Updated with an English subtitled version of the trailer. Thanks Brian!
After achieving huge international acclaim as the director of Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex, Kenji Kamiyama evidently felt the need to step out from the shadow of Mamoru Oshii and Shirow Masamune and so has struck out to do something unrelated to the cyber-punk epic. We first heard about Kamiyama's upcoming Eden of the East about a year ago and with the film due to hit Japanese airwaves soon we've been watching the official website closely, waiting for the day that a trailer would arrive.
Hello trailer!
This looks very different from Kamiyama's earlier work and yet, in many ways, is immediately recognizable as his, dipping into familiar themes of technology and terrorism. And it's also got a naked man waving a gun, which is not something you see on the streets every day.
November 22, 2010. Monday. Ten missiles hit the territory of Japan. However, this unprecedented terrorist act, later to be known as "Careless Monday" apparently did not cause any victim, and was soon forgotten by almost everyone. Then, 3 months later... Saki Morimi is a young woman currently in the United States of America on her graduation trip. But just when she is in front of the White House, Washington DC, she gets into troubles, and only the unexpected intervention of one of her fellow countrymen saves her day. However, this man, who introduces himself as Akira Takizawa, is a complete mystery. First of all, he appears to have lost his memory. Secondly, he is stark naked, except for the gun he holds in one hand, and the mobile phone he's grabbing with the other hand. A phone that is charged with 8,200,000,000 yen in digital cash. Who is Akira Takizawa? What are the secrets behind his extraordinary mobile phone? What got lost with his vanished memory?
Check the trailer below the break!
I'm a proud fan of Kamiyama's work on GITS:SAC, but the character designs in EoE are indefensibly abhorrent. The protagonists look like they're barely out of grade school. Entirely does not mesh with conspiracy mystery theme of the story.
I don't mind the character designs and much prefer them to some more generic ones that could have been used. They're by Chika Umino who's behind the pretty darn good relationship/comedy series Honey&Clover;.
I also get the feeling, mostly because of the way the trailer is cut and the choice of character designer, that this show is more geared toward a relationship angle between the two characters rather than full blown mystery/thriller ala GitS. Personally I wouldn't mind that, but some people might be disapointed if they go in expecting something else.
Will have to check this one out as I don't watch much animation these days and this seems fairly interesting...
I think this is very very promissing.
Kamiyama´s work is fantastic. His sense of rythm and atmosphere is really worderful. The only think I´m going to miss is the adult female main character, which seemed like a signature on his previous works.
An English-subtitled version of the trailer is now in the Twitch player:
http://www.fliqz.com/aspx/permalink.aspx?vid=6b7b6ef8782e4c93937eaaf651779863
Finally my dream about a movie featuring a phone with a shit-load of credit has been answered.