Episodes: 11
How: Netflix {Stream}
Grade: A-
Summary: {From ANN}On November 22, 2010 ten missiles strike Japan. However, this unprecedented terrorist act, later to be known as "Careless Monday," does not result in any apparent victims, and is 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 trouble, and only the unexpected intervention of one of her fellow countrymen saves her. However, this man, who introduces himself as Akira Takizawa, is a complete mystery. He appears to have lost his memory, is stark naked, except for the gun he holds in one hand, and the mobile phone he's holding in the other. A phone that is charged with 8,200,000,000 yen in digital cash.
Thoughts: This was actually my second time watching this series, the first happened while it was airing in Japan via Fansubs. Not that it aged long, but it did age well.... It's always amusing to see thousands of naked NEETs.
This may actually be the only politically charged Anime that I've ever watched and it's certainly the only Anime that I've watched that references 9/11 on more then one occasion. Even sort of showing the site of it...
Anyways, 12 people are given billions of Yen to "Save" Japan. Each of these people have far,far different ideas and ways to make this happen. Our main character you'd assume would be the winner in the end or.. yea...
The Title of the show actually refers to a website that characters in the show have created to identify people/objects just by uploading pictures to it so that others may share what they know about said item.
Who we have...
Saki Morimi: While on her graduation trip, she sneaks away from her friends that are in NYC and goes to see the White House. She always wanted to throw a coin in the fountain,but finds that the fountain is a little too far away and that the Police don't really like you throwing stuff over the fence.
This is when a naked man with a gun and a cell phone "saves" her, the cops shuffle off after him and he hides and comes back to talk to her. Chatting with a naked man, she gives him her scarf and coat and he runs off... with her passport in the coat pocket. Long story short, she finds him and they return to Japan together.
She quickly forms a bit of a crush on Akira, even after he tells her his story of not knowing who he is and such. Thinking about it, she really doesn't do much important stuff in the entire series. Other than introducing Akira to the Eden of the East group.
Back info, she's lived with her sister and her sisters husband since their parents died and she has a bit of a crush on her brother-in-law. Her sister and bro-in-law run a bakery and have one child, Saki seems to feel that she's a bit of a burden now that the two have a daughter and of course the whole being in love with her sister's husband thing.
Akira Takizawa: He first shows up naked, with a gun and a phone in front of the White House. Sort of saving Saki from the cops she gave him her coat and scarf and off he ran, he somehow talked some random man into giving him his pants as well.
Anyways, he had his memory erased because...well...I'm still not sure why he had his own memories erased. To his phone, the operator on the line named Juiz knows what's happened and sends him to an apartment there in DC... here he finds guns, passports and what-have-you.
Fast forward, A little more too the point. Akira is one of the 12 people that Mr. Outside has given a large sum of money to in the hopes that they can "Save Japan". Akira is Selecao #9 and it's believed that he is the one that caused the Carless Monday attacks and killed/kidnapped 20,000 NEETS. In fact, he used all these NEETS to evacuate the area that he knew was going to be bombed by another one of the Selecao and then sent them all off to Dubai for their own protection.
Through the series he meets Saki's friends, the makers of East of Eden and decides to back their project with money, he also runs into the other Selecao here and there while looking for the reason he erased his memories. It appeared that a few of the Selecao have teamed up and were planning another bomb attack, asking Akira to join them didn't quite go as planned...
The NEETS show back up at the Mall, all 20k of them naked and tan rushing through the mall and wanting to kill Akira. When he shows back up, he pretends to be the terrorist that is releasing the missiles and has the NEETS get their phones and connect with Eden. Through this connection, they all write in ways to ward off the missiles and then Juiz takes a look at all the options, decides which are best and then goes from there..
Akira with the help of the NEETS shoot down all the missiles at the end... the world thinks Akira is a terrorist still and he vanishes off after one final request to Juiz. Make him the King of Japan. He leaves his phone with Saki and off he goes..
Eden of the East Group.....
They were once an recycling group, but thanks to Michon's image recognition program they created the Eden of East program. At their school it turned into a small, matchmaking site that students could use on their cell phones.
The group consists of...
Kazuomi Hirasawa, the leader of the group of sorts. It seems they go to him on the final word for just about everything.
Satoshi Osugi, the irritating guy that has a major and rather pathetic crush on Saki. I'm not really sure what he does in the group for Eden itself. Maybe he's just there for Saki?
Mikuru Katsuhara, Michon for short. She's the one that essentially made Eden, an incredibly shy and rather young looking female. She can be a bit blunt though....
O-Nee, the oldest of the group. I think she's just sort of the mother figure for them or something, Michon is normally seen hanging around her the most.
Selecao.....
Number 1 - Daiji Mononobe
Number 2 - Jintaro Tsuji
Number 10 - Ryo Yuki
These three figure out who/what Juiz is and attempt to control/destroy her, Juiz is moved by Selecao 12 before anything too bad can happen. Ryo is the one who launched the missiles on Careless Monday and this group is responsible for launching the set of missiles at the end of the series as well.
Mononobe is certainly the brains behind the operation.
Number 4- Yusai Kondo - An annoying, crooked police detective that steals Akira's phone with the hopes that he could use his money. Dumbass didn't think about fingerprint recognition and ends up dead.
Number 5 - Hajime Hiura - A doctor that uses his money to create a place for sick elderly people to come to and live out the rest of their lives. Also uses the money to bribe politicians to make things easier on the elderly in general...
Number 11 - Kuroha Diana Shiratori - The Johnny Hunter.- She's a major CEO by day, by night she's a serial killer. Torturing and killing evil men by chopping off their Johnny's and then using Juiz to clean up the messes.
At one point in the series the group believe that she may have Osugi.... but she doesn't. It's some dirty rapist asshole. Overall, serial killer or not.. she's still a pretty good woman.
Number 12 - Saizo Ato - Mr. Outside - I can't remember how they figured it out, probably when he moved Juiz... but he's actually Mr. Outside. AtoSaizo a play on his name. Not much is made of him in the series itself.
Other...
Yutaka Itazu - Pantsu - Undies - A genius hacker who can no longer leave his apartment because his only pair of sweatpants flew out the window. They bring Number 4's phone to him to see if he can hack it... which he does.
In Episode 9 after finding information on the cell phone, he is "killed" by Mononobe and friend. Hit by a car.... Later it's shown that he was not killed and that he is in the hospital recovering.
He's the first person that Akira lets in on him being a Selecao, the game and such and the two of them really seem to hit it off.
The End: It was sort of an end and not, two movies followed after to wrap everything up. The ending of the series was sort of like, the beginning of the Anime itself. Akira runs off and erases his memories.
He asks Juiz to make him "King of Japan" and she accepts the request, after that you don't know what happens really... to Saki or the NEETS... You have to watch the movies to find out.
At least the show was entertaining, that's what I am grading on and all.. It made me laugh from time to time and think WTF at other moments so..yea.. an incomplete ending adds the "Minus" on.
