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Forum - View topicShelf Life - Eden of the East
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zawa113
 Posts: 7358 |
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I literally could not disagree with you more on Eden of the East. That season was the first season I ever simul-watched anything (a feat which has only gotten easier with time, keep in mind), and also the last. Because now, I'm always thinking in the back of my mind, "what if it starts off good and promising and devolves into Eden of the East, but I've already watched all the eps so far, but have to finish it, due to having watched it all so far logic, even if it clearly turns bad at some point?" So yeah, for me, Eden of the East is literally why I do not watch things until they are complete and I can get feedback on the series overall, and not just which ones had promising starts (and I especially want to know which ones started more low key and got really good). And I never saw the movies, I honestly didn't want to.
At first, I swear I thought the chinchilla in the pic was like, a really good toy or something (because I didn't read the notes before looking at the pics, lol!) but that is an adorable little pet! |
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James_Beckett
ANN Reviewer
 Posts: 279 Location: USA |
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Yeah, if you didn't enjoy the series, the movies would almost definitely would not be for you. What made you so disappointed in the show? |
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Posts Sometimes
Posts: 38 |
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It does sound stupid, but that wasn't a change in the dub script; the original audio used the same word in pretty much all the same places in the show, including one scene with English dialogue. I do wish they changed it for the dub, though. |
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James_Beckett
ANN Reviewer
Posts: 279 Location: USA |
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True, I just feel like it stands out so much more in the dub. In Japanese it's a humorous loan word, but with the English it comes across as much more forced. Though, to be fair, I don't know what other words you could have used that wouldn't have eventually produced some groans when repeated ad nauseum... *shrug* |
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meiam
Posts: 3442 |
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85$ for 5 cm per second! That's more than 1 dollar per minute!
Its an awesome movie, but not worth that much money. |
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relyat08
 Posts: 4125 Location: Northern Virginia |
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You can easily get it straight from Amazon Japan for about $50. That's what I would certainly recommend, if you want it. Really glad to see a more positive review of Eden of the East as a whole including the movies. I watched the series on Netflix in like 2011 and didn't get to the movies until much later as well, but I found the backlash to them to be a little absurdly harsh. I thoroughly enjoyed them. They weren't perfect, and I think the Kamiyama would have most likely taken them somewhere else if he had more time, but they are fine as they exist and they don't damage how much I enjoy the story as a whole. |
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Zin5ki
 Posts: 6680 Location: London, UK |
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For those who can tolerate a different spelling of the word 'centimetre', the film is in stock on Amazon UK. It is quite inexpensive as well. |
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One-Eye
 Posts: 2261 |
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I have mixed feelings about the whole series and because of that its not enough for me to double dip on what looks like a very nice LE release. Maybe if I was buying it for the first time I'd be ok with it.
Much like the review I thought the dub was pretty decent give or take a few stiff and awkward lines. The show was much stronger than the movies and some of the background art was very nice. However, I had my problems with the show and the movies became progressively worse. If I recall my reactions correctly, because its been like 4-5 years since I saw this, I had a problem with where Akira ended up at the end of the show. He is presented as a fairly charismatic character, enough so that he can convince people to give him the clothes off their backs. If you combine this charisma with him proclaiming himself spoiler[King of Japan] at the end. It felt like there was an undercurrent there suggesting the need of a charismatic figure to correct the problems of Japan on one level. At least to me it could be interpreted that way. The show also became a bit rushed and a little incomplete, because we still had spoiler[people running around with those weird phones and the adversaries are still on the loose]. This is of course a set up for the movies, but when I saw this the movies weren't out and I was a little annoyed. I also recall not being a fan of the character designs. Many of the college age people (who the viewer is supposed to identify with) looked more high school age than the rest of the adults in the show. I found that to either be a lazy appeasement to Otaku sensibilities or infantilizing the viewer or of course both. The first episode didn't quite get off on the right foot with me because of spoiler[nudity=hilarity] for the viewer is a tired thing for me. However, I'm a pretty picky person with some of my tastes and I think the show was still entertaining and most viewers would probably enjoy it. The movies were a different issue. I was disappointed with how they handled Saki what I thought was going to be a co-lead. I thought they were going to give her more development especially in the 2nd movie, but she seemed to be falling into the helpless female archetype. By the end of the 3rd movie I felt I was watching a thriller without too many thrills. We have here a story about spoiler[an amnesiac on the run, looking to discover his lost identity and stop the plans of some adversaries]. Usually in a thriller about an spoiler[amnesiac we get to discover who the person really is and depending on how its played it can turn out to be a real twist or at least interesting in some way]. If I recall correctly in this case Akira's spoiler[supposed background isn't what it is, as a matter of fact we never find out who he is. So that exciting revelation never happens and instead he remains mysterious]. Also does he really care about spoiler[his past? I mean the guy has a habit of wiping his own memories to begin with, which makes his assigning to Saki the mission to discover who his mother is dubious]. The romance angle with the heroine? spoiler[Well usually good guy gets gal or escapes with gal from pursuers. In this case the romance never really happens. Saki forces one kiss in at the end before Akira takes off once again, which he has been doing to her now for 1 show and 2 movies. Perhaps she's just not that important to him and its one sided or she's expected to be the good little woman and wait for his eventual return? So where is the excitement and chemistry gone or maybe its because Saki has been relegated from co-lead to a lesser role?] I just didn't care how they handled Saki throughout the series. Sometimes the best part of a thriller is the confrontation between the main villain and the hero. In this case spoiler[we get a lot of talking, which if it had at least been a clash of ideas it would have been interesting. Instead Akira agrees with the main villain and only decides to oppose him when he realizes that the guy just thinks of people as no more than interchangeable cogs in a machine. It was pretty blatant telegraphing the guys "Lawful Evil" tendencies]. So where are the thrills? Not many in the third film. Don't get me wrong I didn't think the series was awful. My ratings were overall very good, good and decent for the show and two movies. I only watched the whole series once and not together so its possible I might be more forgiving if I saw it again from beginning to end. Maybe if they had had a second season we could have seen some character development and a few more thrills. I didn't need Japan's problems solved in the series and I'm ok with an open-ended finale, but it didn't deliver for me story wise (there were other problems I had with it, but can't recall now) and not in its thriller genre. But again I'm picky so YMMV. Last edited by One-Eye on Mon May 02, 2016 4:20 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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SpacemanHardy
Posts: 2509 |
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Is anyone else a bit disappointed that James didn't actually cover the packaging of the collector's edition itself? Like, I am well aware that Eden of the East is a great show. There's no denying that. But I'd really rather see a breakdown of the collector's set to see if it's really worth upgrading from my standard bluray set.
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One-Eye
Posts: 2261 |
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I thought he kind of did?
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relyat08
Posts: 4125 Location: Northern Virginia |
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I had the original release, and I bought this release and yeah, the video and audio is the same. I'm pretty sure they are the same discs just with different disc art. Which is basically just white with text to identify which one it is. The artbox is chipboard, feels extremely high quality and weighty, and has all new art by Umino, the character designer. It's actually really beautiful. The Blu-rays all come in a fold out digipack with more Umino artwork. The physical extras are just some postcards, but the on disc extras, which James did mention include tons of interviews with Kamiyama, Umino, Oshii, Kawai, and the art director Takeda. All very much worth the $60 that I paid on rightstuf. |
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One-Eye
Posts: 2261 |
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Thanks for the extra input SpacemanHardy and others will probably appreciate your added description of the physical contents. Still not enough to make me budge even though I'm a sucker for nice artboxes. 
For anyone who's interested Funimation is having a weekly special with this set going for $60 at their store. |
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Eigengrau
 Posts: 105 Location: Belgium |
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In conversation, Eden Of The East, together with Summer wars and Baccano!, is one of those titles I point to when talking about how my own experience can differ from critical consensus. I thought this show wasted any potential it had after its first three episodes, and I stuck with it all the way through the movies hoping against hope something of value could be retrieved from it at least. Looking back, I should have declared "game over" after they decided to dedicate a large portion of the series already limited runtime to the truly cringeworthy subplot of the "johnny hunter". There must be a special awfulness award for making sex the only motive and modus operandi of the only female Seleção we see, an approach which culminates in the most bleach-reachingly horrid line of dialogue ever uttered in an anime, "Has a johnny ever been unkind to you?"
Does it point out some of the extremely obvious social problems in modern Japan? Sure, but with no more astuteness then the average single picture newspaper cartoon, hardly justifying a tv series and two movies; Also, am I the only one troubled by the Eden system developed by part of our protagonists, whom we are supposed to root for? You want to reform society in some way and the first thing you do is devop a system that's a serious breach of privacy? Not a good start. |
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zawa113
Posts: 7358 |
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It's honestly been a long time since I've seen it, so I'm going to be fuzzy on the details, but I recall complaints such as: -I didn't like the main characters or side characters -I thought the girl became increasingly useless as the plot progressed, making me wonder why she was there -the series' strange obsession with male genitalia. It was funny in the first ep, but that whole subplot with the "johnny hunter" would probably make Ramsey Bolton say "dude, that's too much". The fact that it also stopped the plot dead in its tracks didn't help. -the first few eps had so much potential, and I feel like it was blatantly wasted by the end. Not even at the end, the writing was on the wall before that for me. -the plot became increasingly complex for what appeared to be no good reason. I feel like it had a clear goal at the start, but then it decided it needed more bs for some reason. So it added complexities, but I never felt a reward from it, only frustration. Was any of this answered in the movie? Who cares, I already didn't care by the end of the show, so why bother? And for some positives, which only make me upset that it was wasted on this series, instead of something with better plot and characters. -the OP (with the Oasis song) was so awesome, that it wasn't fair that the rest of the show didn't live up to it. At least that OP is sweet, I enjoyed the song and it fit it well, but also, the artistic direction of it was most excellent. I almost feel like I could play a Persona song over it, and it'd work. -that backgrounds were amazing, and the animation was top-notch. I'd honestly feel less bad if less care had gone into the backgrounds and animation, but it was clear so much effort and love was put into something that didn't live up to it, it makes me sad. Even then, I'd gladly sit through Eden of the East before sitting through Gilgamesh again. Gilgamesh was broken from the word "go", at least EotE has a solid start. |
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