In Summary:
After initially initially watching this material as it was released with some time between them, it’s definitely interesting to essentially marathon it over a day or so. In the end, Eden of the East is a show I’m definitely conflicted about. While the TV series knocked my socks off, the movies felt like they weren’t able to fully capitalize on what happened there and it all fell short, anticlimactic. A lot of it in my mind comes down to structure as the shift to the movie format for the two follow-up pieces didn’t allow it the time to express itself and sprawl out a bit, truncating things a fair bit. Which is amusing since there is a good amount of dead space to both movies in a way. At the end of it all, I wanted something more distinct, concrete and tangible from it than I got after the TV series side of it. I can appreciate the approach, you could almost say it’s a very Japanese approach, and that may be what made it difficult when you get right down to it. It’s a series and set of films that I can still recommend overall though because it does try to go big and do something different, and it does it well for a lot of it. But the high point is definitely within the original TV series itself.
Features:
Japanese Dolby TrueHD 5.1 Language, English Dolby TrueHD 5.1 Language, English Subtitles, TV Spot, Promotion Video, Textless Closing Song Trailers, Air Communication, Movie 1 News Flash, Movie 1 Preview, and Movie 2 US Cast Commentary. Interviews: Director Kamiyama & Original Character Designer Umino Interview, Kimura (Takizawa) & Hayami (Saki) Interview, Directors Kamiyama & Oshii Interview, Art Director Takeda Interview, and Composer Kawai Interview.
Content Grade: A-
Audio Grade: A-
Video Grade: A-
Packaging Grade: B+
Menu Grade: B
Extras Grade: A-
Released By: FUNimation
Release Date: March 29th, 2016
MSRP: $99.98
Running Time: 447 Minutes
Video Encoding: 1080p AVC
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1 Widescreen
Review Equipment:
Sony KDL70R550A 70″ LED 1080P HDTV, Sony PlayStation3 Blu-ray player via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.
