to contend with being part of a greater whole, which makes it a slightly different experience from, say, those remakes of Rah and E7. To put it another way, this is a two hour-long episode of a mini-series; fulfilling a role not unlike that of the first Higashi no Eden movie sequel.

I really didn’t know how to judge The King of Eden because I’d be jumping to conclusions before I’ve seen the film that follows. Even so it felt incomplete somehow, but that could easily be attributed to the fact that its main role is that of a link between the prequel TV run and the final movie. YC(n)A is in a similar situation: I could for instance complain about how Mari doesn’t get the screentime I expected from a prominently-advertised New Character, but how do I know she won’t play a pivotal role in the third film? The simple answer is that I don’t, so I’m reserving a solid opinion on her for the time being.

I recall the promo art and the gossip when her appearance became common knowledge, but the reality isn’t nearly as dramatic as I expected. It’s a bit anti-climatic really; not that the writing’s necessarily at fault there. Rather, the fans’ doom-mongering was unfounded (she’s hardly the most extreme fanservice figure to emerge from Gainax and its relatives, you know?) and she merely fills some minor positions in the narrative that were left vacant from the rewrites. Unless Mari is given something bold and unexpected to do, I don’t think her introduction is that big of a deal. Yet.

Although I have sentimental attachment to the franchise, the nerdrage and marketing campaigns have left me disinterested in everything about it apart from the production itself. I’d also like to think that I can appreciate it without being blind to its flaws; for instance, juxtaposing an innocent-sounding pop ballad-type tune with a scene that’s violent or otherwise hard-hitting works brilliantly once but loses a lot of its impact when employed twice in the same feature.

Watching the whole film a second time though yielded some satisfying observations, such as enjoying the cheeky bits of humour without them being distracting, and little details such as the marine wildlife reserve laid out like the Tree of Life. The decontamination sequence reminded me a bit of The Andromeda Strain too, but that says more about how my mind sometimes makes weird connections more than anything.

One of my favourite scenes was that of the depiction of an early-morning Tokyo-3 in its updated, CGI glory: familiar scenes such as the capital’s skyline and crowds of commuters are given the NGE twist with its iconic retracting buildings and so on. Another fave moment was the awkward Shinji and Asuka bedtime scene, except this time they’re lying back-to-back and it’s expanded to a more insightful section of dialogue between them.

Perhaps the problem with YC(n)A is that there aren’t enough of these moments. The background art and conceptual planning that went with it is one of the franchise’s most overlooked aspects for me, and in terms of taking a moment to stop dashing around and examine what everyone’s up to and why, it’s sorely lacking: the narrative is more concerned with moving things along in time for the next set-piece. For a two hour feature it covers the ground so quickly that certain plot points that were particularly significant before are given a much more cursory treatment.

It’s also a striking example of how the Gainax alumni have changed stylistically (for an even more extreme example, watch the two Gunbuster OAVs back-to-back) because the aesthetics that are merely revamped old-school make the new ones look out-of-place. Yes, I know this isn’t strictly speaking a Gainax production but it feels like it has one foot in the 90s heyday and one in the 00s: the redesigned plug suits and especially the rendering of Unit 02′s The Beast mode look like they don’t belong.

In a more straightforward sense it’s also a transition piece thanks to its middle-portion status. This is after all the part of the story that fooled the viewers into thinking “it’s just a mecha versus monsters show, innit?”, before going batshit insane and pulling the rug from under them in the final act. I shouldn’t be surprised then if this film is a relative no-brainer next to whatever must follow; You Are (not) Alone rarely strayed from the series while this one makes some more marked deviations so if the third is to continue the trend I think it’s going to throw up some twists that are very unexpected indeed.

Which is why I’m happy to let the events of this movie whizz past me and why I’ve not tried to sift through the info deluge to pick out the real clues from the red herrings (some people have taken the trouble, and quite impressively too). I liked some of the updates, such as the re-written entrance of the Ginger Whinger and the designs of the Angels, but other lingering feelings of mine were ambivalent and mixed: Mari neither ruins nor revolutionises the story, and it somehow feels too short despite being two hours in length.

Most worryingly I’ve written an entire post without feeling compelled to go into more depth into those familiar characters I love, hate and/or love to hate. What about a certain redhead whose obnoxious neuroses helped to popularise the tsundere archetype? Or how Kaji is too cool for his own good? Or how Misato is still awesome and my favourite of the bunch? It’s not a bad movie as a cinematic experience so it’s earned a place on my Blu-Ray wishlist, but I was after something more. I wanted glimpses into their troubled psyches in true Anno style, rather than seeing them playing out their roles with the entertaining-yet-overused tropes that the series debunked so infamously…unless saving that U-turn for the final film is indeed the ace that Rebuild has up its sleeve.

Oh yeah, the new arrangement of the Hikaru Utada end theme is lovely.

I’m still as enamoured with a minority shows, though. I’ve made a start on Fruits Basket and not before time either; it has a great iyashikei vibe with some impressive character dynamics that push it just out of the realms of mediocre and into the territory signposted Could Be Very Good Indeed. The latest episode of Eve no Jikan was exquisite as always, and came out sooner than I expected too. Reviewage for that coming right up soonish.

Higashi no Eden

The ending – which isn’t an ending after all – to Eden of the East was a fine way to finish what proved to be a fine series. After a middle section that gave me mixed signals it got its act together and piled on the Serious Questions to produce something remarkably close to what I’d hoped it would’ve been in the first place. I’m actually glad the sequels are going to be feature films rather than being made-for-TV because the subject matter and artwork won’t suffer from the small screen constraints. Of course, many were annoyed at the decision to continue it in that format but isn’t it preferable to squeezing a story of such scope into one TV run?

I’m glad the religious subtext wasn’t important after all: when the social commentary was emphasised instead it was much more satisfying. My recent travels followed by some more forays into the writing of Ryu Murakami have given my fascination with contemporary Japanese culture a kick up the backside so the interesting stuff bubbling under the surface here was really fascinating when extrapolated just outside the realms of the here-and-now. Excellent opening and ending themes too, which worked well with the imagery.

K-On!

A victim of the snap judgements and the argumentative approach that the fandumb breeds so well, K-On committed the cardinal sin of being on TV but not being Haruhi Suzumiya. Considering it doesn’t really aspire to be anything in particular apart from undemanding, cutesy fun I’d say it’s doing fine. I don’t think the issue fans should have with K-On! is important for the simple reason that there isn’t an issue to speak of; I certainly don’t see the point in paying attention to armchair experts who claim there’s a ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ way of watching it.

The bottom line is it makes me laugh but not to a degree at which I get a hernia and an asthma attack simultaneously, and the musical aspect is Relevant To My Interests. Quite frankly I find it easier to relate to a teenager walking starry-eyed around a guitar store than watching an obnoxious brat who threatens the integrity of the space-time continuum every time she gets pissed off about something. Besides, according to Baka Raptor the Haruhi light novel emphasises the aspects of the story I enjoyed more than the TV show did; the declaration “Sarcastic mental asides work better in book format…” is the point where I was sold on it. I couldn’t care less about the TV version, sadly, and can’t see why I ought to either.

Clannad’s Kyou chapter

Speaking of KyoAni, the final Clannad bonus episode played into the Kyou fanboy camp but was nevertheless a sweet little study into what happens when the unstoppable force of a tsundere girl meets an unmovable object in the form of a tsundere guy. In a remarkable state of astute observation Sunohara remarks how Tomoya and Kyou make a pretty good couple, exploring the little hints and ‘could’ve been’ moments that the main series and the Tomoyo After episode had to ignore. Quite frankly it didn’t feel completely natural after I exposed myself to a True End (twice) and a Tomoyo End but Kyou is a vivacious and expressive character who’s always fun to watch, and the feelings expressed all came across as genuine enough.

What this episode was fundamentally about was, I suspect, giving Kyou the screen time her fanboys were clamouring for but for the rest of us it’s another opportunity to let ourselves get swept along in the dramas and dilemmas of the old love triangle. I guess this would be just another high school romance with the unrequited crush thing going on, but the fact that it’s a revisit type of outing means that you already know the characters and how they feel about one another so all that’s left to do is speculate about how things could’ve turned out.

Aaand…I’m out. I want to watch something but after being treated to a small number of excellent titles, most things would now would blur into a mass of immature, derivative slush. I need a heartwarming drama about people I can give a stuff about (to replace the Clannad-shaped hole in my life), a grown-up piece in the IG/Bones vein that casts familiar ground in a new light (until the Eden sequels appear) and a gritty actioner that doesn’t do the boring-as-buggery Shounen Jump thing where fights are animated poorly, use hackneyed dialogue and last for bloody ages. I refuse to believe that ALL new anime is a load of bollocks so please take the time to list some worthy gems so I don’t have to. Then we can crack open the Pimm’s and enjoy the summer.

This balancing act of bringing totally separate ideas into the same narrative stewing pot and getting them to work together without any one detracting from the others trips up even the best writers and directors, making the first half of Escaflowne that I’ve seen so far even more impressive in my eyes. Which brings me to Higashi no Eden, a show that also tries to sit some ambitious and disparate ideas side-by-side; the consequences of which can be more serious than a ski-jump hooter.

I’ve read about the comparisons between …Eden and Honey and Clover so frequently I feel like the guy in Mallrats who spends the entire film trying unsuccessfully to find that sailboat in the Magic Eye picture: he fails to see what everyone, much to his chagrin, can see. I’ll have to resign to the fact that I never really got on with H&C in the first place so the parallels that are so obvious to the rest of you are bound to be lost on me.

Even so, until an interview or similar suggests otherwise I can’t help but believe the evidence for these similarities is circumstantial. More importantly though …Eden is stumbling over a demanding act of narrative multi-tasking, in that the colourful and ambitious premise made a rod for the creative team’s own back: at times it’s trying to do too much in the time it’s been given.

I was overjoyed at the prospect of Kenji Kamiyama and the Production I.G. staff working on a story that has wide-eyed romance but also has its finger on the pulse of today’s world. I found the socio-political aspect of the SAC to be very well handled so had similar hopes for this; admittedly eleven episodes is less than I would’ve liked but I daresay Kamiyama and Co. felt the same way.

It feels like a true post-9/11 anime show in that topical ideas are lifted from the headlines of Real Life and applied to a fictional story. Genuinely mature anime is as rare as Yorkshiremen with inferiority complexes at the best of times; the idea of a political thriller with the thread of personal drama running through it to offer something of the everyday for the viewer to hold onto was something I couldn’t pass up.

While I don’t doubt their skills at the political thriller and social commentary (a point I’ll get to in a minute), it clashes with the lighter shoujo romcom and forces the viewer into sharp gear changes that wouldn’t be so bad if they weren’t needed so frequently. The comic-style facial expressions during the more anarchic moments effectively conveyed the mood of the scenes but things often shifted very suddenly – and jarringly – into something darker and more demanding.

Take the Johnny Hunter arc: imagine the pastel-shaded realism of Tokyo Marble Chocolate and put it next to, say, Speed Grapher if it were less camp and better animated. In fairness …Eden is far more subtle than Speed Grapher and doesn’t focus on matters of the heart as much as TMC but I often found these two opposing forces pulling me in different directions.

Higashi no Eden I think suffered from the mid-season blues: that time when the central portion of the series that made a strong start meanders a bit before hitting the final furlong. For a show of this length and with this level of expectations on its shoulders it was disappointing when this happened but the eighth episode firmly declared where its real intentions lay and things began to finally look up.

Right from the outset, through the occasionally misplaced humour and the under-used romantic subplot, the show has always kept me guessing. It’s not often I genuinely have no idea as to what would happen next but apart from the unfortunate incident that ends the ninth episode (which is familiar to anyone as addicted to Bourne-style government conspiracy films as I am), it’s given me new twists and questions every time. This for me is what’s kept me coming back: between the excellent opening and ending credits with their appropriately excellent music and the slick presentation it’s all wrapped in, I can’t say with certainty where it’s going.

This is an example of how an identity crisis in premise and intentions can hamper a TV show, but as much as I’m risking upsetting people in saying so I think it’s also another case of these intentions not matching the expectations of the viewers. It does eventually get its shit together, decide what it wants to be and how best to accomplish its aims; which is enough to save it…just.

The thing is, once I got over the idea that the romance between the two leads wasn’t the main event I was able to accept it as a component part of the larger theme. The fact that Saki started to act her age again and allowed me to look upon her character as fondly as I did at first is something of a coincidence really: she and Takizawa are part of the social commentary and mysteries that the series is keener to address.

This is something that I hope to revisit later (via The Sky Crawlers too of all things, if I’ve read into the reviews correctly) but the idea of …Eden‘s status as a topical anime isn’t as preachy as it sounds. It feels contemporary and relevant thanks to the spectres of terrorism and government conspiracies but is also possibly critical of the younger generation, with a personal spin to emphasise the point thanks to the Saki/Akira dynamic.

His amnesiac hero (which is a cliché) and her ditzier side (which places her closer to the airhead anime girl archetype and further away from a different personality I hoped she would be) do serve a purpose: it’s one of the many facets of the NEET phenomenon presented here. There’s also the shipment of young bums to Dubai at the hands of a pre-amnesia Takizawa; not to mention the intentions of Hirasawa, apparent head of the high-tech school club of the show’s title, who wants to fight the system like the Japanese student protesters of the 1960s…minus the ideals. He’s a rebel without a cause really.

It’s hard to decide at this stage whether NEETs are a burden on society or victims; much like Takizawa himself, are the NEETs heroes who will usher in a better world, or are they a destructive force that’s as misspent as the youth that defines them? Far from the kids rising up against the corrupt adults, the waters are muddied to a delightfully anarchic degree by the traditional faceless Manipulative Bad Guy of Mr Outside tempered by the idea that Takizawa may or may not be the selfless saviour. My guess is that the wiping of his memory was a self-inflicted discarding of his younger, less heroic self. What sort of villain, or hero for that matter, does this world create?

Saki is adorable. Official

I still have a nagging fear in the back of my mind that I’m being over-optimistic in that if it squanders its relatively short episode run I’m going to feel unbelievably cheated. Right now my main worry is that it has a fascinating background but there may not be time to addess it properly: I like the premise, the pacing is so far spot-on and the character dynamics are top-notch so would hate to see it rushed or get bogged down. There’s a feature film in the pipeline though so maybe (hopefully) it’ll provide a sequel, prequel or side-story to what’s going on here if there is indeed too much for the TV episodes to address.

It’s interesting to see an Oasis tune used in the opening theme. I was really into their 90s material during my pre-university days but if Falling Down is anything to go by Noel seems to have had a second wind songwriting-wise; the lyrics have got me thinking about where the story may be going too, which is a nice bonus. The animation sequence is cool in an info-overload way but I love the end sequence as well: it’s wonderfully innovative and the accompanying music is excellent. I only caught onto School Food Punishment in the past few weeks but I hope this contribution gives them the recognition they deserve.

An Oblige that’s anything but Noblesse: I’d call that a Kodak Moment

I even love the pacing of Higashi no Eden. It feels sedate but the interaction between Saki and Akira is so wonderful to watch it doesn’t seem to be stalling for time at all; I felt the process of getting to know each other is handled really well actually. The dialogue feels natural and organic and the little moments of humour and borderline-romance are genuinely sweet – who didn’t want her to jump aboard as the boat departed in the second episode? I was wishing so damned hard for her to take his hand and continue her adventure, without knowing enough about the characters or events to say why. I could sit back and watch the two of them on screen all day and not feel bored, I swear.

I rewatched the opening dialogue from Saki and came to the conclusion that Akira had his memories wiped with his full consent and willingly became ‘Number 9’ in that organisation to fulfil a mission; certainly not just because he wanted to spend other people’s money and get one of those hax phones they’re assigned with. I think there’s a lot of hidden meaning involved in the Noblesse Oblige idea, as suggested by Saki’s mention of his willing sacrifice and of course that huge wad of cash stored on the aforementioned mobile phone.

The composition of this scene was LOL. Let’s hear it for symbolism and innuendo

A lot of the furore surrounding the debut of this show centred around that infamous trailer and sure enough, there’s a lot of comedy in the first episode. Saki’s reaction was understandable (as in, it’s a believable reaction to seeing a member of the opposite gender stark bollock naked in the middle of Washington DC) and absolutely priceless into the bargain; it goes a long way to explaining why I’m so enchanted by her character. Certain elements felt out-of-place of course: throwing coins into the White House garden is pretty dumb and no police officer, American or otherwise, would demand a full-frontal as a form of identification instead of a passport or driving licence. Still, it was a lot of fun, the English dialogue was convincing for a change and I was impatient to find out what happened next.

Things got even better in the second episode in my opinion – it introduced the concept of Careless Monday (the understatedness of this term cracks me up although the implications are I’m sure no laughing matter) and brought the storyline proper into the spotlight after the character introductions. I find Saki’s character to be awesome for reasons I still can’t put my finger on (she’s cute AND in her 20s…maybe that’s it) but Akira is clearly the quick-thinking, amnesiac hero of the day with a hidden backstory who’s going to be outwitting a lot of shady Establishment types. Sound familiar?

“MATT DAMON~!”

Yep, it wasn’t just the op animation’s sense of constant movement that had me thinking “Doesn’t this look an awful lot like the Bourne trilogy?” My respect for the movie adaptations of Robert Ludlum’s series of novels might be skewing my opinion here but I found that to be more than just a nice touch. I suspect that the inclusion of such an overt reference means it won’t be relying on them too heavily for inspiration but I think the parallels are still worthy of note. As is the religious imagery some viewers are picking up on but I’m leaning towards the political aspect in my tentative early interpretation of what’s going on.

In the same way that the creators of the Bourne films managed to make them exciting and intelligent at the same time, I think the staff involved in Higashi no Eden are aiming for a similar formula. Having the director of the Stand Alone Complex for example makes me hopeful because the political aspect (particularly in the Second Gig) was well-written and made the whole experience a balanced and satisfying one. With any luck Kamiyama and his team can work their magic here too.

There’s still a sense of playfulness and adventure on show but also one of realistic grittiness bubbling underneath, which I’m finding to be a perfect combination. The two leads are endearing, the artwork in general is sharp and solid and the plot promises plenty of mature storytelling to get my analytical teeth into. Can it deliver on its promise? I think I’ll stick my neck out this time and say yeah, why the hell not?