Eden of the East is a fairly short anime that is very enjoyable. I watched it near the end of last year and finished it quite quickly. The story and characters are interesting and the plot is fairly unique. I also really liked the animation, although the ending was a bit unsatisfying. I would recommend it for those looking for something interesting that doesn’t take too much time to complete.
The plot is about a young girl named Saki who is traveling in Washington D.C. and discovers as naked boy in the road who claims to be called Akira Takizawa. Saki ends up helping Takizawa out, who realizes that he might be a terrorist, as he only had a handgun when he woke up naked, and his apartment contains many passports with different identities. Takizawa has no memory of what he did before he met Saki, and ends up going back to Japan with her. They end up staying together for the rest of the day and Takizawa kisses her before they separate and he disappears. Saki tries to cope with her attraction to this mysterious and dangerous boy, while Takizawa tries to find out why he would erase his memory and uses a mysterious phone he has that calls a woman who can grant his every wish. He soon discovers that he is part of a group in which each person was given a huge amount of money to try to change the world. He is part of this game, and if he loses, he loses his life as well. Saki gets caught up in everything because Takizawa is drawn to her as well, and they eventually are in the middle of a huge conspiracy and must use Saki and her friends’ location app Eden to help them.
The characters are very interesting and Takizawa is very likable, since he has no idea what is happening to him and has an overall good nature. The side characters are also very interesting, although 12 episodes isn’t really enough for us to deeply explore their different personalities. There are two movies that go along with the series as well, but although they add extra story lines, they end with just as much of a cliffhanger as the series did, with Takizawa running off to safe the world somehow, and Saki waiting for him to come back for her.
I enjoyed the series, I just found it a bit short and the ending unsatisfying for my taste. I would still recommend this series as an interesting and entertaining story and I quite liked it as I was watching. I give this series a 3.5/5 for my anime review.
