Eden of the East - Episode 3

Eden of the East has already captured the imaginations of a lot of people from its opening couple of episodes, and in all honesty it's easy to see why. Episode three somehow manages to continue that prestigious start via the time-honoured tradition of answering some of our questions in such a way that only more subsequent questions arise.

Last episode, Akira was on his way back to where he believed his house was, with Saki following his lead. As they reach the location stored on Akira's phone it appears to be something of a slum however, and their search leads them to a padlocked warehouse-esque door, to which Akira just so happens to have the key... What do we find inside? A huge, upmarket shopping mall. At least now we know where a big chunk of Akira's 10 billion yen has gone, the guy went and bought himself an entire shopping mall to live in. How badass is that?! His room turns out to be a part of the multiplex cinema, which ties in nicely to his intimate movie knowledge.


However, it isn't all good news for Akira, as his search of the mall turns up some disturbing evidence to link him to his past, evidence which only becomes even more shocking as the episdoe develops - Is (or was) Akira really capable of that, and if so why did he do it? Careless Monday seems to be closer to home than he could possibly have imagined. Much of this information comes courtesy of the detective, Kondo, who catches up with Akira, beating him up and stealing his phone. Unfortunately, our man of the law doesn't seem to be very proficient when it comes to thinking things through - Did he really think he'd be able to just walk away with a phone with billions of Yen charged to it? Of course, in reality the whole thing is fingerprint-protected. The poor guy isn't very good at sending e-mails to the right people either...

I'm not sure what I can say about this episode of Eden of the East other than to mention how marvellous it is - Although Akira and Saki share a little less screen time together on this occasion, the time they do spend together is again sparkling in terms of both dialogue and chemistry. This is set aside however as we start to slowly piece together the "game" the Seleção (which means "selection" in case you were wondering) are being forced to play - It appears to have been sold as a way to save the country, but how exactly? Whatever is going on, the rabbit hole appears to be a pretty deep one, and I for one can't wait to explore it further.