Summary
While dystopian, Eden feels like a realistic imagining of the possible, pulling at the viewer’s heartstrings and forcing them to think.
This review of the Netflix anime series Eden season 1 contains no spoilers.
Eden imagines a world in the future where humanity has vanished — it’s a lush utopian world that is supported by the beautiful colors and heartful animation, making it a must-see anime series this year. Netflix has commissioned a gem.
And in this world of zero humans, robots are created to protect and preserve the environment. However, a couple of robots become stunned to find a young baby girl, who they quickly become accustomed to, taking the assumed spot of parenthood. The series mellows the viewers rather quickly, showing an intrinsic relationship between robots and a child in mesmerizing nature.
The child is called Sara, and we soon learn that this world holds many cryogenic pods where humans sleep. They put themselves under to wait for a new world called Eden.
At its heart, in the space of four appreciated chapters, Netflix’s Eden sends a salient message about our planet. It hits home that as a human race, the one factor killing the environment is us. Somehow, the anime series has managed to make a sweet story highlighting the problem of humans and robots while softly connecting it to the subject of a heavily polluted and inhabitable world. While dystopian, Eden feels like a realistic imagining of the possible, pulling at the viewer’s heartstrings and forcing them to think.
But the story is not all about pollution and climate change; the lead character Sara strives for identity; growing up in a world with no humans means there is a great void in her life. Her yearning to understand her origin overrides the sinister nature of the story that grows in the second half of the anime series.
Eden is strange due to where it sits — it could be perceived as a family-watch-together, but equally, adults could easily consume this anime and enjoy it without their children. Justin Leach has created a symbiotic relationship between a heartwarming narrative and a lesson-driven theme. And it works. Eden deserves the plaudits and a rewatch.
