Eden of the East - Some criticisms

As of episode 8 of "Eden of the East" I have become rather ticked off at the
writing in the series. The story seems to be more of a background story for
a video game than for a film. There are too many instances where my
suspension-of-disbelief fails, including major and minor points. So I'm
going to list down a number of the things that are bothering me.

BTW - I am deliberately ignoring the entire first episode and the impossible
goings-on there, and just assigning that to Japanese ignorance of what
Washington DC is really like, and to the desire on the part of the writers
to come up with some sort of "cute" way for the main characters to meet.

First off is one of the primary plot drivers - the 10 billion Yen that each
Selecao member starts out with. That sounds like a lot of money, right? That
will certainly buy you lots of pizza and beer. But 10 billion Yen is roughly
100 million dollars. You are supposed to "save Japan" with this amount? Uh,
does anyone actually read any Financial news? Governments all over the world
are giving away 100s of billions of dollars and it isn't "saving" anyone.
There are plenty of companies where senior executives go home with 100
million dollar bonuses, and they certainly aren't saving the world.

That leads to my next observation - the "cost" of things. Sure, it is fun to
cynically show that politicians can be "bought" for next-to-nothing, but
shopping centers and luxury hotels in major metropolitan centers like Tokyo
go for lots more than 100 million dollars. And also, you can't just "buy and
sell" major pieces of real estate on a whim and within minutes, and
particularly outside of "business hours".

This brings up the "godlike powers" of Juiz. Somehow Juiz can get things
done "instantly". Want to buy a hotel? It's done "right now". Was anyone
"asked" if they wanted to sell? What about the truck on the highway? How did
Juiz blow off the tires? As far as I know, tires on trucks are still held on
with good old-fashioned non-digital mechanical bolts. Unless there is a
"magical being" somewhere in the background, unbeknownst to the audience and
most of the participants, that can cast "magic spells" over a distance,
there is not technological way that Juiz could cause that accident, no
matter how advanced her programming is.

And there is the "illusion" scene. Okay, I'll grant you that Diana could
have foreseen everything and made arrangements in advance for Juiz to bring
in a helicopter and all the equipment for a light show, just to impress Saki
(although I find that in itself to be rather deus ex machine writing) but
that room isn't a Vegas stage. Saki is a few feet away from Diana when the
wings sprout, the window breaks, and the feathers fly. There is no room for
an illusion like this to work. (And we'll just "ignore" the question as to
how Akira knew about Diana's wing-trick to be able to dream about it.)

BTW - "illusion" or not, if that window was blown in, everyone in that room
would have been picking large pieces of glass out of their anatomy. I have
seen first hand, and under scientifically controlled conditions, multiple
tests of how large skyscraper windows implode. If we didn't have an inch of
Plexiglas between us and the imploding window panes, I wouldn't be here to
criticize "Eden" now.

Which brings up the issue of "where is everyone else"? Last time I checked,
Tokyo was a very big city full of lots of people that has activity nearly 24
hours a day. Why isn't there anyone around to notice a window being blown
out of a skyscraper? Please don't tell me that Juiz is "suppressing" all
news about everything that the Selecao are doing, because you are getting
right back into "godlike powers" again.

Which brings up one of the original premises of the story, the missile
attacks. Huh? Tokyo is hit with nine missiles, no one "knows" where they
came from, and no one "cares"? And no one was "hurt"? You can't "spit" in
Tokyo without hitting someone. And there is another missile attack which
kills people this time, but again no one knows where it is from?

Once again, isn't anybody watching the News? Doesn't anyone understand how
much of Japanese and US Defense resources are focused on Japan on a 24 hour
basis? There is absolutely no way that "missiles" or anything else could get
in and hit a major center like Tokyo without the source being well known
within minutes, if not in flight. And it definitely would not be "business
as usual" after any such attacks. There would be overwhelming military
presence everywhere.

Let's turn to another "idiot plot" point - the 20,000 NEETS. According to
one NEET, Akira rounded them up and shipped them in shipping containers to
Dubai. Uh, folks; Dubai isn't the "middle of nowhere", it is a major
economic center, with a huge amount of military oversight by the US, Saudis
and a number of other powers. 20,000 Japanese "boat people" suddenly
arriving in Dubai would cause a huge international uproar, as well as an
even bigger domestic uproar in Japan.

BTW - for a small bit of nit-picking, think back to the details of the
shopping mall that Akira bought. Okay, he bought a closed shopping mall.
Maybe he got a bargain. That's fine. But why are there fresh goods in the
store windows? The stores in a shopping mall aren't owned by the mall
owners, they are owned by the store owners. The goods in the stores belong
to the store owners, and even if the mall goes broke and closes down, the
store owners own the goods in the stores. No one would leave the goods
behind!

See what I mean about "video game writing"? In a video game you are given a
starting amount of money, and you get to "buy" or "find" things as you
wander around. But that in no way reflects any version of the Real World.
And I don't care that "Mr. Outsider" has defined the Selecao situation as a
"game" - the audience has been repeatedly told in this series that this is
the "real world" in a year's time, with a "couple of" speculative-fiction
additions.

Fundamentally, this is bad, lazy writing. What we have here is a video-game
fantasy being presented as if it were a mainstream near-future suspense
story. I'll finish this series because there are only 3 episodes left, but
if this were a longer series I would drop it now. And unless there is some
incredible increase in the intelligence of the writing in the final three
episodes I don't expect that I will bother with the follow-up movie.

Dave Baranyi


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