Rbastid

The Eden of the East Air Communicator movie is a recap of the series, but told in a very clever way.

Story - 7/10

For the most part the story is exactly that of the show, just cut into a two hour movie. What little insights we do get are from the way the movie is presented. Although all the animation is the same, we’re mostly listening to a conversation, presumably occurring in the Eden of the East headquarters, where the team tries to piece together the events of series.

One useful bit of information we get right away is that the original series is all supposed to take place over an eight day period. The only other new fact that popped out, but for all I know was in the original Japanese version, was that the missile that struck right before Saki and Takizawa came back to Japan was meant to take out the tanker of returning N.E.E.T.s, but the ship was redirected and took longer to arrive. (Though they haven’t mentioned who decided to slow down the cargo ship so that the N.E.E.T.s would be safe.)

Animation - 10/10

All the scenes used are from the series itself, so obviously it’s spectacular, the only downside is that with a shorter run time we don’t get to see all of the beautiful art work.

Sound - 8/10

Since the film is only available with a Japanese voice track, it provides a nice contrast of how the Japanese producers view each character as opposed to how the English producers do.

They tended to go a bit more over the top comical and unrealistic with Kasuga and Osugi’s freakouts, and likewise the similarity to Hirasawa and Panties is a little much for a non-speaker like myself to tell apart when they’re off screen.

Characters - 6/10

While the characters are all the same, we lose a lot of the information we’re given about them. Worst than that, since most of the story is told in voice over we never get the emotional growth that there was in the series itself.

Overall - 8/10

This compilation works as a very good refresher for King of Eden, or if nothing else a nice way to try and fill in holes that might have been missed by the viewer.