Takizawa Akira finds himself in front of the White House, naked and with nothing on him except for a gun and a cellphone loaded with a lot of money. Worst of all, he doesn’t remember who he is or what he is doing there. He witnesses a girl being in trouble, and this is how Akira and Saki meet. Akira wants to find out why he has no memories and who he really is.
What would you do, if you do not remember who you are, where you are from and what happened before then?
We, as the viewers, only get the information at the same time as the characters do, which makes it easier to identify with the characters. I was really thinking along with Akira of why he erased his memory or what the purpose of those special cellphones was. The story is unpredictable, and yet flows very nicely at a steady pace. It’s actually a pity that this anime only has 11 episodes, as they could easily have made the plot more elaborate and thus made the anime longer if they had wanted to. I admire them, though, for being able to present such a complicated and ingenious story in an anime of merely 11 episodes.
Higashi no Eden had just the right amount of characters: not too many to make you lose count, but not too few to make it boring. The male main character, Akira, is extremely interesting: you can never predict his actions or what he is going to say. This makes him so very enjoyabe.
There were quite a lot of insert songs, and all of these fit the theme of the anime. I also liked the fact that they used a song by Oasis as the opening theme, instead of choosing a Japanese pop song. The instrumental background music complemented the anime nicely. Before a major event was going to take place, you could already feel the tension building up through the music that was used. The voice actors and actresses were wonderful, especially the seiyuus of the two main characters.
What a great anime. Even if it had a small amount of episodes, it still left a deep impression on me, and I won’t forget about this anime for a very long time to come. Higashi no Eden did everything right: interesting and well-paced story, fascinating characters, beautiful art and great voice actors. Each episode felt as if it was over in the blink of an eye, which resulted in me watching one episode after another. Really, what more do we, the viewers, need from an anime? Don’t hesitate to give Higashi no Eden a chance, I’m sure you won’t regret it.
This review does not take into account the two films that came out after the anime, so it is important to see if you want to continue with the story.
