DVD Review: Saving the world with an iPhone

"Eden of the East" is a mind-blowing anime about a lone kid who can save an entire nation by making a cell phone call.

Sure, it's not the most realistic series, but it's an impressive show that relies more on smart, subtle dialogue rather than overblown bravado. The story and action is almost entirely based on Internet technology, but the dialogue is incredibly clever.

It starts with a random encounter, where a naked Japanese guy is left stranded in Washington D.C. with only a cell phone and a pistol. After an awkward meeting with the police, the guy somehow convinces a young Japanese girl to give him a coat and a hat.


From this point onward, the guy has to piece together his identity, based on all the little clues he can scrounge up. His cell phone is his only guide, directing him to an abandoned apartment with random travelers' passports, some clothes and plenty of guns. He takes on the name of Akira Takizawa.

In the middle of running away from American police officers, he runs into the Japanese tourist girl, Saki Morimi. She left her passport in his jacket pocket, so she came to ask for it back. He somehow strikes up an extraordinary relationship with the girl as they take a plane trip back to Japan.

The rest of the series is a crafty mystery storyline, where the main character must slowly regain his memory. His special cell phone allows him to get anything he wants from an 10 billion yen account. All he has to do is call the anonymous phone operator named Juiz. Other special cell phone users are also seeking to kill him using the same ambitious powers.

The magic of this show is not based around the action. This series has almost no fights or gun battles. Much of the fascinating intensity comes from the passionate verbal exchanges between fellow nerds and cyber hackers. They use their high-end technology to help this boy discover his identity.

Although this show is the biggest advertisement for people to use iPhone-styled devices, the phones manage to keep the characters more preoccupied with talking to other people. They manage to squeeze in some pretty profound dialogue involving revenge and forgiveness.

By the end of the show, everyone will want to root for this intelligent kid, who can use a simple cell phone to take down weapons of mass destruction. He manages to look incredibly classy, even to the very end.

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