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THIS REVIEW CAREFULLY AVOIDS SPOILERS!

I think "King of Eden" is an unfit title for this. They could have at least added an interrogation mark ("King of Eden?") and it would have portrayed what's about way better (actually, it would be very on-point), while also making it more intriguing.

This won't be a negative review, though; I actually found this to be a decent continuation of the first season. If you've seen that one, you really should watch this, and the sooner the better. It not only follows the style and spirit of the first season (you can tell the same creators are behind this), but it also explains and ... elaborates on a couple of details that seemed to not make any sense during the last chapter, that with time you may forget about, and you'll miss what they are referencing here in some scenes. In the end, things make more sense after all, and you can tell that the whole progression up until this point was thought-out from the beginning, regardless of what it seemed to me back when I finished watching the prior season.

So, as much as I don't think that this has any big problem like the first season had (in my opinion, the rushed crazy ending with all its justifications and explanations popping up suddenly, feeling almost random), I think that this lacks any outstanding strong points in comparison; I'd say this "season" is more average, for the good and for the bad.

And I say "season" because this doesn't really feel like a movie; it doesn't build up like one (introduction, climax and conclusion). Instead, it totally feels like a bunch of episodes meshed together; the build-up is a flowing continuum with its ups and downs, and I think it would have benefited from being released in a series format again instead, as the ending is by no means conclusive either. It feels, in fact, like the first half of a second season. So I understand that those who watched it strictly as a movie left disappointed reviews.


All that aside, among the list of things that are properly inherited here in King of Eden, is, once again, how tasty the main characters are. We are reminded of how good the character... characterization has always been in EotE. Just like in real life, you can read their personality just by looking at their body language, that's how real they feel (at least, the two protagonists). Props to the artists there.

On the other hand, this time around we have a way more evident use of 3D graphics meshing in, and it's not precisely seamless; sometimes it's somewhat abrupt. In some scene they even put a cartoon character among 3D-model characters, and it really stood out to me like a sore thumb. Not many people seem to realize about these details, though. The vegetation and background of half of the places also uses 3D in an almost obvious way. It doesn't degrade the visual aspect too much, but sometimes it's counter-immersive, and it's a pity.

King of Eden also inherits the first season's inability to be completely serious when it probably should. It still tilts a little to the light-hearted side in the situations that ask for a more suspenseful and dramatic mood. Something else that bothered me, also part of this light-hearted vein, is how they wiped all the negativity surrounding a particular character, whose personality and story was a little more interesting precisely because of it (wasn't he grumpy and distrustful? Shouldn't he be in a way worse physical condition...?). I'll take character development anytime, but please, don't do it overnight without telling us how the process was at all. Another example of this problem, to me, is the film-maker character. He is just an extremely shallow character that's totally unfitting for comic relief -or whatever they were trying with him here-, that waters down every scene he is in.

One last inherited mistake that I need to point out: in Eden of the East, no matter how good the ideas are, how good the decisions are; they are always made on the go. It's just a fraction of a second. Except for Saki, we are not given any show of doubt, mental processing, remembering, considering... the characters just seem to adapt to the course of events immediately, and that steals a little of potential depth from them. I think that, in fact, this is what waters down the whole show the most.

So, all in all, I'd say that this also suffers the "shortening/shallowing" problem that seems always present in Eden of the East; great ideas, great main characters, but everything's just too fast, there's barely any introspection, and the light-hearted extra touch only adds another grain of sand to its shallower side. It's not severe, but I think that the project as a whole had way more potential than it was really exploited.

The opening and closing songs are not bad and I think they create an appropriate mood, but they become almost irrelevant in the movie format. The ending reminds me of the ending of the first season, which was quite good.

In the end, being as inconclusive as Eden of the East has been up until King of Eden (and its potential before the final conclusion not being as impressive as it could) it will be the last movie (II: Paradise Lost), to me, what will decide if the whole of EotE was worth it to watch or not.
For now, I'm interested in seeing the ending, so this gets a slightly positive score from me. As much as I wasn't surprised, I wasn't bored or disappointed.

Even if I didn't like it as much as the first season, I can recommend it with more confidence as a proper follow up to it, and a seemingly adequate bridge to whatever is to come.

Rating: 6.1/10 (rounded out as 6).

This review carefully avoids spoilers!

I've been recommended to watch Serial Experiments Lain several times, given my personal taste in animes. It also impressed me as a kid when I saw it in AMVs, because I always loved surrealism and dream-like scenes.

But to me this anime fell short. As much as I don't think that it's a bad anime per se, it didn't meet my expectations by a long mile.

Serial Experiments Lain can catch your eye if you see just a couple of scenes, for its weirdness and apparent existential depth. The depth is mostly just apparent because the whole anime runs mainly on scenes like ... those; there's no deep development, no deep narrative, just weird scene after weird scene coming out of the blue (I won't say they're random or misconnected; they do follow a coherent story, but most things "just happen" in a merely visual way, while seriously lacking the narrative or interpersonal elements needed for everything to be as well interwoven as a good story requires), plus a few direct explanations of background context and concepts cutting in between like some sort of unrelated documentary.

In Serial Experiments Lain, everything is either just given to you straight away without room for doubt, or on the contrary, you are given absolutely no explanation of what you're seeing. And in some cases, this really weakens the experience and impact of important scenes (specially, the apparition of and interactions with the main 'antagonist' come to mind as the weakest and only genuinely bad thing in this anime; the most seemingly important scenes are the actually the most anti-climatic). As a viewer you're left to just tell yourself "oh... uh... okay..." and not question much while you just keep on watching.

That said, I'm certain that part of this was intentional; it just matches the main character's perception of reality (it does feel like the whole story is a presentation of her own scattered, confused, depersonalized -and somewhat autistic, I'd say- thought processes), and it gives a sort of... impressionist vibe to the whole anime, which is supported by some of the decisions in artistic direction (surreal effects, staggered pace in lots of scenes...). It's just that this element really overtakes the whole anime to the point of asphyxiating it and castrating its potential; it barely has anything else going for it, and you can't unfold any sort of complex story through that alone.

If you want an aesthetic, abstract, and evoking piece of art, you can do it, but S.E.L. tries to have both the deep story and the cryptic and surreal presentation, and in the end it doesn't accomplish too much in either regard, as it doesn't know how to juggle them properly -which would a masterful thing to accomplish, to begin with-.

And it's a pity, because I think that the best moments of the anime are precisely the few instances where the interpersonal relationships show their true depth, meaning and impact, and the questions that they arise in an emotional sense. But (just like the ending, which I think it's one of the good bits here; the very last scenes) we are shown just some short snippets of it, because there's not much happening there in the first place. And that's not convincingly justified, cause, in the end, quite a lot has happened. But again, S.E.L. chooses to cut the interesting parts of the story development in very short slices, while the rest of the cake is just some sort of visual spacing-out.

These cons aren't severe enough to make it boring, though, given its length. It's quite a short anime, and to me, only one episode near the end felt a little overbearing. The rest was entertaining and intriguing enough, and the overall result is, somewhat, relatively, interesting. I'd say that Serial Experiments Lain runs on one single stylistic trick, which does work, at least half of the time.

The visual art itself works very well in horror scenes; it portrays some paranormal elements more convincingly than the typical ghosts or monsters from most Japanese horror. Also, the hallucinations (visual and auditory) are portrayed in a more real-like, plausible manner, which is not the usual. This lack of intention of being too horrifying, shocking, or clearly supernatural, actually makes those elements more eerie because of they feel closer to reality.

On the other side, when portraying regular characters and their facial expressions, it often gives away how simplistic the art style actually is; it is slightly sub-par in that regard, and it's just the style choices what makes it interesting and memorable. The early 90s horror video game aesthetics are also a treat for those of us who liked games like the Doom or Quake of that era. Finally, the voice acting is good enough; no complains there, even if it's nothing remarkable either.

I'd recommend Serial Experiments Lain as an experience, if you have nothing better to watch. It touches some interesting concepts, even if it doesn't develop them much (I'd say Neon Genesis Evangelion did a little better at that; if you thought that the concepts here are new, I can tell you right away that they're not). It's also a cult anime, with its own renown, and all in all, I think it has enough personality -while also being accessible enough- to be included, at least at the bottom, of any comprehensive "general knowledge" anime list.

Rating: 5.2/10 (rounded as 5).

This is the direct continuation of the 1st season of the anime (the prior 2 movies were just that same first season cut up and merged together). It matches roughly volumes 4 and 5 of the manga (more specifically, from chapter 26th to chapter 38th), and it's extremely loyal to it, in the sense that nothing at all has been tweaked this time. The story, without spoilers, is about the main characters managing to get to the 6th layer, and the obstacles they find while at it. The Japanese version with subtitles has the most accurate translation, and the voice acting was slightly better than ... the English one, in my opinion. Although, for me, the problem in MiA about the Japanese voice acting is that it's just too childish and innocent at times (Prushka and Mitty are too much sometimes -and Menya sounds like a pokemon-), but to be honest, the English dub imitates that anyway, so I'd take the Japanese instead.

I don't have much else to say. This part was way better adapted than the first season of Made in Abyss, in fact, I think it was an improvement over the manga. The manga at this point started going downhill, and the chapters related to this movie felt very rushed. Here they were fleshed out; they were given a better pacing, and some care was taken to make it all more understandable. The manga sucks at fights, and here they were very well done.

My only complaint, if it can be considered as such, is that this would have been better in a chapter format instead of movie format, in my opinion. There are several key fights, one after the other... the overall flow of the story is not very adaptable to a movie format. It swings too much for that. Other than that, while trying to condense things they missed 2 important bits from the manga; the zombie-like beings that Prushka made whistles for, and the dog named Reg. Those were relatively important, and I hope that at least the last one is added in the 2nd season.

All in all, I can't give it a higher score because the plot itself in this part of the story is nothing out of the ordinary. It's just a fitting continuation of the main story, with good moments of tension and a couple of interesting new characters. There's not much of an advance; a lot of it is just action. But it's good, I definitely enjoyed it and I recommend it to anyone who saw the first season or read the volumes 1 to 3 of the manga. You won't be disappointed.

I'd recommend you to read the manga first. Warning; it is more challenging than the anime, though, but it's better overall. This season corresponds its chapters 1 to 26, which are the best part of the manga by miles.

SUMMARIZED (NO SPOILERS):

This story is about some kids that are not very right in the head getting [bold]really[/bold] fucked up while they pursue their mindless goals in a bizarre hell-like environment, being prey to all kinds of nightmarish beings and individuals, which doesn't deter them from pushing forwards anyway. The "for all audiences" feeling that the creators of the anime pursued feels improper to me. They made ... it look like an anime for children, while it's the opposite in several regards.

I have to say I'd probably rate this one point higher if I hadn't read the manga, basically because most of the changes introduced were done in the wrong direction, so I missed how things were in my first experience with the story. They also wasted a lot of potential of what could have been done by putting it into animation, while in some other regards it really came to life (I understood why people love Nanachi so much after I saw the anime; they really did a good job giving live to the character, both in the japanese version and in the english dub). There are noticeable contrasts in quality within several aspects of the anime, be it the voices, character/creature designs, and animations. Some are really well done, others are unjustifiably terrible.

Other than that, the story is what it is, and the characters are what they are, so the result is still not bad at all, in sum. I eventually enjoyed it, especially the second half.

DETAILED REVIEW (NO SPOILERS):

So, I started watching the original voice version with subtitles, but it became quite unbearable pretty soon. They made Made in Abyss sound and look just like any stereotypical anime for kids, and if you read it, you know that's absolutely not what it is. They flooded it with cute/wholesome anime stereotypes of action and reaction, mostly through the voice acting, but also in the animation itself to some degree, and in the addition of some script lines. If you didn't read the manga, let me tell you that it doesn't feel so childlike, innocent, wholesome and kawaii, even if it has its innocent moments (that the author loves to crush under a disturbing reality). That vibe is overfed into the anime unnecessarily. The characters are barely teenagers, but did they have to sound and act so childlike, to such an extent?

So I switched to the english dub, and it was quite a relief. Most of the voice acting is quite good, except for the children of the orphanage; they didn't mask well that they're adult women interpreting little boys. And... Riko's voice is almost unbearable. Although I'm not sure it was a bad decision to portray her like that; she is supposed to be weird and have a screw loose anyway. Other than that, the voice acting for some of them (Ozen and Nanachi come to mind) was surprisingly good in my opinion.

[EDIT: I watched it again, but this time in the japanese version with subtitles from start to finish. I gotta say that the voice acting really gets better in the second half, better than the english dub even, I'd say. The voice actors of the new characters are better overall, and the scenes themselves get way more serious, and that's where you really see voice acting shine.]

Still, both the opening and ending themes are somewhat ear shattering. You can tell that I don't like the japanese loli voice style. But again, I feel it's a little unfitting for Made in Abyss, especially the ending. There was also another song that was actually very good, but sadly, they put it as an opening for the first chapter alone. Regarding the rest of the music, it's not original nor repeated enough to stick; it's basically a background thing that sometimes works and sometimes doesn't. But I have to say that the sound effects are really well done, making some key scenes really immersive.

Regarding the character design and animations, my main complaint is that half of the creatures are so poorly worked on that they're almost ridiculous. Even the difference in quality of the drawing itself stands out visibly in some of them, like it's too obvious that different people worked on them and put in quite a different amount of effort, so a few of them are quite atrocious (the primate-like beings in the Inverted Forest, the rhino-like thing they had to hunt during the test that Ozen put them through... also the animation for the crimson splitjaw made it look like a harmless floating worm with big jaws). But the human(oid) characters themselves are very well adapted; they look totally like in the manga. That was very well done.

And in regards to the script, all the decisions to change the original, be it in content or order (scenes that are changed of order or melded together), are just terrible. There was no reason for it, and they made the first chapters boring, while in the manga they were quite exciting because they were smartly arranged. For the most part, though, they literally carbon copied almost everything, from the images to the angles of view to the dialogs; I wonder, why not go all the way with it, then? [EDIT: The japanese version with subtitles is way more loyal to the original script.]

The only positive change they made is that they slightly toned down the nudity and erotic elements. So now all that feels a little more natural and less out of place... in comparison to the manga. But I bet that if you didn't read it, you will find it confusing anyway. Considering how child-like they made it all feel, they could have toned it down further.

I don't think absolutely all the ADDITIONS they made were bad; some really are, some others are... not. They were perceptive about how fast paced Volume 2 was in the manga, yet, if they filled it up nicely or not is another story. But regarding the ALTERATIONS they did to the original content, aside from reducing the nudity scenes, they made every single decision wrong in my opinion, with no exception. They watered down the impact and seriousness in everything they changed, even if it's not by much.

OTHER DETAILS ABOUT SCRIPT CHANGES (SLIGHT SPOILERS!!):

In the manga, when the time comes, Nanachi still looks conflicted about dealing with Mitty till the very last moment, when she gives Reg the order; also, you don't know what Mitty was doing with Riko until afterwards, when Riko talks about it.

In the manga it's not really clear wether Reg is completely a robot or not, and it's only very late, past the content of this whole season, when it can be really suspected that he is (and still, there are some things off about that supposition, so it's not 100% clear). And the mystery of that made things more interesting; like, what is really him and how did he come to be like that?

In the manga, Nanachi didn't smell bad before the experiment; I mention this because there is speculation that this is an example of the abyss changing people for the better, just because later Nanachi smells good (to Reg anyway). And Nanachi's gender is never clear either, while in the anime is mentioned as "she" by Reg once. The voice was very well chosen to give a neutral feeling, though.

And no, no letter from them reaches the orphanage. I don't understand why they want to make it all look so hopeful and optimistic, it seems half-adapted to a child audience indeed.

I'll rate first each volume independently (without any spoilers at all about the story or characters) and in the end I'll write some conclusion. NO SPOILERS REVIEW.

VOLUME 1 (Chapters 1-8) Score: 7

Wow. Okay, that's some unexpected imaginative stuff. I don't know if it's just me, but I'm used to anything I read being a salad of damn clichés, and this is definitely an exception, and strong at that. It's a kick in the balls of your imagination, to damn wake up and work. It reminds me of the kind of weird fucked up imagination that the Sunless Sea video game builds on, per example; that's ... pretty much the vibe, but way, way less gray and more colorful. Like an LSD trip, in a good way, full of plant and alien nature motives, but with its darker undertones. This first volume doesn't show very much yet, it's clearly a teaser of what's to come, but it's definitely very promising, capital letters. I hope they exploit later what they leave hanging here.

VOLUME 2 (Ch 9-16) Score: 7+

This one was more fast paced. I really enjoyed the slow build up in the first volume, but this one doesn't disappoint anyway. Interesting and extremely imaginative. I wish it was even more fleshed out, I'd eat hundreds of chapters of this. It leaves you hungry for more. Some fighting clichés show up for the first time.

VOLUME 3 (Ch 17-24) Score: 8

Speechless. I really hope the rest of the story stands up to this.
But I wish it would have slowed down. This one has been a rollercoaster, and that's not all good. This part of the story could have been stretched into a couple of volumes.

VOLUME 4 (Ch 25-32) Score: 6

Just like with volumes 2 & 3, I wish this one was less fast paced. This time though, the fast-pacedness is applied to more important parts of the story than just mere exploration. In some pages it's not clear enough what is presently happening vs memories or imaginations, and some times things seem to appear out of nowhere in the very present, and when that happens several times in a row, it dulls down the excitement of important scenes by overdosing you with deus machina that are just too impossible to expect, and that feels a little too artificial. There's a couple of small things that would benefit from some explanation. If the artist put more attention and care in the pacing and avoided rushing things, Made in Abyss would be a masterpiece; there's so much that can be fleshed out from a story and setting that has this much potential.

VOLUME 5 (Ch 33-38) Score: 5+

This author has a problem with pacing and with abusing deus ex machinas. Same problems as in the prior volume; sometimes I don't really understand what's happening, like things were drawn in a rush. They would benefit from coloring for sure (MiA is perfectly built to be turned into anime, but the anime verson has a lot of hits and misses in my opinion). The drawings in genereal are less elaborated overall now, like the backgrounds being skipped too much and the fighting movements just look like a fast moving haze. Some things also just happen too unexpectedly, without any kind of prior hint, so it feels artificial. And the same type of emotional peak is being overexploited, like Made in Abyss only has one emotional trick in its sleeve; the psychopathic abuse of emotional and good intentioned minds that get scarred by a cold demented world, cause they are subject to horrible deeds and decisions that are just too much. Okay, we get it, we wept already the first time, please try different tricks. This is getting lower in quality, although some ideas and the end are still quite masterful, I admit. I just wish the author took the same care as he did in the beginning, and everything was as slow and explained and well drawn as in Volume 1. It seriously feels like the pages where some explanations were given were tore off in this volume.

VOLUME 6 (Ch 38.1-42.2) Score: 6+

My only criticism this time is how fast the characters seemed to just cheer up after all the traumatic experiences and losses from the last chapter in just a few hours as if nothing had happened. That hurts the immersion. Bad, bad. Otherwise, we're back to a good slow pace; time for strengthening the story and deepening the lore. Back to more detailed drawing. I'm loving it again. I hope the author finally quits all the caffeine and stops making it all so rushed. Doesn't he put out one of these per year anyway?

VOLUME 7 (Ch 43-47) Score: 5+

Weird, unexpected; the display of originality comes full force again, with its disturbing quirks bordering the obscene. Downsides; convenient plot twists that feel odd and deus ex machinas are again all over the place, but some parts were quite enjoyable anyway, and in the end it leaves you intrigued. The author seems focused on letting you know his vast array of fetishes, though. He could have made it less evident, it feels a little awkward. Also, the mixture of "cuteness" and disturbing cruelty and obscenity is sometimes just too extreme, it feels forced and ridiculous, hard to take seriously past a certainn point; what is the author trying exactly, constantly forcing this kind of mix? It gets old. Apart from all that, some new characters seem way more shallow and less developed than others. They can just open up and get attached in just a couple of hours of chatting. Although I'm still enjoying this, it's not getting back to the quality of the first volumes.

VOLUME 8 (Ch 48-51.1) Score: 6

Once you accept its quirks, you also gotta admit that this manga is really something else. The author has a problem with pacing and arranging things and keeping them believable and immersive 100%, but his great strength is the crazy imagination that he spills over the whole work. This one was really unexpected. I could go again with the same old complaints (here we have, again, the cruel and demented exploitation of innocence... it does get old), but the fact that you never know where things can go to -or come from- is really out of the ordinary.

VOLUME 9 (Ch 52-55) Score: 5+

A totally new and different emotional element is introduced, and it works really well. But others are repeated yet again. I'm in love with some of the characters, while others still feel very poorly made to me. Some have zero emotional reaction when finding themselves face to face with their nemesis after years of torment; others have an epic and heartbreaking reaction. Serious hits and misses in character depth. I really loved this new bunch of answers and scenes of the past, though.

VOLUME 10 (Ch 56-60) Score: 5+

Instant solutions that come out of nowhere, random plot twists... Things are forced to even out to make sense in ways that are actually quite hollow (no pun intended) and arbitrary, "shallow deep" moral meanings behind the mechanics of things... which sometimes manage to click anyway. Things just happen too fast, before they can really leave much of an impact. I've been getting for a while already the impression that this is like a work for a young audience... while being very obviously for adults. It feels amateurish and self indulgent sometimes, basically. There doesn't seem to be much care invested the final result as a whole; about how things are put together. The author seems only focused on the impact of each scene in itself. I can't deny I'm hooked on the story, the intrigue of what's to come, on how awesome some of the characters are, and the crazy weird beauty of it all. I'll surely keep on until it's finished.

VOLUME 11 (Ch 61-63) Score: 5

Uhm... okay. No answers at all, just new questions about things you don't even know anything about, so it's not even intriguing. I'm also disappointed by instant happy solutions, again, that really have no reason to be; the build up for drama is just laid to waste. A new chunk of bland characters are introduced, that look like you already seen them before, either here or anywhere else. This volume has its charming bits, but in sum it goes absolutely nowhere. It didn't bore me, but in the end I barely even liked it overall. If MiA doesn't make a big comback from this steady delve into medriocrity, I guess the final balance of its pros and cons will depend heavily on how good the ending will be, and to which degree it will make up for the increasinly bland writing.

CONCLUSION:

Waiting for more chapters until I make up my mind.

I'm confused as to how to rate this. I've never rated a manga. It is not even finished, it is already almost at chapter 90 and going.
I'll figure out how to organize this review as I keep reading more volumes.

VOLUME 1

First 7 (+ 0.5) chapters. I love the idea. Volumes are incredibly short, though. The art is a little amateurish, but I guess most mangas are like that. Not the characters nor the story are developed to a substantial extent, but it's so blatant that the whole point of all of it is simply the roles of the characters and the easing of modern age's ... existential dread and alienation.

VOLUME 2

Chapters 8-15.5. I enjoyed this one better. There's more variety of scenes and it helps building the feeling that they're a real family. The scenarios were very well chosen, in my opinion. They really make you feel the closeness between the protagonists. Their relationship grows very charmingly.

---

I agree with the author; this world needs a Senko-san. You'll struggle to find a story that accomplishes its goal so easily. It is as simple as a stone but oh so effective. I can't help but agree with Senko-san ideals also. She's right about everything. Human beings wouldn't be so shitty if they were pampered more often. In my own more-than-eight-centuries dealing with them, I can tell that they need some serious pampering more than they need bread. They get all stupid with politics and all kinds of twisted fuckery because they can't just shut up and let Senko-san pamper them.

The existence of such a character heals your soul... if you let it.

(My view changed from "Mixed" to "Recommended" after watching the movies. Read the end of the review to understand why. The rest of the review remains unchanged from when I first watched it. THIS WHOLE REVIEW CAREFULLY AVOIDS SPOILERS!)

I just finished watching, and I'm quite conflicted. If you don't want my mixed opinion to influence negatively in your decision to watch the anime, skip the next two paragraphs.

I wish I could rate this higher, but the last 2 episodes almost threw the whole anime off the window for me. It was building up to something really interesting, intriguing, at a nice slow pace that was ... quite enjoyable, while developing the dynamics between the characters through well-meshed, entertaining situations. Then the 10th episode comes in and pushes the whole plot forward faster than the circumstances themselves can make room for. And the final episode follows like a full fast forward to the... ending? (was that really an ending?), which leaves you confused about what you just saw, and why and how it is all connected. After watching the episode again and making sure I didn't miss any detail, I can only assume that things are simply not very well connected, and it leaves me feeling that either the plot was not as developed as it should, or the ending was very rushed and things couldn't be fit in place convincingly.

And this really hurts the anime, because 90% of the plot is suddenly explained in those last two episodes, and it happens just too fast and several things are not even fully clear. Also, several of explanations given come across as implausible deus ex machina, which would be prevented in real life by the easiest route of action, by using common sense. There are a some unrealistic, thoughtless and unexplained behaviors there, coming from several sides just to justify the plot and the 'ending' (please, don't let an extremely capable enemy escape just because; don't present a traumatic personal event, in just two ambiguous sentences, as a justification to one of the central facts of the series...). And don't get me wrong, the ideas there are mostly really good; they're just presented in a rush, without any prior hint or warning, even if they're huge facts that anybody should know -or interesting key elements that could have been fed slowly to the viewer as part of the setting, making it all more intriguing-, and so, the viewer just has to shrug and accept the final plot twists as they come, without getting any real impact or meaningful feeling.

That being said, the first episodes are a f***ing delight. I can see the talent of the team behind this. Maybe they didn't realize what they excelled at as a team, while making The Eden of the East? The main plot (mainly the justifications and details about it) can be unsatisfying in the end, while, ironically, the best moments here are what in other animes is usually just 'filler'; the situations that only serve to develop the relationships between the characters, or the situations that show a little more of what they are about. The slow pace of some scenes, and the care put in the details, made it all feel more real and memorable to me, which is something that's not present in almost any other anime I've seen. And here it's done with crafty simplicity, not trying to make things look bigger than they are, yet managing to be touching, letting you immerse in the beauty and excitement of the situations themselves and feel the charm of the characters. The relationship between the two protagonists builds up in such a cool yet somehow natural way (even with all the strange elements involved) that it can come across as almost magical in its charm. And at some points, universally relatable also -I think-.

The two main characters are a treat indeed, each in its own way. Avoiding spoilers, I'll just say that one of them is an awesome nutcase, in a way that I really liked. The creators showed ability in giving such vibrant and believable personalities to them. The rest of the cast almost pales in comparison; while all of them are believable and well defined, most just fulfill their given role, without being given too much attention. If there are a couple of plainly poor characters, I have to point to the last two episodes again. Everything there is a mess, including the hurriedly introduced characters.

So, it seems to me that the whole thing would have benefited a lot from being stretched, and the level of detail among the aspects of the anime and the cast was evened out. It has to be mentioned that the anime is only 11 episodes long, and it probably has to do with the issues here; it feels like half of its potential was cut down on the spot. There are some characters that are presented earlier in an interesting way, and showed a great potential to impact on the story, then they leave the screen for an episode or two -nothing wrong with that itself-, and suddenly the anime ends and they're just given a quick scene. It really feels like the pace at which the story was being presented up until the 9th episode was not actually the pace for an 11 episode anime. I don't know if they just planned it like this or if they had to cut it down in the end, but it feels like it's the latter case to me.

Another fault I could point at, that is maybe more subjective, is how the characters seem to almost shrug off certain serious issues (crimes) and taboos. It's not like this happens in general, it only affects some specific subject -I'm trying hard not to make spoilers here-. I don't know if it's a cultural thing or if it reflects the creators' personality, but it simply felt weird and slightly unrealistic to me. Those who already watched the anime will know what I'm talking about.

In conclusion, I think that they would have made a great anime out of this if they focused more on the things that they barely touched on and left unexplored, which already seemed juicy enough to justify more elaboration and care. Or maybe, they could have simply stripped down the main plot to something less grandiose... or at least the finale ([CRYPTIC HALF-SPOILERS HERE] suddenly there's hordes of 'Johnnies' in natural state -if somebody knows the reason for the lack of clothing, please tell me, cause I still haven't found it-, the sky booms, some sort of 21th century cyber-Napoleon-move happens in a second... like... what?? [END OF HALF-SPOILERS]), instead of stripping down the number of episodes. Such decisions in direction didn't combine well at all. I guess the movies will have something to add to all of this.

It was an interesting anime (even with its quirks) until the 10th episode came in. I'm not a fan of love stories, I'm usually bored by them, but this one -with all the interpersonal details around, and the character personalities, and the intriguing or relatable scenes...- was getting really tasty in my opinion. The whole ending feels like an accident, honestly. It feels like a whole different anime (or a different crew) intruded it and finished it without much care.

All that aside, the music is cool (the intro shows the most generic and predictable side of Oasis, yet that's still nice enough, and the outro is actually good, moreso in comparison to most I've seen in anime, which are usually barely palatable to me), the voice actors are very competent and help in how believable the characters feel, and the art and animation, despite being a little too simple -in regards to the characters, at least- to stand out as great, it's still above average, vibrant and effective.

So, all in all, I still recommend watching The Eden of the East, because those who are not as critical with plot development will most probably find many things to love here. I think that half the time it actually kicks ass in some way or another, and you just can't say it's boring or not entertaining. To me, it is sadly flawed in those specific things I mentioned, but they're crucial for any kind of story-driven art/entertainment; the ending is supposed to be the most impactful part of a series, yet in this anime, the only feeling it left in me was "ehh... what?". Quite underwhelming. I hope the movies didn't inherit the same weaknesses.

EDIT: I just finished watching the two movies after this, and it has changed my perspective on this first season somewhat positively. To be more specific: I recommend this anime if you're gonna watch it WHOLE, both movies and all. If not, you're basically wasting your time. This first season is extremely inconclusive and it will leave a mixed taste in your mouth. Once you watch everything past this, you'll realize that this season was not meant to be watched as a complete unit, and that things make a little more sense and fall better into place in the next chapters. Here several things are left hanging on purpose (which could have been done better though, I might add).

So, after watching the whole series, I have to modify my rating slightly.

Rating: 6.7/10 (rounded as 7).