Okay Adam. I watched the second Eden of the East movie. And if you were waiting for a long in-depth explanation….well I guess I will wait in line after you because that ain’t going to happen in this blog. XD Sorry!
But yeah people. My face is a bit of X_X and a lot of @_@ and a tiny bit of *_*. Then my husband walked in the room and was like whoa my wife only has keyboard keys as eyes. So Eden of the East may be responsible for the downfall of my marriage. I mean do you want to be married to someone who has @@ for eyes? I wouldn’t!
So yeah people. Spoilers for people who….I don’t know, got the movie and understand what is going on?
Exactly people. If anything we must walk away from this series thinking about the poor NEETS and their sausage fest at sea.
SO PEOPLE! To review the series and both the movies: 11 (or 12 even though I think Mr. Outside was number 12) were given 10 billion yen to change the country. 1 of them died in the process but that is because he was a cheating pile of scum. In the end NONE OF THEM changed Japan and they all had their memories wiped except Akira because he erased his at the beginning of episode 1. Saki may never see Akira again as Akira and Mr. Outside are teaming up to change Japan. THE END!
So….what was the point to this series you ask? You are asking this because I said so! Also because I am thinking it and if I am thinking it other people are thinking it too.
In the end I THINK this series was about making the people of Japan think and take charge of their lives. That even if someone had all the money in the world they wouldn’t be a wealthy girl….err I mean they still wouldn’t have the power to change things. Well maybe if they had EVERY SINGLE DOLLAR/YEN/WHATEVER in the world. But 11 people had 118 million dollars and not one of them was able to change Japan. You would think with that kinda cash something awesome would have happened. But instead we got one really awesome hospital, a shopping mall, and almost 20,000 people got jobs. That is it.
So the moral of the story has to be that if we (well really THEM the people of Japan) all work together change can happen. Change cannot happen if only 11 people are trying to push for change. People whine and complain about things all the time but make no steps to change anything. They think that alone their one voice means nothing. But if every single person got together they could force change to happen. And yes I intend to use the word change 118,000,000 times in this entry.
In the end all Akira could do was push people in the direction of change. Well and stop Mononobe from bringing back whatever it was he was trying to bring back. I am sure actual Japanese people knew what he was talking about but since I am dumb and fail at Japanese history I don’t. But whatever he was planning on bringing back was going to limit people’s freedom in Japan which is a great big no in my book. Well and to give him credit he did save all those people in episode 1. Mononobe’s plan to make a stronger government would have been stronger had there been some dead people under his belt that he could paint as sad victims and thus insist a stronger government would have prevented such a tragedy.
But as a whole most of the Selecaos wasted their money on stupid crap. Even Akira could have saved himself a buttload of money had he said his final speech on a major news network instead of a massive phone call. People got their Juizs blown up for no reason. The one Selecao who managed to hoard all their money got it all taken away which is pretty funny. So again all Japan has to show for this effort is a super nice hospital and a mall. We the viewers, the players, and Saki’s crew know that so much more money went into the craziness that was this series but this is the result and the result is sad.
Also the players themselves are worse for the wear in my opinion. They have a huge chunk of their life gone which will probably cause problems for years to come with business and their personal lives. I don’t care about the dude who died because he deserved it. And I guess it was okay that Mononobe and Yuuki probably died as Yuuki was crazy enough to send off more missiles and Mononobe forgot the message Akira sent so he be pushing for the government to take over still. But Akira still feels the need to help Japan out and will have to live his life on the run. One of them is in jail. Things are not good for these players.
WHO WAS THE RANDOM OLD LADY?!?!? XO I WANT TO KNOW WHICH NUMBER AND WHAT SHE DID!!!!
And what was up with them ALL winning? Explain to me how money hoarder won? Or crazy Yuuki? Or even Akira if you think about it? In the end Saki says that she sees no real change in Japan and I tend to agree with her. But maybe Mr. Outside was a crazy old man and wanted to simply see what 11 random cab riders would do with that much cash to change Japan. Maybe he isn’t applying morals to the situation and that there was no right way or wrong way to spend the money. Just the fact that they all (well mostly) fought hard and believed sincerely in their vision means they are all winners. Just like in Little League, everyone walks away with a trophy.
Except the viewers of course. We walk away wondering what any of this meant. The movies didn’t feel like movies but episodes. Episodes we had to wait a long time for. And for American viewers a lot of the dramatic issues in this series was lost on us. We don’t know how Japan was after War World 2, how NEETS are treated in society, or how complacent Japanese people had become with their everyday lives. All those issues are important in understand what the hell is going on and we can never understand them. So from that aspect we are going to fail no matter what.
But I think another point where the movies fail is …..well HELLO Saki and Akira didn’t end up together! I mean it is only 6 months after Akira’s phone call to the entire country. There is still hope that they might get together once Akira is done pretending he can save the country. That might be never but since it is left up in the air we can’t say for sure that they won’t be a couple one day. But for now all we got is one kiss and the crazy fact they only spent 11 days together. It makes me sad and unsatisfied with the series.
The whole Akira’s mother part of the movie made no sense at all to me given the fact a DNA test was going to be done ANYWAY! Didn’t Akira plan on Mrs. Wife saying okay time to prove who you really are strange boy? So I don’t know what any of that actually accomplished except make Saki sad that Akira had a shitty ass mom. I mean I guess in the end she thought she was helping by running away but since Akira admitted he wasn’t the Prime Minister’s son it looked like she was helping herself. Thus I am pissed off at the storyline.
The fact that Eden group got screwed in the end was pretty sad too. This group worked really hard and helped saved the country and they were used as a scapegoat as Akira was nowhere to be found. It seems that they will eventually pick themselves out of this craziness and make the company better but it is still frustrating.
So in conclusion….I don’t even know. A lot of things went over my head, like the significance of certain Selecao purchases or how everyone was like a million times smarter than me. Like seriously Pantsu how did you figure all that out?! But yeah so much stuff went over my head and left me going okay let’s just roll with it. I think that Eden of the East had a lot of diehard fans following it and now we are left with a wtf feeling.
Instead of being sad about not seeing Akira since that day...she is able to smile and know he is making life better for everyone.
However…no matter how disappointed I am or confused Akira as a character made me smile. He was very human to me. He erased his memories because he couldn’t deal with the pain of everyone hating on him. But then he stepped up and tried his hardest to protect everyone and be the leader that everyone needed. And when that didn’t work he became the terrorist everyone needed to hate and still works behind the scene to make the country better. So even if Japan isn’t better NOW it will be because of people like Akira.
So…this series was about hope. And confusion. Mostly confusion. But hope that the next generation will help shape our world to a better and kinder place.
And the dog was cute. The end.
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