Eden of the East - Paradise Lost



^a rather nice pic i found O.o

alrighto, i just had to prioritise this first other than the others (like ookami-san). Watched it, was glued to the screen although there weren't much actions but rather plot developments. Whole thing ends and i went "ARGH!"

yea really... the end felt rather rushed... and there wasn't really a happy ending i was hoping for.

*SPOILER ALERT*

Akira and Saki were on their way back to Japan on the airplane and Akira himself didn't really feel that everything would progress smoothly. The air-stewardess then handed Akira an Air King T-shirt which he wore and left the plane when it finally landed in Narita Airport. Akira and Saki were stopped by people under the Iinuma Chigusa, the wife of Prime Minister Iinuma and she leads Akira elsewhere to have a talk. She labels Akira as a terrorist behind the missile attacks and that she does not tolerate him appearing out of nowhere and announcing that he's Prime Minister Iinuma's illegitimate son. She then pulls off a strand of hair from Akira to perform DNA checks and then leaves the room. Akira walks out and asks Saki to help find his mother as he thinks that the woman who left the dog, which was previously in Akira's care, was actually his mother and he wants Saki to try and find her. With that, Akira leaves Saki to tend to his request where he heads to a holding room by the security personnel. Saki leaves and as she walks down into the lobby of the airport, she sees many NEETs and media individuals waiting to catch a glimpse of Akira after hearing rumours that the Air King was finally here. Osugi spots Saki and leads her away while telling her that their cell phones and calls were being tapped and they have t0 now use Itazu's own communication system, AirShip, to communicate among them. As Osugi goes off to get the car, Saki calls Hirasawa so as to not let them worry and then calls her family members to bring the dog to her as it was a clue to Akira's mother. Meanwhile, the group sends Akira the AirShip program and was finally able to get a hold on him. Hirasawa tells Akira that he can share the burden with them and they wouldn't mind even if they couldn't return to lead their normal lives again. Itazu explains that after the missile attacks on Juiz trailers, he has been trailing their locations and have found out that Mononobe had called Juiz for extra gasoline so as to keep the trailers on the move and had suspected the trailers to take a break at another location. Akira acknowledges and heads over to that location and prepares to rendezvous with the others after he reach the trailers. Akira took the chance by sending a NEET he met in the holding room to serve as a disguise for him while he sneaks away and grabs a motorbike. True enough, the Juiz trailers were all parked nicely while the girls in charge, who are identical granddaughters of Mr. Outside, take a break at a nearby cafe. While thinking about what they should do and feeling worried as a missile strike on the trailers could cost their lives, they see Akira arriving at the carpark where he searches for his own Juiz trailer. He spots it and attempts to communicate with Juiz, determined to save it but at the same time, the trailer with Juiz No. 1 was driven away and Akira drives his own Juiz No.9 to follow Mononobe's Juiz trailer so as to prevent his trailer from being targeted as it would mean Mononobe's downfall as well. The granddaughters did not see it as a need to report to Mr. Outside since Akira had not used Juiz to move his own trailer and the other Selecaos have no right to know. Akira gets back into contact with the rest of the Eden group and they were meeting up elsewhere where trailer No. 1 stops for a break. Akira finally got to see the rest face to face again and asks if anyone could drive a trailer for which on of them was able to and they were told to follow him who he personally drives his own trailer No. 9. The group was led to the Iinuma's household where Akira had used its front yard as a place to keep the two trailers and heads in to talk with Iinuma Chigusa. Meanwhile, Osugi and Saki had already met the owner of the dog and had chatted with her, for which Saki highly suspects was Akira's real mother. She however, does not divulge any information and when Osugi took a photo where it shows a young her with Prime Minister Iinuma and she was pregnant in the photo. The duo decides not to ask her anything regarding the photo yet and as she serves them another drink, she tells them that there are already people looking out for them and tells them of a escape route. Saki follows her while Osugi helps to delay those people and she confronts her with the photo. The woman reveals that she had left 500 yen to her child and when she heard that Akira had not spent a single yen of the 10 billion he has on himself, she brushes it off and says that it was definitely not her child and leaves Saki behind. Osugi catches up with some torned portions in his shirt but still made it safely out and questions Saki about the woman. Saki knows that it was definitely Akira's mother but if she had called Akira now, she was worried that Akira would not be by her side anymore and was in a dilemma. Osugi however comforts her and suggest that meeting Akira face to face and speaking to him would be the best option and they head off to meet Akira. While in the Iinuma household, Chigusa questions about Akira's motive as she still thinks of him as a terrorist for which Akira tells her that he wishes to become the country's King and change the country for the better but Chigusa didn't really understand what he was trying to do but she would not bulge on the hearing on Akira being a terrorist. Mononobe arrives at the house as well for which Akira knows that he was looking for him and leaves to have a talk with him. Mononobe asks Akira if he wanted to give up on the game together since there wasn't really much meaning to the game and seeing how Akira had took his trailer as well, he admits his loss. Mononobe tells Akira that when he was asked on what he would do to change the country if he was given 10 billion yen, he wants to get rid of the current government and start everything all over by placing more importance on the citizens firstly by re-instating the Home Ministry. Akira receives a call from Saki and knows that she had arrived at their location as well and learns from her that his mother was found. He heads out to see Saki for a moment and is glad that she's safe before returning to speak with Mononobe. Having confirmed about his past and that he was really Prime Minister Iinuma's son, he didn't really feel different and he declined Mononobe's offer on helping to get rid of the danger of Akira's friends on the note that he disappears elsewhere. Akira knows that he and Mononobe's aim was similar but his way of doing things lacked love. Meanwhile, Hirasawa had tracked down some requests made by Selecaos and had finally tracked down Mr. Outside, who is a taxi driver and had chosen the Selecaos via his customers by asking them what they would do if they had 10 billion yen to change the country and had chose Akira after seeing him thinking that the world world would be better if people work to earn rather than spend since there wouldn't be anyone around to provide the services if everyone was spending their money. Akira then makes a request for Juiz to make a call to everyone in the country through using of the Eden system to force the download of AirShip on every citizen's handphone, and also leaving around 100 million yen to spare. Itazu, who had escaped from their old school building and was now at a Internet Cafe, helps Juiz with the task and AirShip was transferred to everybody's handset. Akira prepares his speech with all the citizens in Japan and declares firstly that he was the one behind Careless Monday and was the main antagonist behind everything. He tells everyone that his next plot was to take even more people away to paradise as compared to the 20,000 NEETs before and the only way to stop him was to comply to his requests, which was to ask the old men to change their ways according to what he feels is right and that the NEETs should now step out of their comfort zones and all this have to be done if not the country wouldn't have enough youths, who are the future of the country and the country is doomed, but if they comply, everyone would be led to a paradise. He then ends off his call by sending everyone a single yen as e-money and tells them to take this to Eden where he'll meet them and everyone would be living in paradise. Mr. Outside sees Akira's way of doing things and agrees with his rational choice and decides to end the entire game. He takes his phone and calls all the Selecaos, telling them that everyone was a winner and the game ends where they get to keep the phone as a gift but everyone was given a memory wipe. After Hirasawa discovers that there was a trap lie in store for the Selecaos once the game ends, he tries to stop Mr. Outside from toying with them further but to no avail. Mononobe steps out of the Iinuma household, looking dazed after losing his memories and as he drives out and does not recognise Yuuki, Yuuki attempts to shoot him after seeing how Mononobe is trying to forget all that he has done for him (Yuuki still had his memories intact since he had already lost his phone) and he was run over by Mononobe who in turn crashes his vehicle. A dazed Akira steps out as well but the memory wipe does not seem to work on him, possibly due to him having wiped his memory once already. He takes a look at the DNA report Chigusa handed to him earlier and sees that he wasn't Prime Minister Iinuma's son at all and that the woman whom Saki confronted wasn't Akira's mother at all but was only hinting her to make her suspect that she was. Akira then leaves the rest, telling Saki that he still have things he need to do, promises that he'll be back after that and leaves. Saki however runs after him and grabs on to his hand and kisses him. She asks Akira to promise that they will definitely meet again which he complied but that was really the last time Saki would ever see Akira. The NEETs, under Akira's "orders" were now making a living in the shopping center which Akira used to own and many companies were going on a hiring spree after being "awakened" by Akira's speech over AirShip. But Akira was never there to meet them, he had however went to find Mr. Outside where they together try to change world even more and Saki, herself, knows that the world is changing in ways that she could not see and follows the rest to develop another communication-styled program, like the Eden system, under Hirasawa's leadership. And that was the short days of which Saki had spent with Akira.

...

and it ends.

personally, on how the story develops, it could be boring for some, but i was honestly kept glued on the screen for various reasons. the twist in plot was interesting and based on how the story had started, it was quite a good way to wrap everything up. some mysteries remain unsolved though, on the truth about Akira's past and with the woman who claimed to have left a son behind but was that really Akira or someone else? and did Prime Minister Iinuma really mistook Akira for his son at the candy store where he was abandoned? the idea of protecting Juiz 1st-hand was rather cool but comparing the two movies, i did felt the end of the 1st movie was much better with the missile targeting the Juiz trailers and was expecting more on how the whole story was going to end. I did felt slightly disappointed when Mr. Outside announced the end of the game just after Akira made his speech, it was like all the fuss had all been for nothing. And of course, i had expected Akira to disappear at the end of the whole series (including the movie), which he did and i would've hoped for some time leap or something... can't they just show them reuniting again?! =X overall, it was a series i had definitely enjoyed watching. ending-wise wasn't that great but the plot and everything was truly marvelous... a totally great series worth watching over again :) thumbs up!