An American Writer's Thoughts on Japanese Animation

Reach Exceeds Grasp – Eden of the East (Plus Movies) Spoiler Review

Sometimes, creators don’t have a full story in mind when they start working on a project: they have the genesis of an idea, a good jumping off point, or even a first act, but not a conclusion. They have interesting questions, but the answers were not prepared ahead of time. Sometimes, we the viewers likely never learn that this was the case, because the later acts came together well enough that it didn’t matter that they were being made up as the story went along. Other times you get situations like many long-running TV shows and at least a few Stephen King novels, where whether the end result is good or not, it’s clear that there was some serious “Fly by the seat of your pants” writing going on.

Along with that, you also get situations like the one I discussed in Occult Academy where there was clearly some desire for a particular moment, and the story becomes contorted in order to reach that moment. This is even more usually a problem, and I refer you to my previous review for a lesson in why and how.

Why do I bring this up? Because Eden of the East is a franchise with an interesting relationship with both these concepts.

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Seasonal Selection – Shikizakura Episode 9

So, I misread things last week – the smooth talker from Black Team wasn’t the big monster; he was in the scene already. In the first couple of seconds, said big oni proves itself final boss caliber, however, as it swallows the core of the defeated Shinja and one-shots Kakeru out of the fight, cracking (nearly shattering) Ibara’s power suit crystal in the process, rendering Kakeru powerless to transform again and Ibara silent, at least in a conventional sense.

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Seasonal Selection – 86 Episode 19 (S2E8)

After another recap break in the action, we resume 86 with the hunt for the Morpho. Uncharacteristically for this show, the episode is mostly dedicated to the action. It’s extremely good action, but it does mean that the summary will cover more of what there is to say.

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