Eden (ONA)

A good plot, good music, CGI animation, I don't especially have a problem with CGI, but still CGI lacks the feel of a real anime, and makes it look slightly cartoonish. Therefore 6/10 for animation.

8/10 for the plot, and story, a very comfy and chill start, but taking the required turns for the story to progress. Another interesting plot with the AI and human dynamic which may seem repetitive as VIVY is airing in the times of its release. The end and the use of characters was good, so that also get props.

6.5/10 for the sound, the ost wherever it was used was good, but ... the problem was there was not a lot of ost, it was mostly dialogue and animation, which created some dry spaces here and there. Well, wherever used the OST fitted, and is done by Kevin penkin, so yeah it was good.

7/10 enjoyment and 7/10 overall, it lacked a certain "UNF" to push it higher, but for four episodes and an 1hr 20 min watch, it was a good enough to provide certain emotions and enjoyment.

I will recommend this anime when two conditions are satisfied, 1) if you have a lot of time , 2) Like the concept of vivy and have no problems with CGI.

Thanks for reading

This review refers to the English dub.

I found the setting and story promising after the first episode. The CGI with cel-shading looked alright. It could’ve been a little better but at least it was far better than Ex-Arm.

Unfortunately, as cool as the visuals were along with the setting's concepts and some of the voice work, the story as a whole felt somewhat rushed and too quickly resolved. Making this a four-episode miniseries as opposed to a 10-12 episode series or 90 minute or longer movie might not have been very beneficial for this story’s setting. This was especially detrimental to the characters since by ... the end, they did not seem to be developed enough to identify sufficiently their most prominent traits or personalities (except for the main character).

In spite of these flaws, it was still a fun watch.

No spoilers past episode 1

No matter how good a director is, they will never be able to save weak characters in a weak story with awkward animation. This 4 episode anime was marketed as “the same director as FMAB.” However, in both cases, the director is not responsible for the story, the characters, or the script. Having a good director can greatly benefit a production, but does not translate to being able to enjoy Eden because one enjoyed FMAB.

Everything is rushed which should be expected when everything is condensed into 4 episodes, 21-22 minutes in length, yet somehow, the beginning manages to ... feel painfully drawn out. There is very little time spent on any characterization, let alone character development. Similarly, the plot does not develop much and is very simply laid out as “this is the conflict, this is how they try to deal with it, this is the solution,” However, more problematic than the pacing, the viewer is not provided the richness in characters or plot to motivate any emotional investment in either.

The characters, there is zero development and very little characterization: only enough details necessary to demonstrate the characters have different personalities. The main character is a slight exception to this, as she gets a large portion of the screen time. However, even she feels underdeveloped, simplistic. and undeserving of any emotional investment from the viewer.

The story is essentially about two robots who find a human child in a robot dominated world where belief in the existence of humans is outlawed. Naturally, there are more humans than this single child, and there is a group of robots living as exiles for having such beliefs. Although this has potential, it doesn’t go anywhere interesting from there. There seems to be attempts at comedy, albeit aimed at the <10 year old demographic. Example: a robot spins around making a weird sound in reaction to something unexpected or referring to a baby pooping as being ‘[wasteful of their recharging.]” The story attempts a message but nothing novel, just the traditional, “hubris of humans not taking care of the planet” and presented with none of the subtlety which makes Ghibli films so powerful. It appears more as though the writers were just trying to check-off a box on their list of things they wanted to incorporate.

Finally, the art is pretty horrific. Although this can be subjective, vibrant, colors, high resolution and a high frame rate are not the formula for a good anime if everything else is bad. This is a perfect example of bad CGI. A mix of 2D and 3D background textures can make the entire environment feel awkward. The characters are three dimensional, but the shadows have very sharp cut offs which make things feel more of a traditional 2d cel-shaded design. The awkwardness of the animation of the faces of the characters convey little emotion and often undermine any emotion attempting to be created in a scene. Fortunately, the large number of faceless robots minimizes the impact this could have otherwise caused. Putting everything together creates a very jarring mashup of visuals similar to ex-arm or the 2016-17 Berserk adaptation.

As for the positive aspects of the show: the soundtrack was above average, it had a somewhat interesting premise, the background art was intermittently normal if you are able to ignore it clashing with the foreground.