Friday 24 April 2009

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.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

It is also interesting that once you "deplete" all that money, you will have to die o_o. Man... this keeps intriguing me more each time *_*

Paul said...

From the phone log in ep 2, it cost him 910 million yen to buy the shopping mall; which is about 9.1%.

In case you are interested, these were what he spend before his memory wipe:

- 2/12/11: Memory wipe program download from ATO Harima Neuroscience (900 Yen)
- 12/11/10: Movie theater (80,000,000 Yen)
- 12/10/10: Convenience store meal delivery for 20k people for 2 weeks (136,000,000 Yen)
- 12/10/10: Purchase of an urban shopping mall (910,000,000 Yen)

Saki was less likeable in this episode. But I suppose her reaction and even that message she left for Akira is typical of a female that is falling for a guy. And if that guy was rich (of cos she din know that yet), appears in front of her naked and is witty, vulnerable and mysterious, all the better.

But I still dun think Akira is the Supporter. And I dun believe the 20000 NEETs were dead or that he was behind the missile attack. Although I suppose 20 million US is enough for 11 missiles?? Also you see a lot of curses written at the shopping mall where he was housing the NEETs. So maybe he was really a dangerous guy like Kondo says he is.

Actually if you look at his transaction carefully, its obvious that the 20,000 NEETs are probably not dead. Akira make the order for the convenience meals for 2 weeks on 12 Oct 10. That’s enough to last time to 26 Oct 10. Careless Monday did not take place until nearly 1 month later on Nov 22 10. So the timeline does not add up. Unless he just catered for the meals for 2 weeks and then left them to fend for themselves.

Anonymous said...

Maybe there is a description somewhere, but what are NEETS. Is this a Japanese term? And I admire whoever is able to read the phone logs, cause even the parts that are in Eng sub, are hard to see.